You-know-who is at it again. In my routine check on the website of the American Family Association in order to find something to seethe about – aside from Binghamton motorists – I saw that they were going after McDonald’s for their membership in/support of/donations to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. I read their ActionAlert, as usual, and found nothing significant to rant about. McDonald’s sponsoring the 2007 Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco? Big flippin’ deal. McD’s giving $20,000 to the NGLCC? Eh, they should’ve donated way more. There’s nothing more to say about it than that. Nothing juicy there.
I left that page somewhat disappointed that the AFA hadn’t given me something to rag on, but alas they always find a way to make up for it. In their other ActionAlert, I saw that they were still going on about Proctor & Gamble and their ownership of “As The World Turns.” They were blasting P&G for shutting down a toll-free number where people could register their opinions after the AFA put the word out about the number. I guess that means that a lot of AFA members and supporters would have called, probably touting the immorality of homosexuality and saying things along the lines of, “I’ll pray for you” (but really meaning, “I hope you burn in Hell”)…basically things of no substance whatsoever.
The subject of the ActionAlert itself isn’t what interested me, however. Just look at the alert yourself and see if you notice anything strange about its text:http://www.afa.net/pg050508.htm
If you’re any good at reading copy, you’ll notice that the words “gay” and “homosexual” have been replaced by “g-y” and “h-mos-xual.” I nearly fell out of my chair laughing when I saw this (unfortunately, I was in the Library at school and had to temper myself for the sake of students studying for their finals). Of course, I was slightly perplexed when I saw they hadn’t done the same thing in the McDonald’s alert, but that probably means that different people had drafted the messages. So, not only do some of these people consider homosexuality to be immoral, but they also seem to think the words themselves are sinful as well (which I find funny, because the original definition of the word “gay” was “happy,” “carefree,” “lighthearted,” etc.). I wonder how the person who typed up the ActionAlert would write something like “homogeneous” or “Homo sapiens.” That’s got “homo” in there too, so why not?
It makes sense to me that the Rel-gious R-ght (I can censor bad words too, see?) put a hyphen in “sex,” because these people seem to flat-out loathe anything related to sex, unless it has to do with producing more children for them to brainwash. (Besides, as Bill Maher said, the only sex the Rel-gious R-ght seems to enjoy recreationally is gay sex…just look at some of these big Chr-stian priests who’ve been outed for this reason).
So what’s my point behind the censoring of these words? Do I think the words “Christian,” and “Religious Right” should be hyphenated and censored? No. I always though it was stupid when I was in a church or synagogue and I saw in the prayer books that “God” was written “G-d” (of course it was always sounded out by the congregation as the former). We need to remember that we are dealing with people who would seriously like to see this country ruled by Biblical law (a concept that, as you can tell, doesn’t sit well with me). They want to make this a Christian nation in every sense of the word, and if they get their way, they’ll do just that. If that happens, how long might it be before it becomes a crime to swear on TV or in public, to “take the Lord’s name in vain,” to breast feed in public because you happen to be exposing your breast, to be a gay man or woman? Yes, my views on this are perhaps a tad extreme, but look at what religious fundamentalism has done for personal freedom and rights in countries like Saudi Arabia. If you have the right kinds of people in the right kinds of political positions, some major changed could occur, and before you know it, all the dominos will come tumbling down. I’m happy that there are enough level-headed people in this country (at present) to keep that from happening, but several years down the road, that could very well change. As long as I’m alive, it’ll be my job as a secularist to continue writing about such dangers.
I’m not going to blast religion in general, but religious fundamentalism/extremism. That is the true threat. Many of us seem to have it in our heads that in order to be a religious extremist, one needs to have a bomb strapped to his/her chest or fly a plane into a building while shouting “Allah-u-ackbar.” Wrong. An extremist can do far more long-term damage through enacting policy changes than he/she ever could by blowing something up.
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