Nbadan
11-09-2004, 04:16 AM
Tuesday, November 09, 2004
By Reg Henry
Just as rain makes everyone depressed except the fellow selling umbrellas, the re-election of President Bush has forced me to be philosophical. For whatever disasters overtake the nation, my column has been guaranteed four more years of tip-top material.
No doubt John Kerry could have obliged me in the same way had he won, but the proven disaster is always a better bet than the potential disaster. So I join cartoonists and other satirical-minded wags in wishing the president all the best in the fond hope that he will not disappoint us by doing anything sensible.
But I must admit to one disappointment already -- and unfortunately this is something where I and many commentators have been guilty of leading the public astray. We were all under the impression that this was a presidential election. I see now that it was really an election for Christian in Chief of the United States.
I mean no slur on the president's religion or anybody else's. I regularly attend church myself, although, in the interests of full disclosure, I was Sinner of the Month in October. But never in my wildest dreams did I think that we were voting on matters ecclesiastical. Yet exit polls revealed that "moral values" such as gay marriage were on some people's minds as much as terrorism. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, move over for Adam and Steve.
No doubt deficient in piety, my mind struggles to get around this bizarre idea. Most Americans, I thought, held the traditional view of politics -- that of a seething swamp of noxious gases where vile creatures slither about their business. It was my further impression that nobody thought the deal-makers in the smoked-filled rooms were gathered for vespers.
If anything remotely holy happened in the election campaign, I, for one, missed it. Both sides dished the dirt. If the ads on TV and radio had said, "I am the god Baal and I approved this message," most of us would not have been surprised.
How voters could pick a paragon of virtue through the blizzard of flying mud is beyond me. Perhaps being holy makes a person sees things that ordinary sinners like me cannot see. Perhaps it takes a doctor of divinity to visit Madam Lulu's Adult Fun Parlor and find evidence of chastity.
Of course, Americans want to vote for a candidate who shares their values. In my case, no indolent beer drinkers (currently active) were on the ballot, so I was left to consider the issues, silly old me.
Still, if voters want to distill all of moral decency into just one defining issue, they are free to do so. After all, we have a constitutional right to be stupid in this country.
But don't go dragging gay people into it. This is just too stupid and cruel. Gays have become America's favorite scapegoats, occupying the place once assigned to Jews and African Americans. Never mind that gay people are not responsible for undermining the sanctity of marriage; heterosexuals, after all, have effectively done the job already.
Why can't people just mind their own business? Why can't they heed the old wisdom to live and let live? Because to enjoy the satisfaction of being holier-than-thou requires a convenient thou to be holier than.
Supporters of the GOP (which, as you know, now stands for God's Own Party) can't very well go and ban divorce, the largest wrecking ball of marital sanctity. Inconveniently for the chronically sanctimonious, the legions of divorced Americans, many good people among them, are not a convenient group to bully. On this, sanctity must give way to sanity.
Would that sanity instruct people against mixing politics and religion too promiscuously elsewhere. History contains its warnings, including holy wars of unspeakable cruelty. Not into history? Look at Bosnia and Northern Ireland in recent years. Consider the Middle East, where religion has driven people crazy.
But we are not crazy. We are just tearing down the wall of separation between church and state so that future presidential debates can be conducted on the basis of biblical quizzes. To heck with the issues of this world!
I remain philosophical, of course. But I see the white smoke announcing the election of America's new pontiff. Perhaps the smoke rises from Iraq. Perhaps America's unity is smoldering, fueled by that highly combustible material known as hypocrisy.
Post-Gazette (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04314/408888.stm)
By Reg Henry
Just as rain makes everyone depressed except the fellow selling umbrellas, the re-election of President Bush has forced me to be philosophical. For whatever disasters overtake the nation, my column has been guaranteed four more years of tip-top material.
No doubt John Kerry could have obliged me in the same way had he won, but the proven disaster is always a better bet than the potential disaster. So I join cartoonists and other satirical-minded wags in wishing the president all the best in the fond hope that he will not disappoint us by doing anything sensible.
But I must admit to one disappointment already -- and unfortunately this is something where I and many commentators have been guilty of leading the public astray. We were all under the impression that this was a presidential election. I see now that it was really an election for Christian in Chief of the United States.
I mean no slur on the president's religion or anybody else's. I regularly attend church myself, although, in the interests of full disclosure, I was Sinner of the Month in October. But never in my wildest dreams did I think that we were voting on matters ecclesiastical. Yet exit polls revealed that "moral values" such as gay marriage were on some people's minds as much as terrorism. Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar, move over for Adam and Steve.
No doubt deficient in piety, my mind struggles to get around this bizarre idea. Most Americans, I thought, held the traditional view of politics -- that of a seething swamp of noxious gases where vile creatures slither about their business. It was my further impression that nobody thought the deal-makers in the smoked-filled rooms were gathered for vespers.
If anything remotely holy happened in the election campaign, I, for one, missed it. Both sides dished the dirt. If the ads on TV and radio had said, "I am the god Baal and I approved this message," most of us would not have been surprised.
How voters could pick a paragon of virtue through the blizzard of flying mud is beyond me. Perhaps being holy makes a person sees things that ordinary sinners like me cannot see. Perhaps it takes a doctor of divinity to visit Madam Lulu's Adult Fun Parlor and find evidence of chastity.
Of course, Americans want to vote for a candidate who shares their values. In my case, no indolent beer drinkers (currently active) were on the ballot, so I was left to consider the issues, silly old me.
Still, if voters want to distill all of moral decency into just one defining issue, they are free to do so. After all, we have a constitutional right to be stupid in this country.
But don't go dragging gay people into it. This is just too stupid and cruel. Gays have become America's favorite scapegoats, occupying the place once assigned to Jews and African Americans. Never mind that gay people are not responsible for undermining the sanctity of marriage; heterosexuals, after all, have effectively done the job already.
Why can't people just mind their own business? Why can't they heed the old wisdom to live and let live? Because to enjoy the satisfaction of being holier-than-thou requires a convenient thou to be holier than.
Supporters of the GOP (which, as you know, now stands for God's Own Party) can't very well go and ban divorce, the largest wrecking ball of marital sanctity. Inconveniently for the chronically sanctimonious, the legions of divorced Americans, many good people among them, are not a convenient group to bully. On this, sanctity must give way to sanity.
Would that sanity instruct people against mixing politics and religion too promiscuously elsewhere. History contains its warnings, including holy wars of unspeakable cruelty. Not into history? Look at Bosnia and Northern Ireland in recent years. Consider the Middle East, where religion has driven people crazy.
But we are not crazy. We are just tearing down the wall of separation between church and state so that future presidential debates can be conducted on the basis of biblical quizzes. To heck with the issues of this world!
I remain philosophical, of course. But I see the white smoke announcing the election of America's new pontiff. Perhaps the smoke rises from Iraq. Perhaps America's unity is smoldering, fueled by that highly combustible material known as hypocrisy.
Post-Gazette (http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/04314/408888.stm)