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Feb. 8th, 2009 11:54 amIn eighteen years, I have never felt tempted to walk out of a church service, nor have I ever felt like whether to go or not next week was an internal debate centered on anything more serious than "sleeping in is nice".
I knew it was going to be bad when the pastor started in with what a horrible disgrace it was Ben Stein had been disinvited from UVM's commencement. Then he ranted about how narrowminded academia is (because mouthbreathing anti-intellectuals are historically so likely to be the most accepting of differences), and then to top it off he pulled out the line about "the only socially acceptable prejudice left" which is, of course, not any actual prejudices but discrimination against Christian beliefs.
You know, because someone who writes a book about how awful and hypocritical and OMGMEEN academia is raising the ire of an academic institution is totally worse than all the "terrorist fist bump" ignorance still in play regarding people of color, or the NECESSITY of things like affirmative action and the Lilly Ledbetter bill, or "I should be able to use horrifically racist/sexist/homophobic language because DON'T CENSOR ME ARGH", or, y'know, the denial of marriage and in some cases adoption rights to people who love each other because HOLY FUCK THEIR GENITALS MATCH. Totally.
Oh, and he topped it off by declaring how ignorant 20-something college students are because once he sat in on a class and no one mentioned Martin Luther King, Jr.'s faith when discussing "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". Because co-opting MLK for the cause of the OMG OPPRESSED CHRISTIANS right after the most egregious display of white privilege I've ever witnessed in person is totally awesome.
(Because declaring me ignorant by virtue of my age and higher education, then claiming I couldn't possibly face discrimination for anything but my Christianity wasn't enough, he used the phrase "politically correct", which gets me ragey even in otherwise innocuous circumstances, more than once)
I've always been proud to come from a church that doesn't spout that bullshit, always considered that the reason I've never really struggled with being gay and Christian. Everything else removed, this just feels like betrayal.
I knew it was going to be bad when the pastor started in with what a horrible disgrace it was Ben Stein had been disinvited from UVM's commencement. Then he ranted about how narrowminded academia is (because mouthbreathing anti-intellectuals are historically so likely to be the most accepting of differences), and then to top it off he pulled out the line about "the only socially acceptable prejudice left" which is, of course, not any actual prejudices but discrimination against Christian beliefs.
You know, because someone who writes a book about how awful and hypocritical and OMGMEEN academia is raising the ire of an academic institution is totally worse than all the "terrorist fist bump" ignorance still in play regarding people of color, or the NECESSITY of things like affirmative action and the Lilly Ledbetter bill, or "I should be able to use horrifically racist/sexist/homophobic language because DON'T CENSOR ME ARGH", or, y'know, the denial of marriage and in some cases adoption rights to people who love each other because HOLY FUCK THEIR GENITALS MATCH. Totally.
Oh, and he topped it off by declaring how ignorant 20-something college students are because once he sat in on a class and no one mentioned Martin Luther King, Jr.'s faith when discussing "Letter from a Birmingham Jail". Because co-opting MLK for the cause of the OMG OPPRESSED CHRISTIANS right after the most egregious display of white privilege I've ever witnessed in person is totally awesome.
(Because declaring me ignorant by virtue of my age and higher education, then claiming I couldn't possibly face discrimination for anything but my Christianity wasn't enough, he used the phrase "politically correct", which gets me ragey even in otherwise innocuous circumstances, more than once)
I've always been proud to come from a church that doesn't spout that bullshit, always considered that the reason I've never really struggled with being gay and Christian. Everything else removed, this just feels like betrayal.
