so mr. birdsong is back, preaching hellfire and brimstone and blah blah blah.
i guess it's a pretty common thing on college campuses in the bible belt (the uber-religious section of the country, located mostly in southeastern part of the u.s.) for these preachers to come and start screaming at the students that pass by, especially on the more conservative campuses.
i am on a conservative campus. how conservative, you ask? i will say this: if john kerry had won the election, i seriously expect that riots and possibly the end of days would have occurred. and although there's a comparative amount of tolerance here, the rainbows painted in the free expression tunnel by the BGLA to promote the organization were painted over the next day, replaced by various slurs. other than that, though, there's not been the type of backwards racial prejudices you sometimes expect in the south - but i don't doubt that there's some of them here. there's tons of black and international students, though, so i doubt they're really too inclined to be outspoken about their proclivities.
so anyways, we've got this guy who comes around here a lot. his name is gary birdsong, and he is a particularly vile man, the worst stereotype of the screaming, spitting, angry preacher spewing hatred and intolerance all in the name of gawd and GEE-zus. he's all about the strict interpretation of the bible, you know. never mind that it was written by humans - you know, fallible humans. male humans, for that matter. never mind that it's been translated from hebrew to greek to latin to english. never mind that so many alterations have probably been made to it along the way that the original text probably barely constitutes any of the modern version.
also, let's forget about the fact that we have a thing in this country called freedom of religion and/or [ostensibly] speech, and that just as he is allowed to practice his own religion, and say what he feels about his and everyone else's religion or lack thereof, other people are allowed to do the same.
fuck. i don't know what is up with this place. the southern sector of the united states, despite what you've probably heard from other people [most of whom have never even been here, mind you], is actually not that bad, and though ignorance is indeed a huge institution here, the people, for the most part, are very good people whose intentions are also good, although their intentions may not be agreeable to people like you and me.
i just cannot comprehend why religion is such a huge presence here, and why it's largely ignored in other parts of the country. i don't understand why so many religious nutjobs congregate here. they're the sort of people whose families have been here for forever, whose great-grandaddies fought in the civil war, you know. and with all these filthy godless heathen northerners coming in, i'm surprised the pervading odor of extremism hasn't been diluted - if anything, it's strengthening.
these are the people who are seen by the rest of the world, because they're the ones who are the concerned voters of america. them, and old people. they're the ones who are currently trying to push the decency standards that public broadcast television must adhere to onto cable channels as well. let's not even begin discussing the "moral majority" [which is still represented by the christian coalition] and focus on the family, because frankly i've not gone into a blind rage in a few days and i'd like to keep it that way.
no, fuck that. diatribe time. fuck these rich white men and their values. fuck their intolerance. fuck them for still continuing to try to force creationism in schools. fuck them for completely disregarding the fact that the federal government [and therefore state governments] is not to favor or sponsor any religious group whatsoever. that means none. here is some interesting dispute over the actual meaning of the first amendment. "separation of church and state", while not specifically referenced in the constitution, is still a very real principle and should definitely be enforced. separation of church and state, he says, was a phrase used by thomas jefferson in a personal letter to a danbury congregation. he goes on to assert that since it is not mentioned in the constitution, that it is not really enforcable, and that states should not be forced to adhere to it. he's probably one of those conservative shitheads i've been ranting about for the past two hours. your argument is weak, sweetheart, and i'll tell you why after this paragraph break.
since you're defending statutes with undeniably religious leanings, i'll go ahead and assume you're some sort of conservative religious right-wing nutjob. and since you're a conservative religious right-wing nutjob, i'm going to go ahead and assume that you're also a subscriber to the beliefs of the rest of your conservative religious right-wing nutjob friends like george bush and the rest of the republican party. and since you subscribe to the beliefs of the rest of your conservative religious right-wing nutjob friends, you're most assuredly against same-sex marriages [note: million for marriage petition here], and are doing all you can to get the federal government to mandate a single definition of marriage as one man one woman blah blah blah. but wait! i thought you were of the notion that if the u.s. constitution doesn't specify anything about a particular topic, then it must be okay for the states to go ahead and do whatever the fuck they want, right? but oh, no. we can't be so flippant about something this serious. not about something that is going to bring about the fall of western civilization! oh, gawd! we can't allow these FAGS to think that they're HUMAN, can we? we must act now! get the gubmint to outlaw these sick practices!
yeah, they're hypocrites, too. fucking fundamentalist shits. get your religion out of my government, you sick, sick bastards. you racist, sexist, bigoted assholes.
i'm glad i'm a deist. i'm glad that my [sort-of] religion allows and encourages me to think, and even use reason and logic, even though i'm just a woman, who doesn't know what's best for herself or her fetuses.