Congrats, Ellen

Ellen DeGeneres has decided to join the millions of America who have decided to tie the knot (around their neck, as Prof. Higgins would say) with longtime partner Portia de Rossi. I've heard it rumored they will be doing so in the set of Ellen's TV show now that gay marriage is legal again in California. Well, good for her. I'm not a big fan of Ellen's in general-afternoon talk shows bore me-but if she wants to get married and do so in a public forum, more power to her. It's her show, after all, and she should be allowed to marry a monkey there if she feels like it.

What is alternately amusing and pathetic is all the righteous indignation that has once again stirred up amongst some of those those who call themselves "conservative Christians" (and probably Muslims, too, although as Richard Land reminds us time and again, "we are a Christian nation." So, fuck the Muslim indignation). They are utterly convinced that the god of their bible (who, in his name, enables ethnic cleansing, commits infanticide, and throws his own son under the bus) gets all riled up over who we have sex with or marry. It's just insanity, especially when in general they base their antipathy on a couple of passages from the Holiness Codes in Leviticus and the letters of Paul-very conveniently ignoring the fact that the Holiness Codes also contain indications that, according to god, a field can't be harvested to the edge, tattoos are forbidden, and you can't weave two types of yarn into the same cloth. Bigamy, however, is ok. Christians also tactfully overlook the fact that Paul himself had some long and, shall we say, apparently quite intimate relationships with men a bit younger than himself. They probably weren't really very bright, but oh, they had great pecs and long eyelashes.

Hypocritical garbage. Bottom line? It's really all bullshit, more about mind control and the control of sexual behavior than religion. Besides, conservative Christians, isn't Ellen going to hell for this anyway? Shouldn't that be punishment enough for you all?   

Comments

[Lori]

Fundementalist Christians also never attempt to explain, if same-sex coupling is such a big deal, why Jesus walked around the earth for 33 years and NEVER MENTIONED IT. He said a lot of things - about loving one another, about the next world being more important than this one, about not thinking yourself better than your neighbor, even about not being a big whiner - a whole host of subjects that don't get much play. But not a word about men who love men, or women who love women. Not a word about abortion, either, another big topic with the fundies. Someone has their prioritites confused, and I don't think it's Jesus.

Please, though, no human-monkey pairings. Animals can't give consent.

[Lisa K.]

Of course they can. They just don't want to.

[Lisa K.]

Jesus may not talk about abortion-my guess is that he had no idea it even existed-but Exodus does:

"When men strive together, and hurt a woman with child, so that there is miscarriage, and yet no harm follows, the one who hurt her shall be fined according as the woman's husband shall lay upon him; and he shall pay as the judges determine. If any harm follows, then you shall give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, stripe for stripe."

In other words, a man who causes the death of a fetus is guilty of a misdemeanor UNLESS he kills the mother as well.

Asshats.

[Lori]

I'm sure women sometimes terminated pregnanacy in the first century, and I'm sure Jesus knew about it. He did, after all, consort with prostitutes -- preaching to prostitutes and other low people was one of the things he was criticized for by the Pharisees. And who more likely to need an abortion, in those times? I'm also sure that he knew about gay people. He just didn't think it was all that important. (Interestingly, while the old testament references gay men, not too flatteringly, you'd never know lesbians existed.)

[Lisa K.]

Maybe they thought lesbianism was ok. Most guys I know are all for it, at least as long as they can watch it.

Seinfeld: "Men love to watch women fight with each other because we're hoping they might kiss."

[wisdomweasel]

The historical recreation of 1st century Judeah bath house oiling rendered by Larry Olivier and Tony Curtis in Ben Hur can leave one with no doubt that the Roman chaps were at it with each other all the time. Its a wonder they had time to build an empire.

[Jim]

To each their own, I say. Of course, fundamentalist Xians hate that; instead of attempting to learn to read, and enter the world of modernity, they're all hot and bothered about obscure passages written 3,000 years ago.

I've had my fill of moral absolutists, and their perverted theology.

[Lisa K.]

The same people who are decrying gays and lesbians in the 21st century are philosophically the same ones who were lynching and fighting against interracial marriage in the 20th century and keeping slaves in the 19th century.

Bigotry is bigotry, it just morphs into more socially acceptable ways from generation to generation.

[t5m]

Don't make the mistake of confusing Christ (Jesus) with Christians - Christians are everyday sinful people, they make mistakes, they misread text, and they don't always make very good witnesses for Christ. I guess they're very similar to "liberals" who find it acceptable to make unfounded inferences about Paul and his male companions.

I'm sure Jesus knew about abortion, since He is God, He knows about everything - which is at least 99.9999999% more than any of us know.

I used to be very much like you, bashing Christianity and Christians. It's funny that as liberals, we can be open-minded about every single other thing, except for Christianity. ...apparently even beastiality, from someone who doesn't support puppy mills? So it's okay to have sex with animals, just don't mate them with each other and keep them crammed up in small quarters? Interesting perspective.

[Lisa K.]

LOL, that animal remark was hyperbole. Nice try, though. And it's hard to confuse a false deity manufactured and evolved over the centuries mostly for crowd control for anything other than what it is, actually, much less real people.

Look, I have no quarrel with most Christians, or Jews, or Muslims. I don't "bash" faithful people who simply practice their beliefs in the course of their own lives and behavior. I have great admiration for people like Jim Wallis, whose beliefs concerning christianity I don't share but who is a moral and principled man. Believe what you want, it's a free country. It doesn't make one a bad person. Just as long as they don't expect me to follow suit, or expect it to become public policy because the bible says so (you can't argue with most fundamentalists because their argument is always, "it's in the bible" as if that's a good basis for the law), or adopt manufactured aggrieved positions for political advantage (like the "War on Christmas" as defined by idiots like O'Reilly and Gibson). Any religion or practitioner thereof is fine with me as long as they don't bother me (an atheist) with it, or try to force their way into my life through politics ("intelligent design" is a good example of this)...AND as long as they don't cherry-pick biblical passages to fit their political agendas, or promote bigotry which is what the Jesus Camp crowd does and always has done. If there IS an afterlife, then there's a very special kind of hell reserved for those who do this. Scripture was once used to promote slavery by the same type of person who is now railing against homosexuals. Did you know that Katrina was a result of a gay pride parade in New Orleans? I sure didn't, until John Hagee told me so.

To them, I say: fuck off. I will NOT have your beliefs forced down my throat, and I will fight it tooth and nail by any means possible. If you'd like to interpret that as intolerance, oh, well. I'm not responsible for how anyone feels. I'm not intolerant of anyone's religion as long as it doesn't involve live sacrifices. I AM intolerant of bullying, hypocrisy and true intolerance, though, and unfortunately this is embodied in most "Christian conservatives" in the Hagee and Falwell mode these days. Since when did "Jesus" say global warming was a canard, anyway? Or that tax cuts serve the greater good?

Please. Spare me.