RELIGION & ITS ALTERNATIVES

MAN DROUGHT HITS CHRISTIAN CHURCHES

ANNA CHALMERS, STUFF, NZ - A man drought has hit the church and could be
pushing some single women away. The shortage is so dire that Christian
women are being forced outside the church or are getting into unsuitable
relationships, Challenge Weekly warns this month. The Christian
publication says American research shows there are up to 13 million more
"born-again" Christian women than men. Christian dating agencies report
having up to 70 per cent women on their books – a trend reflected in
other dating agencies.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3791132a4560,00.html?source=email

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CHILLIN' WITH THE NEDDITES

[Ned Flanders is the Simpsons' sometimes-sickeningly cheerful next-door
nieghbor. His wife, Maude Flanders, and his two sons, Rod and Todd
Flanders, are the perfect "Good Christian" family, but Ned is hated by
Homer Simpson out of jealousy, and by Reverend Lovejoy, because of Ned's
non-stop requests for guidance. He is known to distort every-day words
by adding "diddily" to the end or middle of the word. - Simpsons
Archives]

JACK MCENENY, LOST NATION - This past weekend I traveled down to our
nation's capital to attend the Family Research Council's Value Voters
Summit. The FRC's speakers list was a who's who of wingnuttery, plus
fifteen hundred "Bible-believing Christian activists" (I call them
Neddites) were scheduled to attend. . .

The Family Research Council is run by Tony Perkins, a pink-cheeked,
former Louisiana state legislator (two terms), a political campaign
consultant (lost) US Senate candidate (lost again), and police officer
(suspended for failure to report an illegal conspiracy) involving
anti-abortion activists violently attacking a police line protecting an
abortion clinic. . .

I learned a few things about the religious right over the weekend, and
they weren't all bad. Many fundamentalist men, for instance, do a pretty
fair Clinton impersonation, and like to make hot chick jokes in Bubba's
raspy drawl. . .

The attendees ran the full middle-class socio-economic gamut -- from
corn-fed women in sensible shoes, to a strange breed of emaciated,
leather pants wearing, over-coiffed bird-like women; most men were
either big bellies with short ties, or business casual charmers. And
they were all so sweet they made my teeth hurt. . .

Blackwater Security - the same outfit that's does such a bang-up job in
Iraq - was on the job. Blackwater is owned by Christian fundamentalist
and former Navy Seal, Erik Prince. Prince is also the brother-in-law of
Dick Devos, the Amway Tsar and Republican nominee for governor in
Michigan this year. The mercenaries were on duty to keep an eye out for
guys like the Rev. Barry Lynn, the president of Americans United for the
Separation of Church and State, who stopped by as a registered attendee
to check things out. I know this because the Christian sitting next to
me said to his wife, "That idiot Barry Lynn is here, but the Blackwater
guys have him."

Another thing I learned about the Neddites is that they have their own
alternative, Bizarro, narrative about everything from Hurricane Katrina
- the president wasn't playing golf when the levees were bursting, he
was in the situation room deciding whether he should fly Air Force One
himself down to the rescue evacuees - to the Founding Fathers, who in
their cosmology, were acting on behalf of God, and not the people, when
they wrote the Constitution and invented liberal democracy. . .

Sen George Allen (R-VA) was there looking relieved to be in a room where
no one was going to ask him where his bubbie's really from, or how to
spell "Macaca." The woman who introduced him said he was the "victim of
the worse kind of gotcha journalism," which presumably is the kind that
snares someone she likes. . .

Fourteen points down in the polls and fighting for his political life,
Sen Rick Santorum (R-PA) wasn't in the house, but delivered a dispirited
address via video, looking and sounding as if he were being held hostage
by secular terrorists, chained to a radiator in the basement of
Independence Hall.

The Neddites don't simply support the PATRIOT Act, no-warrant wiretaps,
Gitmo, torture, and Bush - they love them. They even love the war in
Iraq. You can tell because they get all misty and verklempt whenever
they mention the all the Americans pointlessly dying there. . .


Ann Coulter spoke, and spoke, spoke. . . if you think she's hard to take
in 6-minute intervals on Fox, try listening to that squawking scarecrow
for an hour. (I didn't, I left, I couldn't take it.) Her lock-jawed,
self-satisfied affect, full of stale Monica and Chappaquiddick jokes,
and veiled threats - "There were no abortion doctors killed for the
first 17 years of our battle in the courts. . . but when democracy lets
people down, they resort to other means," - was just too much for me. I
didn't even get my book signed. . .

http://www.lostnation.tv/

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