Just like you boycotted Brokeback Mountain because of 'sheep cruelty issues'

Today smacking: Couched belief

So I bet we've all heard this one before:

“I’m not against gays – I swear I’m not! I just don’t agree with the lifestyle.”

Seems to make sense, doesn't it?

Yeah, right up until you give more than two seconds of thought to it. Fact is, if you don’t agree with the ‘lifestyle’, then yes, you are in fact against gay people and what it means to be gay. Deal with it.

The above buzz phrase is often used to espouse a not-entirely-PC viewpoint whilst at the same time excusing a not-entirely-PC viewpoint. Most people are aware that now more than ever there is a move towards acceptance of formerly taboo issues, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. Consequently most people are aware that to openly oppose gay people and the gay ‘lifestyle’ (whatever that is) in public is considered, well, a bit off – especially here in Britain. So we come up with all these wishy-washy ways of essentially saying, “I don’t agree with homosexuality,” but not actually saying that, and coming off sounding all magnanimous towards Those Gays. Patronising, much? Sure, people who use the buzz phrase may not actively oppose gay people, but if they oppose what gay people do and everything that it is to be gay, how is that any different?

There’s no point maintaining a belief if you’re not going to be honest about it, even if it is unpopular. Next thing you know Christians will be saying that they think God, you know, doesn’t necessarily exist. The animal rights demonstrators I walked past on my lunch break will start explaining to me that maybe animals don’t have feelings or anything, and that nobody knows really, since they can’t talk to us, and how do we compare a cockroach to an elephant anyway, man? Without honest belief, Tom Cruise would actually sit on a couch and stay sat, and be all, “Actually, L. Ron Hubbard really might have just been taking the piss.”

OK, so maybe Cruise kind of negates my point, since few people would oppose to the man having his lips sewn shut with thread woven from concentrated cholera and depression, but anyway.

No-one likes a pocket-pisser who nods their head to a different speed depending on who they’re talking to. No-one likes a liar. No-one likes disingenuousness. If you don’t agree with what gay people do in their spare and not-so-spare time, then don’t say you don’t have a problem with it, because you damn well do. Stand up and be counted among the vocal homophobes, since underneath the belief is the same. Underneath it’s all the same xenophobia and hatred, and you might as well be honest about it.

That way when you run for government I’ll know who to spread gay orgy rumours about.

Christians: giving the gift of cancer – but at least you’re not immoral

Today smacking: Christian fundamentalists

So last year there was an amount of hoo-ha in the news about the very real possibility of there being a cancer vaccine on the horizon. “Cancer vaccine?” I hear you ask, your brow at an impressive altitude upon your forehead. Well, effectively, yes; a drug has been developed that acts as a vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV) – also known as genital warts. Studies have shown that HPV is responsible for over 90% of cases of cervical cancer (see Wikipedia link, below). The HPV vaccination, if provided to girls before they become sexually active, can almost totally eliminate the chances of their ever developing cervical cancer. Pretty fucking cool, huh, considering cancer of the cervix is the worldwide second-most-common cancer in women.

Now, there’s this big idea that maybe the HPV vaccination could be added to the list of compulsory vaccines that USA schoolchildren are given. If girls are vaccinated against HPV at roughly age 6, when they assumedly are not yet sexually active (ahem, assumedly), then it follows they’re highly unlikely ever to develop cervical cancer. Yay! Right?

No, according to the religious right in the USA (excuse me while I shudder and spit), it is not Pretty Fucking Cool that we can stop women from contracting cervical cancer. They have vocally asserted that being able to avoid Sexually Transmitted Infections only encourages promiscuity and the idea that women can engage in any kind of sexual activity before marriage without consequences. (Apperently, rape doesn't exist in their world.) Because God forbid (literally) that the human race, in particular women, engage in any kind of fun without being punished. You see, some Christians see STIs and unplanned pregnancy as God’s way of punishing the lassies for being immoral whores. You have sex before marriage? That’s a sin. You deserve a big ol’ case of the warts, apparently. Oh, and a long, painful and humiliating death after the HPV leads to cervical cancer, you become unable ever to procreate, you lose all your hair through chemotherapy, and the Christian fundamentalist community spits on your grave.

Why they don’t think God can just get on with punishing us all for our sins by eternal damnation and hellfire the way he always has done is beyond me.

In summary, there is opposition from the Christian right to young girls being given a potentially life-saving vaccine that, let’s face it, they’re definitely going to need, since the US government also completely fails to teach its children about contraception, STIs, and any other emotional, social or otherwise consequences of having sex at any time, ever. So to prove my allegiance to the Christian right I have decided to sew up my vagina.

Oh, and in light of this fucking ridiculousness, I devised a quick script for a play I am going to submit for the local church’s Christmas pageant this year.


EXTERIOR - DAY
LITTLE GIRL and CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST DAD stand outside a primary school, watching young girls line up outside the medical bay for vaccination. THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT is ever-present.


LITTLE GIRL:
Daddy, why aren't I having this vaccination that all the other girls are having?

CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST DAD:
Because you don't need it, sweetie. You will be modest and pure and protect your honour, which means not playing with boys until you're married. Girls who play with boys before marriage are punished by God. It's not fair to escape God's punishment by getting that evil vaccine.

LITTLE GIRL:
But what is God's punishment, Daddy?

CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST DAD:
It's something called an STI, sweetie.

LITTLE GIRL:
What's an STI?

CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALIST DAD:
Oh, honey, I can't teach you about STIs. That would just encourage you to sin.

LITTLE GIRL:
But how do I fear the punishment if I don't know what it is I'm supposed to fear?

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT (offstage):
Beats us!


END


For more information about the above, please check out the following:

Evangelicals And Some Creepy Guy Named Doctor Finger Try To Stifle Cancer Vaccine

The HPV vaccine at Wikipedia

Genie in a bottle

Today Smacking: Religion at large

I don't want no unlimited cash flow or unrivalled beauty. If I found a genie in a bottle today and he offered me just the one wish, it would be this: that never in the entire history of our world nor in the future to come, did organised religion or will organised religion ever exist.

I have felt this way for a long time but stumbling across news stories from a few years ago, such as this one, serve to remind me how strongly I feel about this.

I can pose my own argument against this viewpoint with any help, thanks. I know what you're going to say, and it's this: if there never was or never will be any religion, where do we draw our commandments from? Who compels us not to kill, not to covet, not to steal? Will we not live in anarchy and chaos, like Hieronymus Bosch's famous depiction of man's descent from grace?

Me, I believe in human decency, even if I do almost daily want to smack someone. With an ounce of intellect and a complete lack of dogma I think we could sort ourselves out. I like to fantasise that everything we do would be for the intuitive good, the good we all have inside of us, and not because of some ancient set of rules designed to manipulate and control a lost populace existing several thousand years ago when our brains were probably more akin to dried figs for all the use they were.

But that's just a fantasy, because religion has already served to royally fuck huge parts of the world, and it's going on all around us today. So I guess what I really want from the genie is the same thing we all say we'd wish for. World peace, thanks. And I suppose a few million big ones wouldn't go astray, either.