Tuesday, March 28, 2006

 

Get Your War On

Didn't you hear? There's a war going on. No, not in Iraq; right here on American soil. Apparently, there's a war on Christians.

I know; I haven't seen the bombs, or the guns, or even the Gestapo-like intimidation tactics associated with war. I haven't seen any real legislative oppression against Christians. Oddly enough, being a Christian, I am told that, by being gay, I am declaring war on myself.

Fundamentalists hucksters of all stripes have declared that they are being warred upon. "The War On Christmas," when they had to be confronted with shop clerks saying, "Happy holidays," instead of, "Merry Christmas." "The War on Easter," based around the fact that some stores are naming the Easter Bunny the "Spring Bunny" (I'm not shitting you). These sins are obviously much greater than anything happening to Christians in Sudan or China.

And now, fundamentalists have responded to being the target of imaginary wars to declaring imaginary war:

"This is more than a spiritual war," Luce said. "It's a culture war."

Military metaphors abound in Luce's descriptions of the struggle. He tells young people of how "an enemy has launched a brutal attack on them." At a pre-Battle Cry rally Friday afternoon on the steps of City Hall, Luce told his mostly teenage audience that "terrorists of a different kind" -- advertisers -- were targeting them and that they were "caught in the middle of the battle."

"Are you ready to go to battle for your generation?" he asked, and the young people roared "yes!" and some waved triangular red flags flown from long, medieval-looking poles.


I'm not amused anymore, okay? All right, I wasn't amused before, but at least then people weren't declaring war on me because, in their eyes, my very existence was the equivalent of a Japanense bombing of their spiritual Pearl Harbor. Now, I have congregants telling their charges that the growing possibility that I might be able to marry the man I love in my lifetime is a sign of the Apocalypse.

How fundamentally screwed-up do you have to be to see war everywhere you go?

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