In July, the $101 million “Ark Encounter” water park will open in Kentucky and now a group calling themselves the Tri-State Freethinkers—representing exasperated non-believers in Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana—are seeking to raise some money in order to put up billboards trolling the Creationist-themed amusement park. The Ark Encounter destination is specifically a water park based on the myth of Noah’s Ark. The park, created by a consortium of investors headed by creationist Ken Ham—the hapless silly person who debated Bill Nye—and his “Answers in Genesis” group, includes a 510-ft model of Noah’s Ark and an interactive teaching exhibit that er… uh… “teaches” the rather silly notion that it was in fact the Great Flood which separated the world’s continents.
“They are portraying the story of Noah’s Ark as an actual historical event. This is scientifically not possible.”
Ye of little faith continue:
“The park celebrates a biblical parable of genocide and incest. While they have a legal right to celebrate their mythology, we find it immoral and highly inappropriate as family entertainment.”
Tax-supported family entertainment to boot. I wonder if they’ve hired any Muslims? Might there be a single Jew working at the Ark Encounter?
The first $2,000 raised by the campaign—which they have done already—will go toward setting up a single small billboard for a month. If they’re able to raise $6,000, the group will be able to mount six small billboards or one big one along an interstate highway.
If they are able to raise $150 million, the Tri-State Freethinkers say “we will build our very own Genocide & Incest Park.” The group, which has over 1300 members, are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so your donations are tax-deductible.
Kathleen Tonn, a failed, former Republican U.S. Senate candidate who gained infamy briefly for displaying her “gift” of speaking in tongues, decided to wave a tampon around as she addressed city officials in Anchorage, Alaska, last night in a nonsensical anti-gay rights rant. Tonn carried a briefcase full of props into to the meeting of the Anchorage assembly. She pulled a Bible from her case and said “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. You like my trumpet? It’s a sound heard around the world.”
“Since one of my brethren introduced the King James Bible, since I represent the Lord Jesus Christ the great I am, I’m going to add to your public document and your public record from the public document of the great I am,” Tonn told baffled officials.
“Starting with, oh my — a tampon,” she said, pulling a feminine hygiene product from between the pages of her Bible. “Reminds me that little girls in pubescence get periods — female girls.”
Tonn, who is probably best known for a video she posted online showing herself fully clothed and speaking in tongues in a sauna, then angrily read a lengthy passage from the Second Epistle of Peter describing God’s wrathful judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah.
“Now, since you want to create some ordinance to avoid discrimination for members of our community who engage in, I perceive, unhealthy, ungodly behavior, you might want to consider creating an ordinance for one who speaks in tongues.”
Or perhaps summoning a van where people wearing all white uniforms bring you a nice comfy straightjacket and forcibly medicate you?
Dick Traini, the assembly chairman finally said “Ma’am, your time is up. Thank you for your testimony.”
Now despite what you might be led to believe from the photograph evidence above, these fellas are not some over the hill ‘N Sync wannabes who never made the big time scene and who are now improbably still together and performing their shitty middle-aged boy band act (“Seventeen years of solid gold!”) at a cheap casino in Indio, CA.
Neither are the Deadraisers, as they call themselves, a gang of clean-cut middle-aged Grateful Dead-loving bikers… Mild ones? Maybe they’re Deadhead cyclists?
Nope, you’re not even close: In earlier centuries the activity that these gentlemen are principally involved with—the raising of the dead—would have seen them burned at the stake as witches. They used to call that “necromancy” and it could get ya killed. Now it looks like something that might get you a reality TV show?
These dudes don’t just want to follow Jeebus with all their hearts, they want those cool Matthew 10:8 zombie-making superpowers!
When you capture one of them there “miraculous” resurrections on video, boys, then I’ll take your latterday Lazarus shenanigans seriously. Until then, I’ll just file this under “Delusional” (or worse).
“5 years ago, I was disowned via letter when I came out to my father. This is how hate sounds.”
If you’re having trouble reading the letter, you can find a larger version here.
The most popular response came from the father of an adopted gay son, who goes by the handle, newvideoaz, apparently his first post on reddit. I think you’ll agree that it’s a pretty remarkable retort:
RegBarc,
I’m the adoptive dad of a kid who came out when he was about 15. Yeah it’s sometimes difficult when this happens because no parent wants to see a kid we love get hurt - and like it or not - being gay can mean some people will wish you ill simply for who you are.
And that’s hard for any parent. But it’s no excuse.
As an adoptive parent, I’m not my kids “father.” That’s biological. But I am his Dad. Because “Dad” isn’t something that’s actually biological, it’s something you have to earn.
With my son , I started to earn it the day he was born, but it was pretty easy until his second year when he had an accident and got hurt. The doctor in the ER strapped him to the “papoose board” to immobilize him and was about to start stitching up his head when he told me it was time for me to let go of his little hand. He looked up at me and whatever he saw in my face, he instantly said “or you can stay I guess.” I have no clue what he saw, except the fact that getting me to let go of that tiny hand was about as possible one of us jumping up through the ceiling to the moon.
The lesson for me that day is that any idiot can be a father (and clearly many are) but you’ve got to EARN being a Dad.
When my son came out to us, same deal. I was concerned, because I never had to deal with it before in someone I love. But we simply hooked him up with 1 in 10 and went on with our lives.
So here’s the opinion of someone who’s been in your dad’s shoes, but didn’t have his sad mental baggage.
Your dad failed a really huge parenting test. Period.
So now he’s self selected to be your father, but not to be your Dad. That sucks. And the really sad thing is that he has absolutely no freaking clue about the real value of what he’s tossed away.
He’ll always be your father. That’s biology. But biology is fickle. We know this because while he has perhaps passed a lot to you via DNA, he did NOT pass along intolerance or stupidity. He can “disown” you in his brain all he likes, but that doesn’t mean much because he’s already proved that whatever his strengths might be, he’s allowed his thought processes and natural instincts to become seriously flawed. How you feel about him. Hurt, sad, angry, disappointed, that’s yours to shuffle as you see fit.
But trust me, this is about him, not you. I actually hope that someday he gets a change to look deeply in his heart and comes to understand how horribly, terribly he screwed this up. If so, he’ll maybe have a chance to start some personal redemption and healing. But he needs that. You don’t.
Cuz there’s nothing wrong with you. At all.
Stay strong. Take care. The world is changing fast. And for more people than ever, gay and straight, it’s changing more toward love and away from fear - at least in this particular area.
Take care.
As they say on the Internet: ONIONS!
Of course, reddit being reddit, a couple of quipsters threw in some zingers:
“You should to his funeral and read that letter as your speech.”
“This would be the greatest ‘fuck you’ ever. Oh my god I’m so giddy right now.”
“And have it buried with him.”
“Burn it. And while it’s on fire, throw it in his casket. That guy doesn’t deserve the casket he’s in.”
Can’t say I disagree. What a fucking small-minded dickhead. I sincerely hope that he is made aware of how he’s being ridiculed. He, at the very, very least deserves that knowledge.
Approximately 2000 fine people showed up over the weekend to protest outside of the Providence Road Baptist Church, the North Carolina idiot sanctuaryplace of worship where Pastor Charles Worley told his flock that “queers and homosexuals” should be rounded up and put into a concentration camp until they “died off.”
Worley has defiantly refused to apologize for his statements despite the outrage from gay rights and anti-hate groups after his May 13 rant became a viral video sensation. He was given a standing ovation by his low IQ church members when he took to the pulpit on Sunday, the Hickory Record reports:
“I appreciate all the support,” Pastor Charles Worley told the 100 or so congregants at Providence Road Baptist Church in Maiden, N.C. on Sunday, according to the Record. Several members stood and spoke out; others threw up their hands in support of their pastor. “I’ve got a King James Bible,” Worley said, according to the Record. “I’ve been a preacher for 53 years. Do you think I’m going to bail out on this?”
Not a chance, this is the most attention this small-minded cretin has ever had! He’s in this FTW.
The protestors came out in force to bring a message of love and acceptance. Their signs bore bold statements like, “Jesus had 2 dads and he turned out just fine.” And “I am a gay, moral, conservative Christian.”
Sheriff’s deputies and Newton police officers kept the peace as the protestors stood by the side of the road and cheered every time a car drove past and honked in approval.
A vocal group of more than 50 counter-protestors were on hand to support Worley and his church. They too had signs with slogans like, “Sodomites are vile, unnatural and worthy of death. Romans 1:21-32.” And “Gay pride is why Sodom got fried.”
The protest’s organizer explained her goals for the event. “Hopefully our protest today will send a message that we, as a community, as a state and as a country, will not stand in the background in silent acceptance,” said Catawba Valley Citizens Against Hate member Laura Tipton. “This protest has grown beyond Pastor Worley. I hope his congregation sees that we are gathering in love. Their messages are wrong, and we will not accept them.”
Looks like North Carolina’s got itself a homegrown version of the Westboro Baptist Church just in time for the DNC convention this Summer. Not that this is anything to brag about, of course. However, with the WBC, there’s that whole inbred family brainwashing thang going on, too, not that that’s an excuse, rather it’s a factor that the folks in NC just don’t have in their favor, if you take my point!
Protesters played guitars and sang “Jesus Loves the Little Children” to drown out shitheads like Rev. Billy Ball, who had traveled from Primrose, GA to support Worley:
“We want to convince them that what God says is the truth. The preachers that hate these people are at home – we’re the ones that love them because we’re out here telling them the truth.”
Ya got that, gay America? They hate you in love.
Jeremiah Davidson of Atlanta came out to support Worley as well. His main goal was to address what he felt was an attempt to curtail Worley’s right to free speech.
“We’re trying to stand up against censorship and totalitarianism,” he said. “I’m here for free speech and the gospel of Christ – I’ll know I’ve been successful because I’ve done the will of God.”
*Points and laughs* Well fuck, what else can you do when confronted with a level of hysteria and ignorance not seen since the Salem witch-burnings? The fact that these people, Worley and his mouth-breathing congregation, can be counted on to VOTE in every election (and vote a straight Republican ticket, natch) is alarming, don’t you think? Just how big is the reliable reichwing voting bloc of complete fuckwits in America today, I wonder? I don’t want people like this to have ANY influence on my life, how about you? It’s truly frightening to contemplate human beings who are this fucking stupid.
We’re so close to living in Idiocracynow that it’s ceased to be funny to point that out…
Pastor Charles Worley is the dumbshit dipsy doodle-bug old Christian guy who called for “lesbians and queers”—millions and millions of them, apparently—to be penned up inside electric fences until they all die. A videotape of Worley’s words have become a viral sensation on YouTube, making the pastor a laughingstock the world over. Now some of the members of Worley’s Providence Road Baptist Church in North Carolina are speaking out in the old coot’s defense. Via Raw Story:
Geneva Sims told WCNC that she had been listening to Pastor Charles Worley’s sermon’s since the 1970s and agrees with the message.
“He had every right to say what he said about putting them in a pen and giving them food,” Sims explained. “The Bible says they are worthy of death. He is preaching God’s word.”
Church member Stacey Pritchard agreed that Worley was just speaking the truth.
“Sometimes you’ve got to be scared straight,” she said. “He is trying to save those people from Hell.”
So says a woman who listens to hate speech every Sunday and mistakes it for religion!
In a sense, though, as appalling and moronic and as totally idiotic as Worley and his minions are, they are, IN FACT, “doing the Lord’s work” as Faith in America Executive Director Brent Childers told WCNC:
“When [LGBT youth] see this type of rhetoric coming from a so-called Christian pastor, they aren’t going to want anything to do with the church—now or in the future. If you defend this pastor’s comments, you are mocking God’s love, God’s understanding and God’s knowledge.”
Whether they realize it or not—and clearly they are not bright enough to have noticed—these bigoted, buffoonish Christianist pukes, like the Westboro Baptist Church before them, are only furthering their enemies’ cause.
On a blog post that’s been shared tens of thousands of times in the past few days, Rachel Held Evans, author of A Year of Biblical Womanhood writes of how Christianist haters like Tony Perkins, Maggie Gallagher and Bryan Fischer are forcing younger Christians to chose between their gay friends and their religion.
When asked by The Barna Group what words or phrases best describe Christianity, the top response among Americans ages 16-29 was “antihomosexual.” For a staggering 91 percent of non-Christians, this was the first word that came to their mind when asked about the Christian faith. The same was true for 80 percent of young churchgoers. (The next most common negative images? : “judgmental,” “hypocritical,” and “too involved in politics.”)
In the book that documents these findings, titled unChristian, David Kinnaman writes: “The gay issue has become the ‘big one,’ the negative image most likely to be intertwined with Christianity’s reputation. It is also the dimensions that most clearly demonstrates the unchristian faith to young people today, surfacing in a spate of negative perceptions: judgmental, bigoted, sheltered, right-wingers, hypocritical, insincere, and uncaring. Outsiders say [Christian] hostility toward gays… has become virtually synonymous with the Christian faith.”
Later research, documented in Kinnaman’s You Lost Me, reveals that one of the top reasons 59 percent of young adults with a Christian background have left the church is because they perceive the church to be too exclusive, particularly regarding their LGBT friends. Eight million twenty-somethings have left the church, and this is one reason why.
Rachel Held Evans has closed comments on her essay, writing “I want to keep this a safe place for conversation.”
You won’t wonder why after you’ve read the responses from some of her supposedly Christian readers…
If you saw the video that made the rounds recently of the homophobic buffoon yelling stupid shit at Rosie O’Donnell as she left the Super Bowl, “James the Preacher,” as that fuckhead refers to himself, is back and trying to hitch his bigoted wagon to O’Donnell’s celebrity. Again. How desperate for attention can you get? Yelling abuse at someone on the street, videotaping it, posting it on YouTune and THEN a month later going back in for a second attempt at 15 milliseconds of “fame?? That is just fucking pathetic.
During the original encounter, O’Donnell naturally got the better of this witless goon, but now “James the Preacher” is doubling down on the dumb and has posted a YouTube video “apologizing” for not rebuking O’Donnell using “more aggressive words.”
I invite you to point and laugh at an idiot. Ladies and gentlemen, “James the Preacher,” a sad little loser who is a representative of a God who “doesn’t love everybody” and who (repeatedly) refers to his critics as “effeminate” as he spits all over his computer screen. Glory be to the Highest!:
In case you missed it, some fantastic reporting from The Rachel Maddow Show (by way of Right Wing Watch) on Rick Perry’s wingnut Woodstock, “The Response.”
What will future people think of this era? (Provided of course, these crazy assholes don’t kill us all first)
