T is for Tiger

Today: Atmosphere Rainy, Outlook Sunny. Also, fuck ‘Christianity.’

It’s a dreary day in New York. Not too cold, though this kind of drenching drizzle that makes you feel like it’s against you. I’m kind of impervious, though, even without an umbrella. In the 2 months since I’ve been home, I’ve instituted some changes that are improving my life, my career and my relationships. I really kind of do feel like a superhero (See below). 2 Months—and a good portion of that was taken up by holiday nonsense.

So, where to go now?

1. New Haven, CT: I must visit Evan and fix my computer.

2. Memphis, TN: I must audition for UPTA’s and get great job offers for the summer, which I may not take—but still, I must audition to get my face and such out there.

This is in the next 2 weeks.

In other news: I’ve been reading a lot of things lately that have pissed me off about the religious right in this country. As you may have been able to guess from my recent flame-blog on the spike I received because of the Pepsi-can nonsense, I’m kind of just fed-up with the rhetoric of hate and entitlement that I hear almost daily from people who think they’re the center of the world. These people call themselves Christians.

And they’re not. (Not the center of the world, and not true Christians)

Let’s look at ‘Christianity’ as it stands today in the US. We’re talking about an astronomically huge number of people who identify as some kind of Christian, though there is very little that links them all together, yet the louder, more crazy ones are always acting like they’re speaking for everyone. Now, not to do the same thing, when I’m writing about ‘Christians,’ those are the people I’m writing about. Not my best friend who I grew up with who identifies as Catholic, or the countless people whose faith is a personal thing. I’m talking about the evolution fearing, abortion doctor murdering, crazy Santorum/Frist Christians. In this country the ‘Christians’ are always trying to act like everyone should be just like them. They pull influence with politicians who are either afraid of their constituency or fickle voting records, or (as is increasingly the case) actually one of them. It makes me feel more disenfranchised than if I wasn’t allowed to vote.

They act all up in arms about terrorism, and appalled at the restrictive governments of other countries, but as history and even the present shows, Christianity as a political institution is all about terrorism and restrictive government. Straight up. I’m through beating around the bush on this issue. They spread fear and horror, attempting to get a government and educational system not unlike the dark ages, and if that doesn’t work (and we’ve seen this time and again throughout history) they start killing people.

We see it presently in the bloody mission to convert the Muslim world into a good god-fearing democracy--well, our perverted brand of it, at least. (Just wait until that shit blows up in our face. Iran is going to call a fatwa on the US after it tries its hand at Israel, and all of this ‘we just want them to have the right to vote’ shit will be gone and they’ll just start talking shit about the religion itself, like first weeks after September 11th—mark my words) And then, on the other side of the continent, the president goes to China and talks about human rights and the only thing he really makes a sticking point is that Christians over there aren’t being let practice what they want.

Maybe you should talk about how people over there being murdered, George. Sure, Christians in China have religious restrictions, but really only on paper—it is well known, even IN mainland China that the Catholic church of the PRC is in not-so-secret meetings with the Vatican—they receive words from the pope on a regular basis. Yet, there are tens of thousands of people living in political prisons (which I have seen), and annually as many as 10,000 people killed in capital, political or secret punishment, and what does our country do? We make sure that their emerging middle class can go to church, while others suffer a 90-hour week making Timberland down coats at 20 cents an hour--let completely alone the fact that there are plenty of other religions that are literally tortured as political dissidents in what Amnesty international says ”infringe[s] on key fundamental rights protected by the ICCPR (the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights).”

I’m not against people worshiping whatever Deity-on-a-stick they want. Really! But if they are going to keep asking me to keep who I sleep with behind closed doors, they should at least be so kind as to do the same with their faith.

And keep it the fuck out of the government, too, by the way.