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| And to think I'm Pro-Choice. |
So I’m driving in a mini-blizzard the other night, and my headlights shine on the following bumper sticker up ahead:
A cartoon-version Virgin cradling Child with a big star behind them. All red and green and gold. And these words: If Mary had been Pro-Choice, Christmas wouldn’t exist.
Holy Mother of God. What? What? Raise your hand if you see the fallacy in that statement. Anyone? Anyone? I get so wound up over crazy, assbackwards thinking like that I could spit stainless steel surgical staplesssssss.
So the driver of that car, who, by the way, was slogging along like a four-hundred-year-old who should have officially retired her license in, like, the late 1600’s at the very fucking latest, BELIEVES that if Mary had been Pro-Choice that she would automatically have aborted her baby? Jesus Christ! What kind of twistfuck is that? You know, Mary might still have wanted to give birth to the Savior of the freaking world if given a choice, AND she may also have had a friend who was knocked up from some Philistine, and she might just have supported that friend’s decision to choose not to have the enemy’s bastard child. Or not. Just sayin’.
And as if that bumper sticker weren’t enough to turn my entire blood supply into a frothy, pink mess, the very next day I almost rear-ended this gem of Christian love and acceptance: TRUE Christians are PRO-LIFE. I actually sped up with the full intention of wiping that stupidity off the rust heap to which it was attached. Fortunately, I have more sense than the pre-tard[1] driving the thing. I don’t want to go to jail, and it sure as hell isn’t worth smashing up my hubby’s Subaru just because some people are dumber than a box of gnu nuts. But, are you fucking kidding me? Who gets to say that I am not a true believer in Christ just because I don’t think abortion should be illegal? I’m not standing on some Mount proclaiming that all preggers should rush to the nearest abortionist to have those unwanted fetii sucked out. Pro-Choice people are not advocating that EVERYONE should have abortions. But that’s exactly what strict Pro-Lifers would have you believe.
The world just is not that BLACK and WHITE. Just because you are Pro-Choice does NOT mean that you are not also Pro-Life. You can fucking be both. Damn. Pro-Choice means that I don’t get to decide what is right for YOU. Or YOU. Or YOU. And, gosh, I even agree with the Pro-Lifers on a tiny part of one of their points: I don’t necessarily want my tax dollars to be spent on abortion-as-birth-control for some drug-addled dumbass who just doesn’t have the energy or brain cells to keep from getting pregnant in the fifth place. But my tax dollars are spent on so much shit I don’t even know about and probably hate anyway. Our government buries untold amounts of crap on which to spend our gazillions in taxes in the tiny print of big bills so that when those pass, our loyal representatives are signing us up to fund unwittingly some guy who took a picture of a dude pissing on a Crucifix in a toilet and called it art. Yeah. Piss Christ it was called. Masterpiece, my ass.
The world just is not that BLACK and WHITE. Just because you are Pro-Choice does NOT mean that you are not also Pro-Life. You can fucking be both. Damn. Pro-Choice means that I don’t get to decide what is right for YOU. Or YOU. Or YOU. And, gosh, I even agree with the Pro-Lifers on a tiny part of one of their points: I don’t necessarily want my tax dollars to be spent on abortion-as-birth-control for some drug-addled dumbass who just doesn’t have the energy or brain cells to keep from getting pregnant in the fifth place. But my tax dollars are spent on so much shit I don’t even know about and probably hate anyway. Our government buries untold amounts of crap on which to spend our gazillions in taxes in the tiny print of big bills so that when those pass, our loyal representatives are signing us up to fund unwittingly some guy who took a picture of a dude pissing on a Crucifix in a toilet and called it art. Yeah. Piss Christ it was called. Masterpiece, my ass.
You don’t see Christ going around judging people. He forgave EVERYBODY. Even the guy who pissed on Him in the john. Okay. I think we can all agree that murder is wrong most of the time except for when it comes to idiots with stupidass bumper stickers, so I get that there has to be some judgment in order to keep the order. But just because I don’t think like you think, or love what you love, or hate races or creeds or sexual orientations you hate, or condemn those you condemn does NOT make me wrong. Or you right. So for Christ’s sake, quit showing your complete and utter lunacy on the tail end of your car.
I now have a new term in my ever expanding vocabulary...pre-tard. There are many who qualify for this...
ReplyDeleteSo true, so true! We have some mutual pre-tard acquaintances!!
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ReplyDeleteYou’re certainly on the right track here, Bloggurl (as always).
ReplyDeleteIn the matter of Bumper Stickers, I feel very little tolerance for those who insist on exposing me to their infantile, simplistic, and naïve expressions of “thought” (using the term very loosely) on subjects far and wide (religious, political, dietary, social, and so on). I am reminded of the cliché about “wearing your heart on your sleeve.” Nobody wants to see what you're selling. If you feel so passionately about your thoughts and feelings, friend, that’s great. But please, keep them to yourself! Remember: just because you insist on “advertising” them “for all the world to see,” the world doesn’t necessarily want to be confronted by them daily. Just like no one wants to live downwind of a hog farm. As Abraham Lincoln said, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt."
Like the punk who believes his music (which it never actually is, of course) is wonderful enough that it’s OKAY to play it in his car at full volume with all windows open as he drives through town! It’s not okay. In fact, it’s rude. And, like his baggy pants, this individual’s preference for ADVERTISING his stupidity and absence of common sense or social grace simply offends me (plus, the loud noise is really aggravating, because I must listen to the crap). Okay, so you want to show the world how “cool” you are, and what a “renegade” and “bad dude”? Well, your behavior is none of those; it just demonstrates (like those pants) what a moron you really are. So stop it!
Now, in the matter of religion, I’ll add these reflections too: obviously none of these bumper-stickered car owners do much reading (or, honestly, much thinking) about ideas advanced by the likes of Jefferson, Emerson, Twain, Einstein, and others, whose constant theme on this subject is that there is no greater OBSTACLE than religion to the direct experience of God. They all say it: every religion, through its codification of rules and values and symbols and imagined “histories,” is guilty of creating an impenetrable barrier to direct spiritual connection with the divine. Besides, in those religions’ collective name, just look at all the mayhem and misery that have been created over the centuries “in the name of God.” Yikes. Not to mention, of course, these institutions’ brainwashing of its membership! And we’re astonished by the Jonestown massacre? We shouldn’t be. Galileo observed, "I do not feel obliged to believe that same God who endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect had intended for us to forgo their use."
Susan B. Anthony wrote, "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires"; and Mark Twain concurred: "In religion and politics, people's beliefs and convictions are in almost every case gotten at second-hand, and without examination."
My favorite observation on this topic comes from Thomas Paine (remember him, from high school?): “Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst."
Think about it, sports fans.
Hess