Get Ready To Be Offended

Writing this blog can have something of a numbing effect. Sure, Fred Phelps still has the ability to shock, but most of these guys are pretty predictable in their statements at this point. A neo-Nazi refers to black children as ‘niglets”. Yawn. Some lefty calls for the murder of random police officers. Heard it before. In a way, I’m glad when people like Donald Wildmon (head of the Christian supremacist American Family Association [AFA]) manage to actually get a rise out of me. It means I still haven’t been completely desensitized to bizarre and repugnant political statements. The offending piece in this case is a short video feature entitled “The Day They Kicked God Out Of The Schools”. It is available for sale (for a “suggested donation” of $5) on the AFA website. The clip (viewable here) places the blame for the recent massacre in Virginia along with other school shootings on several factors including:

1. The banning of official prayers in public schools.

2. Dr. Spock

3. President Clinton.

4. Safe sex education.

5. Child pornography (?).

Of course, this is all complete nonsense. Seung-Hui Cho was suffering from severe mental illness of an unknown nature (although autism has been mentioned as a possibility). At least one of the shooters involved in the Columbine massacre was a sociopath, another form of recognized mental illness. Mental illnesses are sometimes environmentally based, but most often spring from genetic causes. No amount of school-enforced prayer would have likely dissuaded Cho from engaging in his rampage. And I really doubt that presidential adultery, child pornography, condoms, or a lack of parental discipline really had any effect on his state of mind during the shooting. What really pisses me off about this is the fact that Wildmon and others like him are willing to use any tragedy in this country as fodder for their call to turn the U.S. into an officially Christian state.