And in the midst of me being disgusted...

Sometimes, without even meaning to, people say exactly what you need to hear. For instance, last semester I was in the middle of trying to finish a massive group research project, and one of the other girls in the group had gone AWOL with a third of the paper. I e-mailed the priest of a local Orthodox church, who I had interviewed earlier to clarify a point. I didn't mention the problems with the group. He ended his e-mail with "forgive." It was what I needed to hear at the time, and something I need to hear of a more frenquent basis.

To follow up last nights rant about why I don't call myself a Christian, I want to share a blogpost that was just what I needed to hear. Religion is a Queer Thing: Why we do what we do. Good news about Christians.

The fallen are the virtuous among us . . . Walk among us.

" So I'm sorry if I ever resisted
I never had a doubt that you ever existed
I only have a problem when people insist on
Taking their hate and placing it on your name"
Franz Ferdinand, 'The Fallen'

I was talking to my mother earlier this evening about how I wanted to get out of the South. I'm sick of dealing with the South's bullshit. Time for a change of BS. I think what drives me up the wall the most is the amount of religious self-righteousness in the South's BS.

Yeah, I know there are freaky fundies everywhere. Hell, the cult branch of the CofC is referred to as the Boston movement. There just seems to be quite the concentration of people who are convinced that they somehow have an exclusive backstage pass to the mind of God.

I'm constantly thinking of the one Gandhi quote, "I like their Christ, I don't their Christians." But then, I don't like their Christ. Moving to William Blake, "The vision of Christ that thou dost see, is mine vision's greatest enemy." I'm really tired of folk claiming exclusive rights to Christ, and then using Christ to oppress other people. The Jesus of the Gospels, who still must be distinguished from the eternal Christ, is -- as best I can tell -- a liberator of humankind. I like the guy.

I was raised as a Christian. I study Christian theology. I get excited at the prospect of buying Christian iconography. But I don't really think of myself as a Christian. Why? I think it's because I was surrounded for so long by people who used Christ as an excuse to push their prejudices and intolerance. I don't want to be associated with the people who loudly claim the name "Christian."

My senior year of high school a couple of the men at the CofC my family attends started promoting the One Million Dads campaign during the announcements for a class. They also left a bunch of print outs listing companies that should be boycotted for employing, insuring, or treating gay people like humans. I picked up all the flyers and threw them away. I'm not repentant, as I did nothing wrong. The church of Christ (note the use of the small "c" in church) is not a place to push an agenda that advocates discrimination. (Note: I said discrimination. A church can preach that homosexual practices are a sin until they are blue in the face, but that's different from using the pulpit to promote treating someone as less than human based on sin.)

I've a new pet peeve -- Biblical literalists who don't know their Bible. I'm not going to claim that I, when I argue using the Bible as a base, don't operate with a canon within a canon. I will happily privilege Galatians 3:28 and Jesus's treatment of women over the Pauline or pseudo-Pauline injunctions of silence. And I'm unrepentant. But I know that I'm doing it, and I don't claim to be a Biblical literalist.

It annoys me when people insist that something is there when it isn't. Or insist that a translation is somehow more correct than original language, because a part of their theology is based in a translation. Or when they project Milton's Paradise Lost onto Revelation. Or insist that the Bible speaks with one voice. Dammit, folks, read closely if you're going to read at all!

But basically, I'm sick of dealing with them. I'm sick of dealing with people who feel they have a divine right to rule over me. I'm sick of people who place their faith in cardboard cutouts rather than in dynamic divinity. I'm sick of listening to people try to claim that there is no problem of suffering. I'm sick of seeing oversized crosses and perverted statues of liberty go up while children are abused by ministers and people starve in the city.

And then I have a sick fascination with them.

And who do you say I am?

James Cameron has made a documentary about a tomb which he thinks belongs to Jesus.

Apparently, after making The Titanic, you should go make a documentary on how someone found a tomb and thinks that its the tomb of Jesus Christ where he was buried with Mary Magdalene and his son. Whose name was Judah. I could play with this further and suggest that J.C. named his kid after his good friend Judas who was the only apostle with enough guts to make sure he was killed as a sacrifice allowing vicarious atonement and all that jazz. Yes, I finished the Last Temptation of Christ the other night.

Seriously, I don't understand the big deal that surrounds "ossuaries" that might have belonged to Jesus. What's the big deal?

Lets look at it this way. Modern Christian beliefs have little, if anything, to do with the historical Jesus. To quote one of my professors, "we don't know shit about Jesus." It doesn't matter if Jesus rose from the dead. It doesn't matter if he was married to Mary Magdalene. Hell, it doesn't matter if he and Judas were, like, totally gay for each other. (If you get a chance, go see Corpus Christi. It's awesome!) We can't know any of those. We can have faith that any given statement about J.C. is true, but faith and knowledge are different things.

Basically, it isn't going to change anything about Christianity if, after being raised from the dead, Jesus decided to stick around and father kids with a lovely lady formerly possessed by demons. (If that's even the Mary referenced on the ossuary. There's also Mary of Bethany and some other Mary running around through the gospel.) Why? Because faith is rarely built in fact. People will believe what they want to believe. Like all the evangelical protestants who are convinced somehow that the word in Isaiah in Hebrew can only mean virgin.

And me. Well, I look at all this as proof that J.C. has one hell of a sense of humor! And if you're looking for proof of God in a tomb, honey, you're looking in the wrong place.

Another reason why Focus on the Family is not just annoying, but dangerous.

And to borrow from Twisty Faster. Men hate you.

The following quote is from the article "Six Lies about Six" which was published in Breakaway. This is a magazine Focus of the Family intends for teenage boys.

When she says “no” she means “yes.”

The danger of this lie is that it contains a big chunk of truth.

Just like you, girls are created to enjoy intimacy. They have sexual desires. Often they will express those desires by saying no, when they really want to say, “Keep it up, but don’t go too fast. I like to be turned on slowly.” That’s all true, inside of marriage or out. Girls like the buildup as much as guys like the finale.

The lie is exposed when we think of the Person living inside that girl – assuming she’s a believer in Jesus, like you. As believers, you both have Jesus residing within (Galatians 2:20). So while you’re sitting in that cozy room with the love seat, her “no” really means “no” because it reflects the whisperings of Jesus in her soul.

What does Jesus say on the subject of sex before marriage? “Flee!” (1 Corinthians 6:18). Regardless what your body tells you—or hers, for that matter—Jesus’ voice is the one you should be listening to. He’ll consistently say “no,” and his no never means yes.

His is the voice of reason, and Jesus always says what He means.

No. No. NO. When SHE say NO. She means NO. STOP. QUIT. She doesn't mean: Jesus, wants us to stop. She means: I want you to stop. NOW. Her no meaning no has nothing to do with Jesus. It has everything to do with her saying no.

What they are really saying here is that the words of women don't mean anything. Once again, we are told we have no right to speak. Boys don't have to listen to a girl telling them "NO" because she doesn't matter. They only have to listen to some balding, white male's version of Jesus that as best as I can tell bears no resemblence to any Jesus of the gospels, probably none to the historical Jesus, and I pray no resemblence at all the actual Christ. What the hell kind of magazine thinks that it's a good idea to tell teenage boys that when a girl says no, she really only wants more foreplay? I guess one that sees women as whores or madonnas. Liars and tricksters. Certainly not as human beings.

But now my morbid fascination is up and running. I must go find how many other creative ways Focus on the Family has to teach teenage boys that girls aren't people too.

Diet Pepsi doesn't taste like Diet Coke

But the rest of this post has to do with music and beautiful boys.

I finally received the CDs I ordered from Amazon. The Dresden Dolls, Dresden Dolls. Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have It So Much Better. And 30 Seconds to Mars, A Beautiful Lie. While the Dresden Dolls are beyond awesome and Amanda Palmer is one of my new heros in life, the rest of this post won'te be about them.

I have to confess, one of the main reasons I ever gave 30 Seconds to Mars a chance is because Jared Leto is a beautiful, beautiful creature. A listen and a half through a A Beautiful Lie, I am happy to report that he sings quite nicely and 30 Seconds to Mars as convinced me that they are probably indeed more than a run of the mill emoesque band.

I'm not however quite as in love with 30 Seconds to Mars as I am with a Russian group. I was listening to Наше Радио online a month or so ago and heard this absolutely beautiful song, and low and behold I could understand the lyrics in the chorus well enought to scribble it down on a piece of paper. I wanted more! Several failed google runs and a trip to the LJ Learn Russian community, and I had the name of the group. Провода doesn't appear to have released an album yet (I could be wrong, I haven't felt like spending the amount of quality time with my Russian-English dictionary that I would need to translate all the news on their site.), but that's okay, because they are streaming their music on their site. And it's good stuff. Good in the way that has me dancing and singing lyrics I don't understand for the most part in the college computer lab.

So what does that have to do with beautiful boys. Well, since I'm a first-class geek, I also found myself at youtube pulling up Provoda videos. The lead singer, Tim, is a handsome young thing. As proof I embed this video, which I can't decide if I like or am throughly distrubed by, what with young women in black body paint wandering about.



Pretty, no?

So anyway, while I'm feeling guilty about ordering the 30 Seconds to Mars album mostly because I like Jared Leto's face, I realize that he and Tim look a lot alike. Then I realized that Alexander Kapranos, from Franz Ferdinand, also rather closely resembles both the other guys.

So, apparently, the best way to get me to buy a CD is to have a lead singer with certain facial type. High cheekbones, rather round eyes. (Yeah, my powers of description could use a bit of work.) Either that or have a monopoly on awesome, like the Dresden Dolls.

Oh, and Franz Ferdinand's video for "Walk Away" is all kinds of awesome. Yes, I know I'm a year or so behind the rest of the world.

Tennessee Equality Project -- Delightfully Crafty!

A year or two ago, we in Tennessee had an interesting political debacle over "Choose Life" license plates, which function in part as a fundraiser for an anti-abortion group. I actually haven't seen that many in my criss-crossing of the Western part of the state but that's beside the point. Apparently, most Tennesseans prefer a two dollar bumper sticker to a $35 dollar license tag. At any rate, the State defending itself against charges that it was violating the separation of church and state because if a pro-abortion group, or any other group, wanted a license plate they could petition for one. Or something like that.

Anyway, a bill has been introduced to establish a license plate for the Tennessee Equality Project, which is a non-profit that works to protect GLBT people in the state of Tennessee. It's a beautiful tactic. TEP does a wonderful job at tailoring their approach to the culture of Tennessee. They avoid an "in your face" confrontation (Which I'm sorry to report would probably only lead to violence in a lot of places in TN.) in favor of more subtle and very dignified appeals to values, like oh say, equality and justice. And despite the massive setback of the passage of the marriage ammendment in the past election, they're keeping up the fight.
And introducing a bill for a license plate is a brilliant way to proceed! The low-key design -- just an equal design and Tennessee Equality Project -- cuts through the layer of cultural and religious propanganda, dare I say BS, to the basic issue of equal treatment under the law for all people. See, I don't think like this. My gut instinct is to grab people by the throat, cut to the chase, and argue with them. Incidentally, I have found that this doesn't work well. Which is part of the reason I'm so impressed the longsuffering folks running the TEP.

Anyway, it will be rather difficult for the state legislature to refuse them given the existence of the "Choose Life" plate and the debate will raise the profile of the TEP and provide and opportunity to educate and maybe even convince a few people of the need for justice and equality for everyone. Wendi Thomas analyzes this far better than I can because she's brilliant.

What is the US government doing?

According to this article from today's Washington Post, the United States is putting returning injured and disabled soldiers up in decaying building, with mold in the walls and mice and rats, when they return from Afghanistan or Iraq and are released to outpatient status. Then, of course, there is lost paperwork, lost records, people having to bring in photos of themselves in Iraq to prove that they were there because somewhere in the bureacracy that fact managed to get lost. Staff who try to improve conditions being unable to because of the bureaucrats involved. Families that are running out of money.

What the hell? Just what the hell?