Yep, it’s that bad.
Alternate, smaller version with more visible text, if you want to use the image (with proper credit and backlinking, please):
Posts Tagged ‘god’
State of Protest – The Comic – 019 – Values Voter Summit Edition
Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Constitutional Double Standard at Values Voter Summit Just Begging to be Attacked
Monday, September 21st, 2009At the now infamous Values Voter Summit, Representative Mike Pence, (R) Indiana, had this to say about Obama’s terrible czars:1 (emphasis mine)
You know I do think members of Congress should be required to read bills. But I gotta tell you, I’d be just about as happy if more of ‘em read this (holds up Constitution) a little more often. The Constitution of the United States of America… And nowhere in here can I find the word “czar” (laughter)… Washington DC must become a “no-czar zone” starting here and starting now.2
I’d like to know why I have yet to hear a left-wing pundit thoroughly bash the right-wing, God-fearing, “family values”-hyping, prayer in school and ten commandments on the courthouse-promoting, hypocritical conservatives by offering up an equally valid alternative for Mr. Pence:
You know I do think members of Congress should be required to read bills. But I gotta tell you, I’d be just about as happy if more of ‘em read this (holds up Constitution) a little more often. The Constitution of the United States of America… And nowhere in here can I find the word “God” (laughter)… Washington DC must become a “no-God zone” starting here and starting now.
This is for you, Rachel Maddow. You missed a great opportunity to justify and promote the effort to remove “God” from the Pledge, from money, from public schools, and from the walls of our court houses. I’m not saying that you don’t agree, but when you covered the summit and then the “Why should God bless America?” attack against non-religiousness,3 Mike Pence’s blatant double standard was just begging to be addressed.
Maybe next time!
- See transcripts at The Cloakroom. [<]
- 1:35 in the video [<]
- 4:35 in the video [<]
Kids Forced to Swear to God to Obtain US Citizenship
Friday, September 4th, 2009What’s wrong with this picture?
This is a photo taken at a Children’s U.S. Citizenship Ceremony in Mount Vernon yesterday. Fifty-eight children from 26 different countries all recited the “children’s oath of allegiance” after reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.1
I might be missing something, but why the FUCK are these kids swearing allegiance to God in order to obtain their U.S. citizenship?
According to the CNS article, “The ceremony was marked by references to the wisdom of the Founding Fathers, the freedoms guaranteed citizens by the Constitution, and acknowledgment of God’s role in the nation’s traditions.”2
The countries represented at the ceremony included Iran, China, Bolivia, Cambodia, Canada, Columbia, Cuba, Egypt, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, India, Kenya, Korea, Lebanon, Mexico, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Philippines, Sierra Leone, Turkey, United Arab Emirates and Vietnam.
Good thing these kids all come from God-fearing Christian countries, eh? Wouldn’t want them to be sneaking in any cultural or religious diversity, let alone, God forbid, non-religion.
This is child abuse.
- Mount Vernon Press Room; and see Washington Post article [<]
- CNS News. Correction: I mistakenly cited this as “CBS” news in the article. It has been corrected. More sources include ABC 7 News, Washington Post [<]
Obama finds hidden reference to God in the Constitution
Friday, August 21st, 2009WASHINGTON DC — During President Obama’s conference call with dozens of faith leaders that provoked a 40-day campaign of religious activism in the form of prayer vigils, advertising, and more, the President revealed that he had uncovered undeniable proof that the nation’s founders intended to invoke the Christian god (“God”) in the U.S. Constitution.1
“It was a clerical manipulation intended to be found at the right moment,” said Obama of the Constitutional reference to God. “Just like ancient manuscripts were copied and recopied throughout the ages, creating and perpetuating early translation and other mistakes while hiding key messages from early religious leaders. The Declaration of Independence, for instance, was drafted and redrafted, and we actually put on display differing copies of what we think is the same document, and it is full of Masonic and other mysterious code.”2
Obama told the religious leaders that “I am my brother’s keeper,” referring to the biblical passage from Genesis where God asks Cain where his brother Abel was,3 and Cain replies, “I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?”4
Obama insisted that passing health care reform was a biblical mandate, a moral and ethical obligation established by God. Some critics have chided Obama’s decision to invoke the Christian god, but Obama was adamant that the Constitution clearly established the government as a Christian nation. When asked to clarify, Obama pulled his personal, redlined copy of the Constitution from his desk drawer and showed it to reporters attending the conference.
Upon viewing Obama’s copy, the religious experts on hand agreed that Obama had successfully spotted the name of God (Yahweh) spelled out clearly in the Constitution.
Compare for yourself:
(Obama’s redlined copy)
(an unedited copy)5
(the Hebrew for Yahweh)
“Despite the fact that the language of the pre-God Constitution not only justifies, but also requires the U.S. government to reform health care for the welfare of America’s citizens,” Obama continued, “the biblical god, by way of the Constitution, demands it, so we must follow accordingly. Without our faith, this couldn’t be accomplished.”
A small minority of opponents still argue that prayer and religion have no place in government meetings, but Obama’s administration is well on its way to homogenizing the American religious point of view.
Up to this point, no one had been able to successfully find a pro-religious reference in the Constitution, and religious leaders worldwide have expressed their relief that the United States is finally falling into place among its fellow theocracies.
- Seriously, he more or less did. [<]
- This is absolutely true. See My Inalienably Unalienable Rights and Masonic signers. [<]
- Obviously a rhetorical question, since an omniscient being would already know the answer. [<]
- See Cain & Abel [<]
- I think it’s obvious from the intentionally drawn strong lines of “WE THE” compared to the rest of the Constitution that the author was trying to capture the attention of someone who would recognize how closely it and the Hebrew were matched. [<]
DNA Sculpture is “Vile and Offensive”
Monday, July 27th, 2009NOTE: If you are 1 ) easily offended, 2 ) mentally challenged, 3 ) humor challenged, 4 ) challenged, 5 ) boring, 6 ) righteous, 7 ) myopic, 8 ) gullible, 9 ) boring, or 10 ) an anal-retentive omniscient non-existent being, then please read THIS either now or at minimum after you’ve read the following.
DNA Sculpture exhibit at UC Berkeley playground turning heads, sparking complaints1
2
PTA president asks school’s parents to file complaints with the county
By Richard Vernon, P.O.E.
State of Protest
July 27, 2009
EAST BERKELEY – Think of Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man . . . zoomed in to an ungodly scale.
The large, plastic and metallic sculpture parked outside UC Berkeley’s Lawrence Hall of Science, is stoking the angry fires of parents of children who attend nearby Claremont Park Elementary School.
“My daughter suggested that it was funny,” said John Copeland, whose 7-year-old daughter attends summer camp there. “She shouldn’t be talking to me about this. Now I’m forced to explain genetics to her, and why the Bible doesn’t say anything about it.”
The genetically correct structure is part of an ongoing exhibit titled “DNA Sculpture,” created by acclaimed artist Ashe Kutchya, which represents “genetic material from an enzyme,” according to Lawrence Hall of Science’s website.
It depicts a DNA double helix — two congruent helices with the same axis, differing by a translation along the axis. The structure is larger than life, and elongated. Its genetic analogy to human life is subtle.
“It’s a piercing piece, quite abstract,” said Francis Pegro, the groundskeeper in charge of maintaining the sculpture as well as other displays in the playground. “It’s honest and natural.”
Pegro said he’s received some complaints, but also praise.
Although DNA Sculpture has been on display in various public parks and playgrounds, Jenny Garrotte, Claremont Park PTA president, said she found it distasteful and verging on obscene, and e-mailed parents Wednesday morning, asking them to file complaints with Pegro and with Alameda County Code Enforcement.
“Everybody is entitled to their own opinion regarding what art is,” said Garrotte. “If this piece weren’t visible to passersby and available for children to play on, I would not have a problem with it.”
Still, Terence Lythma, a teacher in the school’s summer program, said he has not heard any of the children talking about the piece.
“It’s the parents who have been talking about it,” he said. “The children don’t really make an issue of it.”
Kutchya, the creator of DNA Sculpture, could not be reached for comment despite attempts by phone. But it’s not the first time his sculptures have drawn public scrutiny. In 1996, the Oakland City Council made him modify the depiction of DNA so that it matched a dog’s DNA structure rather than a human’s until public pressure and national attention reversed the city officials’ position. He later reverted the structure to depict human DNA.
In 2006, The Ovum, a sculpture of a human unfertilized egg by Sonoma-area artist Nabry Gussom and installed at the Petaluma Community Center, generated complaints over its super-realistic undulations and dampness.
“It’s awful that people react to art in this manner,” said Amy Boswin, director of the Novato Ignacio Art Gallery near Petaluma. “If they opened a biology textbook, they’d see a lot more risqué stuff than that.”
Meanwhile, Copeland said he hopes the owner of the plaza removes the sculpture before school starts next month.
“There are 1000 kids in the school that are going to be exposed to it,” he said. “It’s vile and offensive, and kids have no business seeing what God thought fit to hide from our eyes.”
No word yet from local government officials, who apparently have their hands full with other depictions of human reality in art.3
—
- No one ever reads the footnotes. [<]
- Photo by Schnitzel [<]
- To paraphrase someone who eventually saw what I’m doing here, I’m not exactly satirizing the people who wanted to ban the naked sculpture (it’s not like they’re not easy targets anyway), I’m instead targeting the people who think that banning nudity is okay, but at the same time find the banning of a DNA sculpture to be over the line. I’m ultimately asking what the difference is. What rational standard could exist that would warrant perpetuating the right not to be offended by exposure of human flesh, but would prohibit that right not to be offended with regard to the building blocks that make up that very same flesh? At the same time, I’m chiding the so-called skeptical audience for not holding my article to reasonable skeptical standards that they’d apply, say, on religious, psychic, or other websites. Yes, it reads like news, but even reliable sources have their significant flaws (or, in this case, satirists). See my relevant article for more clarification and to learn how I got spanked by the Poe Monkey, too. [<]
