Thursday, December 1, 2011

Christians Piss Me off, While God Only Annoys

We begin our sermon today with a message from Kentucky: flaunting your miscegenation will not be tolerated. A church in Pike County, Kentucky has forbidden interracial couples from participating in any church services, except for funerals. "All are welcome", goes the saying. Y'all can come in, but God forbid you do anything that other people can actually, you know, see, because God'll burn the church down if He sees a white girl playin' the piano while her black boyfriend sings of His glory.

A fellow by the name of Melvin Thompson, the former pastor of Gulnare Freewill Baptist church, told Stella Harville that her services would no longer be required if she insisted on having her black fiancee sing with her in church, because it would decrease church "unity". Stella's fiancee is a man by the name of Ticha Chikuni. He is a native of Zimbabwe. Now, lest you think this is all one's man's doing, remember I said former pastor. Last Sunday, church members voted 9-6 in favor of Thompson's ban on interracial couples performing in church services.

Miscegenation, by the way, is a made-up, purely American word, developed in the middle of the nineteenth century by a couple of Democrats (this was when the Dems were the forerunners of the Klan and the Republicans were people like Abraham Lincoln - the more things change, the more they change a whole heckuva lot) in a pamphlet that espoused the cause of race-mixing as a great thing that would unite the nation, and gave the credit to Republicans for having thought it up in the first place. This was intended as political sabotage, because, of course, everyone knows that blacks and whites shouldn't mix.

Wow. Welcome to the nineteenth century everyone, alive and kicking in good old Pike County, Kentucky.

As a man in mixed-race relationship, I have experienced first-hand the bigotry of my fellow citizens, especially the ones with the big American flags on the sides of their trailers. I have been told to move along by folks, simply for having a Pacific Island wife, while the all-white couples (with the multiple piercings, tattoos and ripped jeans) are left alone to do as they please. I know racism still exists, though it's usually a little more subtle.

But the Right-wing still wears a lot of its bigotry on its sleeve (Limbaugh referring to Michelle Obama's "uppityness" should have got him fired). No way that Herman Cain would have ever gotten a nomination, even though the "our blacks are better than your blacks" meme sounded a lot like the Right wing actually believed their own propaganda for a moment, right when Herman Cain was about to collapse in a heap under the weight of his own stupidity and immorality. Because when it comes down to it, the Right wing in this country really, really doesn't like negroes any more than they like orientals or injuns.

Unless they stay in their place, of course.

Oh, and God does have a sense of humor.