Ever since the terrorist attacks of September 2001 there's been a resurgence of unapologetic American pride. You can see it on bumper stickers and hear it on the airwaves. You don't have to read between the lines; people spell it right out: "I'm Proud to be an American". It's been so strong that a president who campaigned calling for a more humble America, now uses pride as the central virtue of our society.

I've found this all a bit troubling. Which is why I found this quote I ran across interesting. It's a statement by Christian theologian C.S. Lewis from his book Mere Christianity, which is an attempt to outline the core tenets that underlie all the various flavors of the religion:

"Pride is the complete anti-God state. Pride is the chief cause of misery in the world! As long as you're proud, you can't know God! Pride is Spiritual cancer! It eats up love, contentment and even common sense!"

So if the United States is such a Christian nation... why doesn't it believe this?

I'm not looking for a job... really, I'm not. But a friend of mine who is just called me to tell me about one that... sure sounds tempting. The following image is an actual unretouched advert from the June 12, 2005 edition of The Grand Rapids Press.

Now, I know that the Christian Reformed Church is more open-minded about sex than, say, the Roman Catholic Church, and they don't have any theological problem with oral sex, per se. But I'm rather surprised that they would offer it like this as an employment benefit, outside of the bounds of holy matrimony. And in the Sunday paper, no less.

Plus, I had no idea that job recruitment had become so competitive that employers were finally offering this. This is definitely going to come up in my next conversation with my boss.

I'm not a breast man.

OK, I like chicken breasts (preferably boneless), and I have a certain fondness for a muscular male chest (which is technically a "breast"). But I haven't been interested in seeing a plump female mammary in decades. In fact, I'm tired of seeing them paraded about for advertising, and opening a porn-video mailing and unfolding a flyer full of boobies is a huge disappointment. I am not comfortable seeing them in the flesh.

But I was even more disappointed by the anti-breast actions of County Clerk Mary Hollinrake (Kent County, Michigan), as described in The Grand Rapids Press this afternoon. A woman - there at the Clerk's office for official business - was very discreetly feeding her baby, and Hollinrake had the audacity to come out and ask the woman to either stop, or leave!

Hollinrake ducks responsibility for it, of course, claiming she was responding to complaints from other visitors. OK, so she has to respond to them. But the appropriate response would be to tell those visitors to stop whining and... deal with it.

There is nothing more natural, healthy, and for-the-love-of-god wholesome than a mother nursing her child. To say nothing of the fact that it's something a mother's just gotta do when the baby needs it. She shouldn't have to go hide in the bathroom and sit on a toilet, like someone with an intestinal disorder. The fact that some people are uncomfortable seeing it - and I'm one of them, remember - is their problem, not hers.

There seems to be a growing misconception in our society that people have some God-given right not to be offended or upset or uncomfortable. Demonstrators are shoved off the to side where the people they're protesting won't have to see them. Gay and lesbian couples are asked not to kiss or hold hands or hug in front of homophobes. And breastfeeding mothers are asked to please go away.

I'm sorry, but that's not the way a free society is supposed to operate. I'm offended by the very presidency of George W. Bush, but I don't expect to be shielded from its existence. I don't demand that his smug, contemptuous addresses to the nation be put on Pay Per View where I won't stumble across them whilst channel surfing. I don't expect rich SUV owners to keep their conspicuously expensive environmental hazards off the road where I won't have to see them. I don't ask that Christians make their crosses less visible and take any self-righteous and insulting messages off the signs on church lawns. That would be selfish, and most certainly rude. So I don't whine, and I... deal with it.

The right-wingers have been bitching for a while now about "political correctness" and how you can't say anything without offending people, and how horrible that is. But it seems pretty clear to me that the right-wingers are at least as guilty of that as anyone. Hollinrake is no bleeding-heart liberal, after all; she's part of the local Republican Party, and a regarded as a "good conservative". Unfortunately, she's just demontrated again that this makes here a bad public servant, one far too quick to enforce her constituents' Victorian disapproval of breastfeeding (!) against a responsible mother.

What next, a crackdown on "offensive" apple pies?

The Dove Foundation, a non-profit group that was founded to promote family-friendly (and consistent with mainstream Christian values) movies, has released a study "proving" that G-rated films are more 11 times as profitable as R-rated films, and PG and PG-13 films fall in between. They say their stats show that "what the people want" are the more openly-rated films.

Except that's not true.

I'm not questioning their statistics. Just the way they're trying to misinterpret them. The thing is, Hollywood makes way more R and PG-13 files than either PG or G. Compared to 1,533 R-rated films put out from 1989-2003 that were included in Dove's study, there were only 123 G-rated films. And those dozens of G-rated films included some megablockbusters, including the entire output of Pixar, a bunch of heavily-promoted Disney animations, and so on. All this tells us is that the percentage of G-rated movies that get huge promotion and attract a big audience is bigger than for R-rated movies. If the number of R-rated movies released was restricted to just the best (or most commercial) 123 of them, their average profit would be a lot better, because fans of sex, violence, and "adult language" would all have to go to the same 1 or 2 films playing at any given time. On the other hand, there are a lot of "experimental" and "artsy" movies - stuff no one expects to make any money on - in the R-rated bucket, which the public just doesn't go to see in any number.

Plus, there's the fact that once upon at time... such as the Dark Age before 1989... G-rated films had a tendency to bomb at the box office. Star Trek fans cringed when they saw that ST: The Motion Picture had gotten slapped with a "G" because they were afraid no one would go see it, and the franchise would be doomed. Fortunately (yes, I mean that), the trekkies turned out by the thousands, and the film got good enough reviews to overcome the stigma - yes, stigma - of a G rating. When Disney returned to feature animation in the late 1980s, there were similar fears. And they, too, beat them with quality.

That's what it really comes down to. Quality (which I have to admit probably means "quality of the special effects, marketing, and star power") makes money. The Dove Foundation is trying to dispel the myth that G-Rated films don't make money. But in doing so - by convincing the movie studios to take more chances and green-light more of these kid-friendly films that are being shopped around Tinseltown - they're helping to reduce the average quality of G-Rated films that get made. That in turn will reduce their average profitability... maybe even to the levels that nearly killed off the "G" in the late 1970s.

I just read in the newspaper about a new book by an old acquaintance of mine. David Myers is a Psychology prof at religiously conservative Hope College, and the author of a long-running millions-selling college textbook on the subject, of which the college is very, very proud. They're not as proud of his latest book, however. It's a more mainstream bookstore-friendly - but still academically sound - analysis of gay marriage, from a Christian perspective. The surprise (at least to those who don't know him or his co-author Letha Scanzoni, or their previous scholarly work) is that the book comes down firmly in support of it. The book is entitled What God Has Joined Together? A Christian Case for Gay Marriage.

This is certain to lead to some controversy at Hope College. Especially given the timing. News recently broke about how James Bultman, the president, pounced hard on Miguel De La Torre, a Religion prof who dared to poke fun of fundie demigod James Dobson in an essay published in the local paper. (He ridiculed Dobson's recent rant about Spongebob Square Pants.) Bultman bit into him so hard that he quit. Even with tenure. Read this article in The Muskegon Chronicle for more background. The following quote from a letter Bultman wrote to De La Torre is significant:

"Hope is dependent on enrollment and gifts to drive the college financially," the president wrote. "When people are displeased with what we do, their only recourse is to exercise their options with regard to enrollment and gifting. Several have indicated their intention to do so."

Bultman is talking about people such as Rich DeVos, co-founder of Amway, and a political ally of Dobson. Bultman has since issued a statement that he wasn't talking about DeVos, who hadn't made any such threats (at least not yet), but it's obvious that DeVos was prominently on Bultman's mind when he wrote that. DeVos is, after all, the billionaire who extorted then-President Lubbers of Grand Valley State University - a decent man trying to do the right thing - into backing down from a promise to offer equal benefits to same-sex domestic partners of employees, by threatening to withdraw his millions of dollars in financial support for a major construction project in downtown Grand Rapids. DeVos is now bankrolling Hope's new basketball fieldhouse. Connect the dots.

Fortunately David Myers has something better than tenure to protect him. For one thing, he's famous. He's been on national TV (most recently for his book about... happiness.) People at lots of other colleges know him, and being able to boast about him is a big feather in Hope's cap. Also, he's not latino. The administration see him as "one of us", a longtime member of the family, contrasted with De La Torre, who's fairly new to the college, an "immigrant" if you will. David's also just a very nice person, the kind that's hard to hate. Not that this would protect him from the administration by itself, but it gives him some immunity because stomping on him would produce just the kind of money-threatening controversy that De La Torre's comments did. You see, there are also people in the Hope-funding community who like David personally. So the administration has tolerated Myers' open tolerance of gay students for a very long time already. They'll tolerate this.

But this whole intertwined combination of events is a great example of how - at its core - Hope College is a sham. They go on and on (and on and on) about their commitment to Christian values, but year after year, decade after decade, administration after administration, they betray that. It isn't even about homosexuality. Sure, the administration is packed with hysterical, bed-wetting homophobes. But what really sets their sheets to soaking is their devotion to money. Granted, they have to be concerned about finances. We all get that. But whenever it comes down to a question of money, or the basic Christian priniciple of compassion, money always wins. I've seen them go out of their way to willfully harm people, all in service to their true god, Mammon. Not just by stomping on innocent people who bring "bad publicity" to the college, but also by covering up the misdeeds of the guilty, brushing genuine scandals under the rug. They're amoral. This isn't coming from Myers, or even from De La Torre; I've heard this from a bunch of people I know who've worked there. Mostly past-tense. After some soul-searching, a straight, Dutch friend of mine - also a Hope alumn - declined a job there that he'd be perfect for... but he said he didn't want to work at such a racist institution.

So, anyway... kudos to David Myers, for having the insight and the courage to write this new book. Condolences to Miguel De La Torre for learning the hard way the wages of speaking your mind with only tenure and an expectation of compassion to defend him. And a pox on the administration of Hope College, who deserve every shred of bad publicity that leaks out despite their best efforts, and who deserve precious little of the sweet nectar of money that their god rains down upon them.

There's a bill that's been introduced in the Mighigan legislature to lift the current ban on the sale of alcohol before noon on Sundays. All I can say is that it's about fucking time.

Actually, I can say more than that:

The current law is one without any justification whatsoever. It serves no secular purpose. None. Anyone who tries to argue that there is one, is so full of crap they'd have to flush ten times to send it all down the toilet.

They'll try to argue that it cuts down on alcohol abuse. It doesn't. The 2:00am cut-off probably does, but there's no reason it has to stay in effect until 12:00pm, just on Sundays. People drink just as heavily on Friday nights, but no one seems to mind opening the till of the party store again at 7:00am on Saturday. And it does nothing to actually stop people from drinking on Sunday mornings; they just have to stock up enough to last them those 10 hours. An experienced drunk can handle that.

The only reason for banning the sale of alcohol is religious. It serves to avoid upsetting people of a particular religion, who feel that people should be in church on Sunday mornings, and can't accept the idea of anyone using that time to instead buy liquor. That is the only difference between Saturday morning and Sunday morning: pressure to participate in Christian worship. Anyone with a shred of honesty will admit that.

On the other hand, the people who oppose this change in the law know better than to try to argue that actual reason for it. That's because even they know that "because it makes Baby Jesus cry" is a feeble justification for a law. The best they can come up with it is, "There are plenty of other times during the week to buy alcohol." I have two responses to that:

So what? There are plenty of other times during the week to worship God, but that doesn't mean it'd be harmless to ban that on Sunday mornings. We let people worship whenever they want to, because that's what it means to live in a free society: letting other people live their own lives, rather than having the government tell them what to do. You could make the same "there are other times" argument defending a ban on meat sales on Tuesday afternoons, or tobacco sales on Thursdays. But you'd still lack any actual basis for the ban in the first place. Using this argument is just another way of admitting, "I have no rational argument to make."

Says who? I'm a busy person. Let's look at the past few days: Friday morning and afternoon, I was at work. Friday evening I spent at the movies with a friend. Saturday morning and early afternoon I spent at my college's graduation ceremony. Late afternoon and evening, I spent going to a meeting (no, not AA) out of town. Sunday afternoon I spent with my family for Mother's Day. Sunday evening I did laundry. The only time during those three days when I had time to go grocery shopping (which is otherwise the most convenient opportunity to buy beer) was Sunday morning. Which meant that I had to leave one item on my shopping list unpurchased. I had to make an extra trip to the neighborhood party store Sunday evening to restock my fridge, so I could have a drink while I watched The Simpsons. All to satisfy some puritanical compulsion to keep me from doing my shopping while others worship. (And ending up with Sunday morning as my only convenient time for shopping isn't unusual; the fact that other people tend to schedule group activities to avoid it actually makes that a prime shopping time slot for me.)

The last debating tactic left in the puritans' bag of tricks is to question why anyone (such as I) cares so much about this. Why am I getting so emotional about it? That's easy to answer: Because I'm sick of them shoving their silly religious rules down the throat of people like me who don't share their superstitions. And they use each religion law on the books to justify the others: the "In God We Trust" on our coins is used to justify "one nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, which is used to justify putting the Ten Commandments on display in government buidings, which is used to justify writing laws about marriage to conform to Christian standards, and so on. I get angry about this because this particular seemingly-trivial imposition of religious rules on non-believers shows just how powerful the Christian theocrats are.

my rating:

Kingdom of Heaven is a movie that invites you to believe in miracles. You pretty much have to, to accept any of what it shows you.

It's about this blacksmith (Orlando Bloom) living in the not-even-a-speck-on-the-map of Nowheresburgh, somewhere between England and Jerusalem, who is compelled by the suicide of his wife (a mortal sin, you know), the appearance of his father (a veteran of the Crusades), and a mortal sin of his own, to go to the Holy Land and become a Good Knight. He picks up swordsmanship as if he were studying with Qui-Gon Jinn (played in both this movie and Star Wars by Liam Neeson) and military strategy as if he'd fought at Helm's Deep in a previous life (as an elf, of course), and manages to learn irrigation and the seduction of noblewomen with equal ease.

Equally difficult to buy is the enlightened nobility of the then-current Christian King of Jerusalem and his Muslim Saracen counterpart Saladin (whose name is prounced more correctly here as "Salah al-Din"). The king just wants a Jerusalem where Muslim and Jew and Christian can live together in peace, like some modern-day Secretary General of the United Nations, and Salah has just the kind of respect for his enemies and for the fate of innocent women and children (and even men) that your garden variety modern-day extremist Muslim terrorist does not. Gosh, it almost makes one pine for the good old days of the Crusades, doesn't it?

Of course with such nobility on both sides, you also need some bad guys, and the Knights Templar and some of Salah's lieutenants served that purpose, demonstrating the psychotic religious fervor of those who either believe that "God wills it" or use that as their rallying cry to get the aid of those stupid enough to fall for it. It's clear that the producers were going for a kind of sociopolitical statement about all the "holy" conflicts in the Middle East, but it was undercut by just how forced it was.

Then there's this "good knight" character Balian. He's just oh so fucking noble, to the point that he refuses to accept the hand of the dying king's hottie sister and become king, because it will require someone killing the war-hungry toad she's currently married to, and so the toad (or frog, rather; he's French) becomes king and to no one's surprise picks a war with the greatest military leader the Arabs have ever seen. That was just stupid, not noble. And this same "perfect" man didn't hesitate to have sex with the future queen when she was still married to the aforementioned toad, and has no qualms about conducting a defense of Jerusalem that involves pouring flaming oil on advancing soldiers and otherwise hacking them to bits. Sure, it's defensive, but it's still barbaric brutality. And at least by God's standards, fucking whatshername was adultery. Call that consistency... because I don't.

It all ends up being quite pointless. Sin is called virtue, defeat is called victory... and not just by the characters, but by moviemakers. At least they got one over-arching point right, which is shown by the opening and closing scenes: this chapter of the Crusades - like the whole saga - was itself quite pointless.

For earlier articles on this topic, see God's ex-Boyfriend, volume one.