Show Me Where on this Body of Christ the Gospel Hurt You

I don't know why Bishop Mariann Budde asking Trump to "Be Best" blew so many MAGA's little minds, but I think it has to do with the idea that while Christ might have told people that whatever you do to the least of these, you do to him--but like, what does that have to do with Christianity?  It gets read not as a plea to the better angels of Trump's nature, but a call out, because they understand he has no such better angels--

And that is exactly what they like about him. It doesn't just say something about him--but themselves. And if it made them feel bad or less than what their professed faith actively calls them to be in so many words, they would rather lash out at being made to feel bad, than actually reconsider the morality of brutalizing other people, doing actual harm to them.

Which sounds weak and insecure to me.

Just a thought. 

Nancy Mace in a Brace

 

Rep. Mancy Mace of South Carolina apparently experienced the "Handshake from Hell" at the hands of a foster care advocate who was (checks notes) concerned about trans children. The man was arrested, and our fearless Potty Protector is now seen wearing a brace. Some people who were present at the alleged arm-spraining fracas claim they observed nothing unusual about the vigorous handshake. Other observers suggest Mace might avoid injuries by eating something containing calcium (like food). 

(Me. I am a concerned bystander who thinks ravioli and chicken cutlets might make at least some of her problems less so.)

Am I claiming bullshit on her claims of assault? No, I was not there and there is no video that I know of, so I am only saying, based on eyewitness testimony, it might not have happened. And she may very well have received death threats, last month, too. And of course her house was once grafitti'd by antifa:

Hey remember that time that Nancy Mace claimed "Antifa" graffitied her home & then people pointed out the graffiti was all in *HER* handwriting....and then she just never mentioned it again?

Seems like there's a pattern to ol' Nance's behavior. https://t.co/HpuaPByReT pic.twitter.com/J4CDGh8ZCq

— Kendall Brown (@kendallybrown) December 11, 2024

Nancy Mace is not Okay

 

This picture is a screencap from Rep. Mace's own Twitter-feed (I'm still not calling it "X") and this is s few days in to her manic posting about bathrooms and there being a transwoman in Congress now, and this is not okay. I think (I hope) she Photoshopped this, because this is the cap I took from her own feed. What the hell is going on with these angles? 

This is pro-ana ideation, and I am worried about this woman. I get that attention whores and bullies try to do DARVO and present themselves as victims, and Rep. Mace's grown woman response to whether she is bullying soon to be Rep. McBride is very much to claim she is the victim here because she was a former victim of rape and assault. But she also is telling us she lost 30 pounds because of a traumatic event that triggered her PTSD, and I am not going to front that I know what's up with all that. 

She has claimed that she was threatened as a rape victim by even being asked why as a rape victim she supported Trump and other rapist candidates and political figures. And received threats, because I guess that is a thing. 

Little Jimmy and the Operation: A Trump Fable

 

Trump: Can you imagine you're a parent and your son leaves the house and you say, Jimmy, I love you so much. Go have a good day in school and your son comes back with a brutal operation. pic.twitter.com/ChmwpavFAH

— Acyn (@Acyn) September 7, 2024

The school nurse can't even give out aspirin*, and now kids are supposed to be getting "a brutal operation" in school? What "brutal operation"? Are they handing out appendectomies? Emergency tracheotomies? Is there a full surgical theater in your son's or daughter's school you need to worry about? (Are they more likely to be slapping on tourniquets in the case of an actual bloody emergency--all too probable.)

Long story short--Little Jimmy is not going to get his Liitler Jimmy whacked off while at school. Teachers are paying for glue sticks and dry erase markers out of pocket and supposedly school districts are doing bottom surgery on your precious wee manlet? You would think Trump of all people would be skeptical about the promise of free vaginas being handed out. And it's not escaping me that he is afraid for little Jimmy, not little Agatha getting a double mastectomy. 

This is not happening. This is on the "furry kids using a litter box at school" level of not happening. It's simply nucking futz. It's on the same level of not-happening as the supposed latest term-post-birth abortion. He's now said it more than once, and maybe that means it's going to be a part of stump speeches, now. And it speaks to other fears parents might have: their boys aren't transgender--but just a bit queer. Maybe they are autistic, artistic, kind, sensitive, don't do sports, respect women, aren't about to grow up and ride a Lingam-1500 male-insecurity wagon with truck nuts and a Trump flag to their he-man signifying maleness job. Maybe they just have to also compete with girls who are smart as fuck and might be better at them in things. 

TWGB: He'll Dance to Anything

 

Wow. This is a new low, even for Trump.

“It Was a Setup,” “Could have been the parents” Trump tries to blame Gold Star families for the Arlington incident
pic.twitter.com/7eO9CZ3tag

— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) August 31, 2024

Maybe the Gold Star families, who invited him and have signed statements to the effect that they think his being there was cool and totally legal--fucked him over by posting pictures and videos. That's what HE SAID, babies, not me. He tried to suggest the people who were there to back his ass up backed his ass over. So he suggested he didn't know anything about the strategy of his dumb stunt and maybe he was stunted upon. Maybe it was the White House that he was going to claim bailed on a solemn event they totally were clued into.  Kamala Harris called him on it, and now that stunt is supposed to be "he said and she said". 

I'm not here to belittle the Gold Star families because their grief is real and how they feel is real regardless of the facts on the ground. Their loved ones saved people in assisting the evacuation that day and died in a suicide bombing from ISIS-K. Nearly 170 Afghan people also were killed by that blast. The war had been 20 years long. And many servicepeople cycled through that assignment.  They can cast their blame any and everywhere it feels valid. But we all know that serving in the armed services can mean being placed in danger. Their safety was not guaranteed, they guaranteed the safety of others and that was their great sacrifice and why Section 60 is hallowed ground. 

Nothing I can say makes that right. Throughout the war on terror, we have not stopped the tactic of extraordinary violence. The results are appalling and personal. I demur from politicizing it. I have my own ideas about why the withdrawal sucked, but it was a group effort. And yet, for the Abbey Gate tragedy, I still blame ISIS. There was one airport, and there were so many people who were running out of time to be safe.   It was time to leave, and the crowd itself was an exploit. An opportunity for terror. One last kick in the slats before leaving. One demonstration of the ideology that faced the country we tried to rehabilitate into something like a Western image.

Does the GOP Know What a Woman Is?

 

As of Saturday, JD Vance and Donald Trump were both still misgendering Imane Khelif, an Algerian boxer who was born female and was raised female. There is no good reason to believe that she either does have elevated testosterone or is chromosomally XY. She seems to just be a hard-working girl with a heck of a punch who is living her dream and representing her country in a sport she loves. 

This is why I insist transphobia is in part, misogyny. And delusional. Imagine the contortions your mind must go through to suspect the "woke" government of Algeria sending a trans boxer to the Olympics. Imagine being so careless about facts that you would say this not caring what kind of blowback falls on that young lady, who is just trying to do her best? 

She is tough, strong, muscular. Calling her "male" is saying women cannot be these things. Suddenly, people who insist on anatomy being destiny started to ask whether, like Caster Semaya, this woman might be intersex. Transphobes understand gender exists on a spectrum after all, when it suits them, but only when it comes to trying to exclude someone. They seized on this woman for no good reason other than they needed someone to "other" at the moment. 

The Weird Problem

 

Some conservatives are pushing back on claims that JD Vance and Donald Trump and maybe a lot of other Republicans are "weird"--but I'm sorry, it is what it is. I get that Republicans have put a lot of stock in saying they represent "Real America (TM)" and the cosmopolitan Big City Lefty Liberal Arugula-Eaters with Their Fancy Brown Mustard and Priuses and pronouns are oddball hippie Comsymps or whatever, But right off the bat, deciding lettuce, Grey Poupon and parts of speech are weird--is weird.

Being really mad at the Olympics because you were told Christianity was being insulted when the opening show had nothing to do with Christianity and demanding others agree with you--is weird.

Smashing coffee makers or shooting cases of Bud Lite because a talk show host told you to be mad is weird. 

Pretending to be a party of small government but wanting to track women's menses, stop them from travelling, or wanting to take inventory of people's pee parts before they can use a public restroom, is weird.

Wanting women to carry dead fetuses is weird, and ghoulish. 

The Un-American Project 2025

 

Heritage Foundation president celebrates Supreme Court presidential immunity ruling: "We are in the process of the second American Revolution, which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be" https://t.co/ndMJlNlUKH

— Media Matters (@mmfa) July 3, 2024

Look at this Bond villain bullshit: "which will remain bloodless if the left allows it to be." What he's saying right there is, will remain bloodless if the left lays back and lets it happen. Because I guess it's fun to threaten a whole Revolution. Tea Party people. I swear. They really want to see themselves proudly fighting to--

Install a monarchy? Undo the first American Revolution? Institute a lot of Christian nationalist and white supremacist rubbish that the majority of Americans don't want? 

Um--exactly. And there are a lot of former Trump Administration officials supporting this blueprint for chaos. 

Anyway, when I saw that term, "bloodless", all I could think of was 1/6 and the testimony of a Capitol police officer that she was slipping in people's blood that day.  They thought they were re-creating 1776. What they were doing was insurrection. What the 'bloodless" Project 2025 document boasts is undoing the American experiment of a government of, for and by the people--unless those people are conservative activists.

Vergogna!

 

EXCLUSIVE UNDERCOVER AUDIO:
Martha-Ann Alito Unfurled

"I want a Sacred Heart of Jesus flag because I have to look across the lagoon at the Pride flag for the next month." pic.twitter.com/okNsW7SPlu

— Lauren Windsor (@lawindsor) June 10, 2024

There's a lot to unpack in the conversations that undercover reporter Lauren Windsor had with the Alitos. The verification of Samuel Alito's sense of culture war driving his juris-imprudence doesn't entirely surprise me. Does he endorse the return of our country to "a place of godliness? So he does!

It seems to me he must be using his own personal notes for what he thinks godliness means--as for myself, I'm less ambitious, and would like to see the Supreme Court be a place of cleanliness, which would, I am told, be the next best thing and a bit closer to his job. 

But it's Mrs. Alito's sense of an ax to grind over Pride flags, her desire for revenge against the media (how dare they report unpleasant things--like her squabble with the neighbors, or the way her family's security detail may be threatening them), her combination of privilege and aggrievement, that fascinates me. It's her unselfconscious use of the term "feminazis". It's her reference to her German heritage. How she intends to get even. Eventually.

TWGB: We Need the Wood!

 

There's hardly anything wilder to me than Trump fluffing up his crucifixion narrative while being literally the most un-Christlike person you could think of. Turn the other cheek? Love thy enemy?  Forgive others as you would also be forgiven? Oh, that stuff is crazy. He sure does try it though. He's being persecuted for taking what he hast (overleveraged) and using it to get more rich (or at least, pretending he is).  He's being crucified (being prosecuted, not persecuted) for his hush money arrangement--a business fraud, based on an election fraud, based on an illicit sex fling--selling himself as a better man than he actually is. 

So how does this modern-day martyr show his Christ Consciousness? You know, the way Christ did, by letting his disciples know what Pilates' family members look like, so they could...use their imaginations. Who wants to tell me where in the Bible Jesus would have done anything of the sort? 

Trump is no Jesus and Judge Merchan is no Pontius Pilate--what the hell? This is where my blog title comes from--get on down off that cross honey, we need the wood! 

Did You Raise Your Kids Not to Kill?

 

I wanted to talk about the deaths of two children, but for a while I wasn't sure how. 

Brianna Ghey was murdered by teenagers because she was a trans girl. Nex Benedict died after an assault after a year (at least) of bullying because he was trans masc/binary. There are people who would claim that these children somehow died because of something called "gender ideology".  If some "force" didn't make them think they were trans--wouldn't they have just not stuck out and then been killed for that? 

The so-called "gender ideology" people are pissed off about is the idea that you are okay to be yourself. The gender ideology that they say is so fucking stringent and dogmatic is--let people live being what they feel they are, and don't fuck with them for it. They can express femininity or masculinity or not really identify with either. They can dress how they will and express their feelings about who they are and what they like without oppression.  How they dress, and whether they are gay or straight or ace or what they want from their one, great beautiful precious life is up to them.  

That life is theirs, and they should be able to live it to the fullest. 

And all society has to do in return is not punish them for existing as themselves. Call them by their names.  Let them live. Let them tend to their bodies as their own vehicles for living in. Just don't oppress. The same rights you would extend to anyone else and not one different thing. 

She Sounds Like I Thought She Might

 

Mike Johnson’s wife Kelly just responded after it was revealed her “Christian Counseling Services” compare gay people to bestiality and say sex out of wedlock “offends God.”

She said she “felt burdened for so many people” & says “God” made Mike Johnson Speaker. “It’s Biblical.” pic.twitter.com/Ar00R7F50R

— No Lie with Brian Tyler Cohen (@NoLieWithBTC) November 3, 2023

It's the Michelle Dugger sort of little girl voice that first catches my ear. Out where I work in the world, I had to develop my "Big Girl Voice" to make people hear me. I don't keep sweet. Her voice is like pancake syrup. She says she stopped teaching (a worthwhile profession) to start minding other people's sexual business because she felt "burdened for them". 

Wasn't her load to carry. Not her cross. Not her battlefield. Not her mission. Not her business. And why in the world did why think she had a calling to practice authority over people's misery that was solely caused by not being accepted, but reinforceing their feelings of the conditionality of their worth? 

And as for her husband's "win" by being a guy no one knew was kind of a bizarrely radical character? Yeaaaahhh, God didn't do that. Unless Matt Gaetz and an exhausted GOP House is God now. (Not that I want to give them ideas.) It isn't Biblical that her husband became Speaker, unless she means God ran out of locusts and frogs.  

TWGB: You Can Consider All The Options

 

Recently seen unfurled at Yankee Stadium was an absolutely enormous banner reading "Trump or Death". It showed the dates "1776-2024" which sort of suggests something happened in 1776 that would definitely end in 2024. I guess the opposition of the United States to monarchy, since the weirdos brandishing this flag seem to want to install Trump in office regardless of how the rest of us feel about him.

I encourage Trump followers, of course, by all means, to consider all of their options. No one here gets out alive, etc. 

Mike Huckabee, former governor of Arkansas, father of Sarah, pastor (?), tv host and promoter of cartoon pseudohistory, certainly seems to think that if Trump loses in 2024 it will be the last election decided by ballots rather than bullets. Wild, if true, right? He subscribes to the idea that Trump is being persecuted for his political beliefs, when those beliefs were that he should be president for life and the hell with what the voters said. OK. Trump's beliefs are very much a problem. The idea that violence is the answer to your candidate losing an election because he isn't popular is the actual stuff of banana republics. Your political candidate deciding he should be president for life is a problem--and yes, this is a thing Trump hinted at. 

Six Days of Bomb Threats

 

There is one political side that has resulted in rhetoric that leads to the arson and mass shootings at mosques, gurdwaras, synagogues, and supermarkets and schools, and the threats of bombings at hospitals and now, six days of bomb threats at an OK school district over a video shared by a school superintendent. 

The threats began the same day that Walters retweeted a post from a day earlier on the conservative provocateur account Libs of TikTok, which featured a video of a librarian at Union Public Schools. The video shows the librarian walking next to a book shelf with the text “POV: teachers in your state are dropping like flies but you are still just not quite finished pushing your woke agenda at the public school.” That’s different from the caption that the librarian originally posted on her TikTok account, which Libs of TikTok removed: “My radical liberal agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind — hbu??”

When Walters retweeted the Libs of TikTok post to his nearly 10,000 followers, he added: “Woke ideology is real and I am here to stop it.” 

See what happened there? The original sentiment of the librarian in question was "My radical liberal agenda is teaching kids to love books and be kind." Are conservatives deciding that loving reading and being kind really are some kind of scary agenda, and that the comment wasn't a frightening manifesto about left-wing indoctrination, but an ironic comment about how a librarian's job is to do something totally normal and not-scary: show kids that books are great. Encourage them to be nice to each other! 

Boogedy!

See, this is how easy it is to create a boogeyman. Just drop some charged language like "woke" into the mix and frame things as if they were a problem when they are not, and watch simple-minded drones fly in to stir shit because they want to signify for something. Look at me! I am a culture warrior against....

Literacy and decency. Good job, so-called Christian conservatives. Feeble sarcastic golf clap for the bomb threat people. You are literally barbarians tearing down Western Civilization. You've struck a blow against public safety and demonstrated the superiority of your side at mindless terroristic posturing. 

Klanned Karenhood and Their Fellow Travelers

 

I saw this on Twitter, and wanted to talk about why this particularly bothers me as (extreme Quark from Deep Space Nine voice) a "biological female"--there is a thing we don't really address much: toxic femininity. We can talk about abusive men, men who think with their fists, masculinity in the form of right-fighting and DARVO--but not these women. The ones who wouldn't do violence themselves but would cheer their men on for doing it. (They are also sister shafters--they would sell out any number of women in an instant to gain points with the patriarchy.)

Now maybe the above screencap of a freedom mommy calling for Biden's execution is unfair: she was mad because she thought US military service dogs were left behind, and while that wasn't exactly the case, I also hate to see animals potentially harmed and could get good and fighting mad about it. But I'd have checked the story, and not gone right to talking about execution because I'm not one of these ol' gals.  

But the freedom mommies don't need good reasons to want violence--it avenges them. Or at least satisfies them that their loyalty to the patriarchy has a payoff. See how they love when the daddies get in on the action? Think of a woman goading her significant other to go fight that man who has been looking at her. (Think about the history of white women and lynching, and TERFS and violence against trans people.) They don't get to rock the block of someone they don't like, but they do get told that the one who rocks the cradle rules the world. 

I'm not blaming William Ross Wallace for it--that was the era. We just aren't in the 19th century anymore. And my real problem is--WE AREN'T GOING BACK TO IT, EITHER!

The Christian Nation We Never Were

 

Disgraced televangelist Jim Bakker, disaster chow pitchman, is concerned that the Pride celebration at the White House means that the US is no longer a Christian Nation.  I would like to be very reassuring while I say this to him: We never were.  The original inhabitants of this nation were not Christians, and despite all the Christians who came to this land seeking refuge from their Old World persecution, you have to understand, actually being a "Christian nation" or the product of any one religion is a weirdly wrong idea to have about our founding. 

We are by no means a Christian nation. John Adams said as much in the Treaty of Tripoli.  There's a lot wrong with assuming that our founders were all of a mind about religion--which is exactly the reason to presume we are not founded on religious principles, but practical ones. There are ample statements from our founders that attest that freedom of religion was the only way to maintain an already-diverse religious population, Thomas Jefferson was proud enough of his religious freedom edict in Virginia that he had it made a part of his final epitaph. 

DeSantis' Campaign is Not Queer Friendly (UPDATED)

 

To wrap up “Pride Month,” let’s hear from the politician who did more than any other Republican to celebrate it…

pic.twitter.com/FT7LdW4vls

— DeSantis War Room 🐊 (@DeSantisWarRoom) June 30, 2023

They are trying to tell the heteros something, but I feel like the message is for queers everywhere--Ron is not our friend. His ad plays club music and he wants to project so much butchness, but his actual history in Florida is killing our stories by not letting queer people be out loud, and he wants to eliminate trans people everywhere. Imagine just being the kind of douchebag who wants to determine that people who go to the potty whenever one is in public is an occasion to have everybody play pin the gender on the donkey? 

Pete Buttigeig is the exact respondent this bullshit requires: he points out that De Santis is running some people down, but who is he ever uplifting? Who does he want to serve? Who does DeSantis think he is doing all this for? It is obviously for very few people. Or wait:

No one but Desantis. And I don't even think Trump wants to compete with DeSantis in this homophobia. Because Desantis seems to want to be eliminationist, but pretend someone will still vote for him. For non-eliminationist reasons. Like what he's done for Florida, like their insurance and disaster protection and how they are still at or near the bottom for student performance or...

SCOTUS and the Ghosts

 

The Colorado web designer who wanted to refuse LGBTQ customers and just won her case at the Supreme Court had claimed in court filings that a man inquired about her services for his same-sex wedding. But the man says he didn’t – and he’s straight. https://t.co/idy1Jy1VI7

— CNN (@CNN) July 1, 2023

I wonder about SCOTUS mostly because I'm a non-lawyer, but I do watch the odd law-related television and follow a bunch of lawyers on Twitter, and it really feels to me like one doesn't have standing over imaginary shit?  Like, it's bad enough that student loan forgiveness seems to have been struck down because of political beef because not even the banks were mad about it, and I'm still not sure who affirmative action hurts. (Because AA only gets someone in the door, but they have to do the coursework. Save your money. Do excellent at your B or C school and transfer in if the big ol' name brand of the school means that much to you. Or whatever. I went to the school that was only one bus route away, myself. And I am definitely a white privilege kid. I'm an English major. I lack vision and purpose. Or so I've been told.)

Anyway--this woman's case was picked up by the ADF--that is, the Alliance Defending Freedom, because of course it was. I don't know whose freedom the Alliance is about--it just looks like Christian supremacy to me.  (And homophobia, transphobia, and the denial of reproductive health freedom. They descend from Dobson and Wildmon--that's all I need to know, fam.) Deep down, I don't love the idea of people discriminating against real people because of what they want to believe their imaginary friends have to say. (I have seen gay folks. I have never seen your god. Sorry if this offends.)

But anyway, this woman was just thinking about going into web design when the horrible thought hit her--what if she was FORCED to support a gay wedding? By making a website about a "happy" same sex couple! The idea! The scary idea! Of having compelled speech in her mouth! 

Faith With Only Signifying Indignant BS Works is Dead

 

The LA Dodgers decided to recognize the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for Pride, and then they didn't, and then they belatedly did. The decision to support the Sisters is the right one, even if it's getting stupid flack, and here's why, from me, the erstwhile Catholic-adjacent agnostic.

The ministry of the Sisters has gone among the people and held them up and comforted them and tried to teach them to be considerate and do no harm to one another, It has used satire of organized religion, but that's because those memes are accessible and subject to very real conversations about the actual harms that bigotry in religion causes, and that the failure to be real and upfront about sexuality in education perpetuates. 

Marco Rubio can pretend that the Sisters are anti-Catholic because of their criticism of a faith that hasn't delivered for the downtrodden--he can pretend LGBT sexuality is a choice and a sin for whatever deflection from his lived reality floats his boat, but in the real world, you either serve one another or you will be marked by the master you actually serve. And Marco serves himself. For all I can tell. And the people who wanted to protest the Pride celebration the LA team held are so dumb. 

I Never Will Forget.

 I see the folks who are having a little problem with seeing a Gay Pride flag at the White House, and I am so sorry, but--

Protesters have breached the Capitol. They’re outside the Senate chamber pic.twitter.com/I021tKliUD

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 6, 2021

The Trump fans brought Confederate flags into the Capitol and tried to run up a Trump flag. The pride flag is about honoring the human rights of some of our citizens and the Trump fans were literally carrying flags of treason. Every Trump flag is about denying a legitimate election in favor of the seditious, lying punk who tried to hoard state secrets for reasons as yet unknown. I will never forget that desecration. The Pride flag is not that. 

Why don't they focus on stuff that's way more hurtful, like the Nazi flags outside of Disneyland? 

Or do we already have the answer to that?