For those of you having trouble making out the words here’s a transcript:

I know the Bible’s right,

Somebody’s wrong…

Ain’t no homo’s gonna make it . . . → Read More: Feel the Christian love: 4-year-old sings “Ain’t no homo gonna make it to Heaven.”]]> Jesus preached faith, tolerance, and love. I wonder what he would make of this performance by a 4-year-old boy at the Apostolic Truth Tabernacle in Greensburg, Indiana?

For those of you having trouble making out the words here’s a transcript:

I know the Bible’s right,

Somebody’s wrong…

Ain’t no homo’s gonna make it to heaven

I’m not that disturbed that a 4-year-old is singing this song. It’s clear by his reaction to the cheering adults around him that he really doesn’t understand what it is he’s singing about.  He only knows that it makes all the adults in the room think he’s wonderful. It’s the adults with their enthusiastic standing ovation that disturbs me. It’s the adults who should be ashamed of themselves. The kid is a victim.

Not that any of them see it that way. The video has gone viral and the church finds itself being bombarded with negative criticism so much so that they updated their website yesterday with this statement:

5/30/12 – The Pastor and members of Apostolic Truth Tabernacle do not condone, teach, or practice hate of any person for any reason. We believe and hope that every person can find true Bible salvation and the mercy and grace of God in their lives. We are a strong advocate of the family unit according to the teachings and precepts found in the Holy Bible. We believe the Holy Bible is the Divinely-inspired Word of God and we will continue to uphold and preach that which is found in scripture.

Technically speaking I suppose there’s nothing inherently hateful about the lyric “ain’t no homos going to make it to Heaven.” Depending on how you interpret the Bible it could be considered a simple statement of fact. The absolute glee and joy of the people in the congregation to the claim, however, is borderline sociopathic.

Consider the implications of this song: If the homos aren’t going to Heaven then their obvious destination, according to their professed beliefs, is Hell — a place of endless suffering beyond imagining — and they’re just delighted by that idea! Isn’t it wonderful that we’ve gotten this cute little boy to sing about how those nasty gays are gonna burn, burn, burn!

You’d think a good Christian would be saddened that anyone would end up in Hell, but that doesn’t appear to be the case here. And it’s not enough that they have to be bigots themselves, but they have to make sure their kids are bigots from as early an age as possible too. And people wonder why Richard Dawkins says indoctrinating your kids into religion before they’re even able to understand it is a form of child abuse. He’s darling! How could that be considered abuse?

It’s shit like this that sometimes makes me wish Jesus were real and would show up right there on that stage just about the time the kid stops singing just so I could see the looks on the faces of the people who were so happy about that cute little ditty. Based on what I know of his teachings in the Bible I somehow doubt he’d be particularly amused by their antics.

With love like that who needs haters?

Pastor Mark Wolford was one of those Pentecostals and he put his faith . . . → Read More: Snake handling pastor, whose father died from snakebite, dies from a snakebite.]]> I often post entries in a category I call “too much faith will make you crazy”, but this is more a case of making you stupid rather than crazy. Lots of Pentecostals take the Bible verse in Mark 16:17-18 way too seriously.

Pastor Mark Wolford was one of those Pentecostals and he put his faith to the test repeatedly by handling venomous snakes during his services. This past Sunday it ended up being his last test:

Serpent-handling pastor profiled earlier in Washington Post dies from rattlesnake bite – The Washington Post

About 30 minutes into the service, his sister said, Wolford passed a yellow timber rattlesnake to a church member and his mother.

“He laid it on the ground,” she said, “and he sat down next to the snake, and it bit him on the thigh.”

[...] The festivities came to a halt shortly thereafter, and Wolford was taken back to a relative’s house in Bluefield to recover, as he always had when suffering from previous snake bites. By late afternoon, it was clear that this time was different, and desperate messages began flying about on Facebook, asking for prayer.

Rattlesnake venom attacks the nervous system which makes it a particularly painful way to die, but it’s generally survivable if you get treatment in a timely fashion. Wolford was bit around 1:30 in the afternoon, he was pronounced dead at a local hospital around 11 that night. That’s a helluva thing to go through to prove your faith to God.

It also seems to put the lie to the claims in Mark 16 and you’d think that after enough people die in this way folks would start to rethink the wisdom of temping fate in such a fashion. Indeed, snake handling is dwindling among Pentecostals, but folks like Wolford are (or were) trying to reverse that trend.

Some folks might think there’s something honorable in Wolford dying for his beliefs, but I just see it as pointless waste. He didn’t prove anything nor did his death aid anyone in any way. At best it’s one less idiot dancing around dangerous reptiles in the world while encouraging others to do the same.

It seems some folks, mostly . . . → Read More: Some people can’t be happy unless everyone observes a holiday the same way they do.]]> I was reading an article at NatGeo’s website titled Memorial Day: How It’s Changed, Why Some Oppose 3-Day Weekend which was partially about the history of the holiday, but also included a section on why some folks are pushing legislation to have the date moved back to the 30^th of May.

It seems some folks, mostly Republicans, don’t feel people are observing the holiday with the level of solemnity they feel it deserves:

“The majority of Americans view Memorial Day as a time for relaxation and leisure recreation rather than as a solemn occasion and a time to reflect and pay tribute to the American servicemen and women who sacrificed their lives in defense of our Nation,” according to an American Legion resolution issued at the group’s 2010 National Convention.

Basically they’re upset that some folks aren’t spending the day the way that these people think it should be spent. How dare they take advantage of a three day weekend to have fun!

But they can fix that:

Instead of being part of a long weekend, the resolution asks that Congress “restore the official observance of Memorial Day to May 30 and that all American institutions toll their bells for one minute, beginning at 11:00, on that date in remembrance of those who died defending the Nation.”

Yes, I’m sure ruining a three-day weekend for everyone will suddenly make them more reverent about the sacrifices of service members.

Look, I appreciate the sacrifices that have been made by my fellow countrymen to secure the freedom we enjoy, but isn’t observing a holiday they way I feel like observing it part of that “freedom” thing they died for? For all their talk about Liberty and Freedom, the Republicans certainly seem keen to spell out how others should live their lives and if you’re not living it they way they think you should be then they’ll see if they can’t force you to do so.

I’m really sick of the false-patriotism of the flag-wavers in this country who think that they have a lock on what it means to be patriotic, but can’t be bothered to fulfill basic civil duties such as jury duty. You want to spend your Memorial Day visiting the graves of dead service members? Hey man, more power to you. I’ll raise a toast at the BBQ I’ll be attending instead.

Don’t think breaking a three day weekend will change that.

If anyone knows who the creator of this comic is please drop me an email letting me know so I can provide a proper attribution.

Pervert Pastor pissed at being pinched.

55-year-old Robert Lyzenga is a naughty Pastor.  Seems he felt God needed some help keeping on eye on the female members of the Sunrise Christian Reform Church so he took it upon himself to install “air fresheners” on the stall doors of the women’s restroom.

No one thought much . . . → Read More: Pastor busted for recording video of female parishioners using church bathrooms.]]>

Pervert Pastor pissed at being pinched.

55-year-old Robert Lyzenga is a naughty Pastor.  Seems he felt God needed some help keeping on eye on the female members of the Sunrise Christian Reform Church so he took it upon himself to install “air fresheners” on the stall doors of the women’s restroom.

No one thought much of it until one of them fell off while a lady was taking care of business. When she picked it up she noticed that there was some form of camera in the spot where the nicely smelling insert normally goes:

Cops: Pastor Hid Cameras In Church Bathroom | The Smoking Gun.

A review of memory cards removed from the purported air fresheners showed that they contained footage of two adult women and a female juvenile “using the restroom.” A church worker told cops the air fresheners first appeared in the stalls in February, raising the possibility that many other women were videotaped (and the footage was downloaded from the hidden cameras).

Lyzenga was busted after footage from one of the cameras showing someone putting it together in an office area was matched up with things in his own office such as the Superman mouse pad on his desk. The married father of three was fired immediately after his arrest and is awaiting trial.

I’m less surprised that the good Pastor has gone astray than I am with the means he took in doing so. I’ve never understood how someone could find watching anyone use the bathroom to be sexy.

Census – Minorities Now Surpass Whites in US Births – NYTimes.com

“This is an important landmark,” said Roderick Harrison, a former chief . . . → Read More: Minority births have surpassed White births for the first time.]]> Here’s news that’s sure to piss off our resident bigot. For the first time in American history the number of minority babies being born has surpassed the number of white babies being born:

Census – Minorities Now Surpass Whites in US Births – NYTimes.com

“This is an important landmark,” said Roderick Harrison, a former chief of racial statistics at the Census Bureau who is now a sociologist at Howard University. “This generation is growing up much more accustomed to diversity than its elders.”

[...] Minorities made up roughly 2.02 million, or 50.4 percent of U.S. births in the 12-month period ending July 2011. That compares with 37 percent in 1990.

In all, 348 of the nation’s 3,143 counties, or 1 in 9, have minority populations across all age groups that total more than 50 percent. In a sign of future U.S. race and ethnic change, the number of counties reaching the tipping point increases to more than 690, or nearly 1 in 4, when looking only at the under age 5 population.

It’s only a matter of time now until whites are in the minority. You can bet there’s going to be more turmoil as that day approaches as the racists and bigots get all riled up about it. I have a feeling they will not go softly into that dark night.

The day it does happen is well into the future. Previous predictions pegged the year 2040 as the tipping point, but the census data shows that rates of minority immigration are also on the decline which may push that date a bit further into the future. Still, it’s coming and will probably bring a storm along with it.

San Benito Teacher Replaced After Bizarre Classroom Rant About Jesus, Mary Magdalene, UFOs & The Apocalypse – Houston News.

So he pestered his best friend until the friend . . . → Read More: Friends help you move. Real friends grant your request for them to shoot you.]]> They say curiosity killed the cat and it’s true that too much inquisitiveness can be deadly, or at least very very painful. One young man with more curiosity than common sense decided he wanted to know what it felt like to be shot with a gun.

So he pestered his best friend until the friend finally complied:

Cops: NY man shoots friend in leg at his request – Yahoo! News.

State police in St. Lawrence County say the shooting occurred around 5 p.m. Sunday in the rural town of Stockholm when 25-year-old Shawn Mossow of neighboring Norfolk relented to his friend’s repeated requests and shot him once in the right leg with a .22-caliber rifle.

Normally I’m all about encouraging a healthy sense of curiosity, but the key word is “healthy”. There are some things in life that you probably don’t really need to experience if you can at all avoid it and being shot with a gun is one of those things. I can tell you what it feels like even though I’ve never been shot myself:

It really hurts. Even worse than that time you stubbed your pinkie toe in the dark while trying to walk from your bedroom to the bathroom with a massive hangover and ended up pissing all over yourself and the floor while screaming obscenities that would make a sailor blush. It’s the kind of pain that you really don’t want to know first hand. Or so I’ve been told because, as I said, I’ve never actually been shot myself.

Turns out all’s well that ends well. The shootee is in the hospital expected to make a full recovery and the shooter is in jail for reckless endangerment and hoping that the shootee is a good enough friend to loan him the 10K he needs to make bail.