Life In Austin: Wouldn't you like to be a Christian too?

At the risk of alienating my entire family and family in law, what is it with the Christians? We got a call this evening from the coalition for Prayer asking if we'd sign a petition getting prayer back into the classroom.

A phone call. At night. During what could be dinner.

"Good evening. I hope I'm not disturbing your dinner, a dinner before which I have no idea whether you said Grace or not, but would you like your kids, or possibly other peoples' kids, to pray in school? Now I don't mean any of that heretical moment of silence or zealous facing toward Mecca, I mean the good ol' Lawd's Prayah!"

"What the hell?"

Come on now guys, get it together. You picked a day on which the Supreme Court basically said, "Uh, we don't give a rat's ass about Church and State" to call a Pagan to ask if she'd like to put her name down on an official document to get prayer (Christian, make no mistake) back into school. Does that make any sense to you? You don't know who's on the other line. Pass the dang petition around at church and leave the rest of the world alone. I don't call you asking if you'd sign a petition asking George Lucas to get rid of that goofy ass Han-Shot-First scene, so leave us the bloody hell alone.

Damn it all.

See, the more I type, the more steamed I get about this. You can set aside national unity and identity and all that other crap, but when you say "...one nation, under GOD..." you are eliminating all other religions and beliefs that don't believe in God. The only positive side to that is we don't believe in your Hell so save that threat. The saying was put in to the Pledge to combat communism 50 years ago, which is ironic as communism is a political structure having little to do with religion. Godless Communists? Hardly. That's like saying a Greaseless Denny's.

Look at it this way, the original intent of adding the phrase just made no sense. In order to combat a state that did not have freedom of religion, the heads of state and those in power enacted this tactic, which, then and now, is exclusionary. What happens to all the Jehovah's Witnesses and Muslims and Agnostics and atheists and Pagans and Buddhists who don't pledge every morning at school? Well back then they had their homes burned, their cars vandalized and their relatives run out of town.

Doesn't anyone see that by forcing themselves into every aspect of our lives, the Christian Right are becoming the new Communist State? Before long we'll be required to Pledge to God, The Almighty or be deported to Uzbekistan. Employers will be required to pull credit and tithing history. The states will not marry anyone unless a pastor has approved of the union.

Trust me, I love this country, but if we let these people continue with these invasive tactics, we WILL become as hateful and close minded as those against which we are waging a war.

Before you send me hate mail, by "these people" I don't mean those fantastic Catholics, Lutherans, and Baptists who go to church on Sunday, pray for their families silently, and then leave it alone. I mean those people who are legislating what TV I can watch or who call me asking to sign a religious doctrine stating that something I don't believe should be taught to my kid. How dare THEY, not you.

Meh.

You know, I have it all wrong. I think I'm going to start a The Rest of Us phone campaign. I want God and Prayer to be in our schools as well. I also want Allah and Buddha and The Goddess and Ra and Jim Nabors and whoever the hell else you want to worship back in school. Make sure to add something about, you know, SCIENCE, that damnable and highly provable religion. Stupid facts and figures. Where was your mercy, your Jesus dictated mercy, when you blew up all those atoms and created this universe. DAMN YOU SCIENCE!!

So onto some pictures. This last weekend was spent with some of Mr. Austin's family. We did some shopping and went to the outlet mall, but as all visitors over the next few months, they are here to see the new sack of mostly water and watch him squirm and poop and cry and...nope, that's about all he does.

Pictures off the starboard bow!