Merry “Poor little Christians got picked on”-mas! There is no denying it. There is never a surprise. Every year right-wing Christians take their armies marching — with banners flying high — into every retail store in the nation. They demand that they, and only they, be served as customers.
Have you ever wondered about the irony present in the right-wing’s actions versus the right-wing’s words and ideology? They constantly rant about how our nation was founded to be a free society. Yeah, they also talk about it being a Christian nation and all, but the “free society” bit is still there. They are, after all, American. Then, at the same time, they try to force themselves on the marketplace. I guess they don’t realize that our free market is a direct product of our free society. Maybe their wonderful “Christian Founding Fathers” should have been more careful when it came to business?
Corporations are going to do what sells. Big business is interested in one thing only: cash — lots and lots of it. How can a company get more cash? I know a way. Market as much and as widely as humanly possible and draw in the most customers.
Do the right-wingers really believe that big business cares about a religious holiday and the “real meaning” behind it all? If they think that, then they are sadly deluded (but, oh, we already knew that).
I’m a Christian. I love Christmas and Easter. I’m also intelligent enough to know that big business could really care less about why I am celebrating these holidays. All they want is my cash.
Let’s leave the Christmas-ing to the churches, families and community groups. Let’s let business do what it does best and fight a battle we can really win. If the right-wingers spent as much time and money fighting homelessness or hunger during this “most joyous time of year,” then our whole country — indeed, the whole world — would be much better off.
But then we’d have to thank them. Never mind. Forget I said anything at all.
On a related note...
In case you’ve been a bit unaware of the more intrinsic dealings of the religious right, you should know (and be warned) that their slowly deteriorating movement in America is moving elsewhere.
The right-wingers are slowly growing to become an international force. Of course, we already knew that many areas across the world are many times more conservative than we are in the U.S., but now there is real organization, power and money behind it all.
Watchmen on the Walls is an example of just one international right-wing group starting to pop up in current international socio-political circles. The group has membership and leadership ranging from American religious and political leaders to those in places as far flung as some former states of the Soviet Union. They recently held a conference in Washington state, along with a more recent gathering in Riga, Latvia.
At the same time, places like the western U.S. are seeing a huge influx of immigrants from Russia and other conservative countries in Eastern Europe. The foreigners aren’t the only newcomers to the country; their conservative, almost Nazi-like attitudes and ideologies are immigrating, as well. The concerns over increased hate-based violence are so high that the Southern Poverty Law Center has begun to track the Watchmen and recently named it among those they consider “virulently anti-gay” and prone to violence.
We’re in dangerous times, my friends. Perhaps we should encourage our wonderful national queer groups to get more involved (with their power and money) with international LGBT groups like the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission. We can’t ignore the international struggle for equality. In fact, if we were more involved internationally, maybe we could learn new strategies to implement the true American ideals we inspired in other nations.
Matt Comer Editor
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