Talibangelism

by Al Falafal

(Buy this t-shirt at: Radical Rags)

I never heard the word "Talibangelist" before today. I just LOVE it! Very descriptive. This and "Repugnican" get my vote for the most meaningful made up new terms to enter the English vocabulary this year.

I read about talibangelism in someone's response to the latest crop of annoyingly tiresome, stupid and irrelevant religious crap that Facebook homophobes have been posting in response to the vote in Maine to re-criminalize same-sex marriage. Why do we have to keep hearing what fundamentalists (some who strongly deny being bible thumpers) have to say about our right, as same-sex couples, to access the benefits of marriage bestowed by our secular government.

Enough, I say, with giving a shit what anyone thinks was written in any ancient book that may have had some relevance in a totally different reality than what we are dealing with here in the 21st Century.

Like the Taliban and other Militant Muslim groups, Christian fundamentalists in America want to perpetuate the mores of the dark ages - particularly in regard to negative attitudes toward homosexuality - while they twist everything else in their bible to rationalize their desire to indulge in advances of civilization that brought us to the 21st Century.

The concept of democracy, for instance, was completely foreign to the ancient minds responsible for all those stories that make up the bible. Didn't matter if they did not agree with or like the authority of their overlords and monarchs that ruled over them. They did whatever they were told to do and thought what they were told to think. They knew their place. Did not even matter what they experienced or wanted out of life for themselves.

The authors of the bible did not even envision a time when human slavery would be frowned upon, much less when democracy would be the basis of government anywhere on earth.

People who live in this democratically-ruled country today and claim to base their world-view on the bible are therefore nothing more than hypocrites if they do not refrain from participating in our democratic process.

Times have change, baby! And you know the changes have been mostly been for the better. If not, then take your sorry ass out of this modern context altogether. Go back to living without electricity, cars, TV and the freakin internet. Where does your all-encompassing bible give you the permission to indulge such vices?!

If you insist on imposing a medieval mindset - with its strictures against homosexual relationships and many other things that are facts of life in this contemporary world - then YOU HAVE NO RIGHT to enjoy ANY of the modern conveniences and privileges that have developed since the time the last book of your precious little bible was written.

You may be able to impede the progress of an enlightened civilization, but you cannot stop it. We SHALL overcome! Oh yes we will.

You all who have blocked our way for so long will soon be totally irrelevant, just as you were when ruled over by medieval monarchs and patricians who told you what to do, how to think and what to believe.

And you can all just go to hell!