Coming Out of Some Prehistoric Closet

NewsweekUpdated: 12:51 p.m. ET Feb. 8, 2005Feb. 8
The ongoing campaign against alleged gay icons in animated cartoons continued today as a newly formed conservative group demanded that television stations stop broadcasting "The Flintstones" at once. Harland Devane, leader of the group Focus on the Flintstones, said at a press conference in Washington, D.C. today that his organization was issuing the demand because, "Quite simply, everything about 'The Flintstones' is way too gay."The conservative activist distributed a memo itemizing over 50 ways in which the self-styled "modern Stone Age family" series promotes homosexuality, but left little doubt that most of his concerns centered on the relationship between the two main characters, Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble."Their relationship is more flagrantly homosexual than anything in Oliver Stone's 'Alexander,'" Devane said. He pointed out that Fred and Barney are virtually inseparable, are never seen wearing pants and live together in the suggestively-named town of Bedrock. He also noted that the two men work together at a quarry wearing hardhats and construction garb, an oblique reference to the construction worker in the classic disco band "The Village People.""Do I believe they are gay icons?" Mr. Devane said. "I abba-dabba-do." He added that Focus on the Flintstones' efforts will not stop at banning the cartoon series from U.S. television stations, telling reporters that the group is also "taking a close look" at Flintstone-related consumer products such as Flintstone vitamins and cereal. "We are very uncomfortable with Fruity Pebbles," he said. Elsewhere, President Bush announced a budget of $2.57 trillion, most of which will go to paying for last month's inauguration.

Ashes To Ashes and Dust To The Rescue...

Ash Wednesday is a day that few people consider remotely significant. But in my world it's important. Curiously, I rather appreciate this ritualistic acknowledgement of man's absolute depravity and even anticipate it. Not like I anticipate Thanksgiving...I mean, that's about really good food and laughing all day with family. And not like I anticipate Christmas, because Christmas is a drudge anymore...so much work and pressure and money.
No, I anticipate it like I anticipate a hot bath after backpacking a week in the mountains of northern New Mexico. I've been on a long, hard trek and I've got a lot of road grime built up in my most secret places. My body aches from the exertion and celebrates those aches for the achievement. But I just need to stop and be still for a while and consider where I've been and what I've done and how I might do it better next time.
That's how I anticpate Ash Wednesday. And in my new role as Minister of Worship at a large church in my community, the task of preparing ashes for the imposition landed right on my desk.
Just know that I've been challenged by this task before and never gotten it quite right. My first time out, I ceremonially burned the palm branches from the previous year's Palm Sunday celebration, ground them with a pestle, and at the appropriate time dipped my thumb into the mixture and tried to smear the ash on penitent foreheads. It didn't really work. What ashes did stick to my thumb flaked onto penitent eyelashes, noses, and white blouses.
The next year I repeated the process, but this time I kept a small dish of baby oil next to my ashes and dipped in it from time to time to guarantee a better "stick." By the time I'd imposed 5 or 6 of my sheep, I had a wad of oily ash on my thumb thick enough to flick across a badminton net and play back again.
Not to be confounded, the next year I repeated that whole process but added a bowl of warm, soapy water and a towel so that I could wipe my thumb from time to time. This was not a bad solution, but the altar was starting to look more like my kitchen sink than a sacred reliquary.
The search continued this year and I promised God I could do better. So I did what most seekers do, I "Asked Jeeves," who promptly sent me to Lutheran-land. Those people know how to do ashes. I learned that I was to add to the burned, ground palms a little mineral oil...not too much, and then emulsify the concoction by hand, which I did. Except I added too much mineral oil.
"Oh God, it's 4:00 and the service is at 7:00. And I have no more palms to burn. What do I do?" I sort of panic-prayed.
And it is no less than divine providence that caused me to look out the window and catch site of the drooping palm branches in the backyard, some of which had frozen in January's cold snap. I grabbed my scissors and a BIC lighter and soon holy smoke rose from the bar-b-que grill as I prayed over the smoldering palm leaves that had waved in the wind vs. the sanctuary last Palm Sunday, assuring myself that God had my back on this one.
I added the newly ground ash to my messed-up mix and it didn't make a dent in the oily mush. I burned more palms. And still, I found the test rub on my spouse's forehead looked more like an adolescent oil slick than a nice, black Ash Wednesday smudge.
"What do we do?" I asked my husband/lab-rat.
"Confess and repent." He said, wiping his brow and inching out the door.
"Flour! Flour would soak up the oil, and it's organic!" I said, but as I reached for the canister I remembered something else: dirt.
"Dirt?" you ask.
Not just any dirt. I am a native New Mexican which means that I keep holy dirt, miracle dirt, "tierra bendita," from the churchyard at Chimayo in my medicine cabinet. Legend has it that sprinkling this dirt over the lame can make them walk or placing a baggy of it under the mattress of the dying will bring them back to life. I figured it was bound to restore my ailing ashes.
Now, I'm not saying there was a miracle in my kitchen that afternoon. What I am saying is that I sprinkled a goodly amount of my special ingredient into the oily mush, working hard to think pure and holy thoughts so to infuse a spirit of love to the mix. And just for good measure, I added a touch of lavender so that the scent would be earthy and soothing. Finally, I put it all in a mortar dish and set off to church smelling like I'd sat around a mountain campfire all afternoon.
It was a good mix after all. The pastors were doubtful when they first spied it. But as they came face to face, thumb to forehead with pilgrim after pilgrim seeking penance, forgiveness, restoration, and relief...the milagro came about. Peace reigned. And for many-- ritual, once more, brought definition and structure to otherwise chaotic and unpredictable lives.

Sometimes I Sits And Thinks...

The Public Thinker
By BOB HERBERT

Published: February 14, 2005 (NY Times)
Arthur Miller, in his autobiography, "Timebends," quoted the great physicist Hans Bethe as saying, "Well, I come down in the morning and I take up a pencil and I try to think. ..."

It's a notion that appears to have gone the way of the rotary phone. Americans not only seem to be doing less serious thinking lately, they seem to have less and less tolerance for those who spend their time wrestling with important and complex matters. (read on)

Conservative Eye For The Cartoon Guy

At a black tie dinner attended by high-profile Republicans during inauguration week, James Dobson "came out" against the most threatening of characters: Sponge Bob Squarepants. I must admit, I'm not a fan (of James OR Bob) but I DO like that song Bob is being accused of doing his do to....you know, "We Are Family!" According to Dobson, Sponge Bob is actively recruiting the gay agenda in his new music video as he "gets down" (rhythmically, not sexually) with Pooh, the Rugrats, Barney, and my personal favorite, Bob The Builder.
The video is part of a tolerance project developed by the We Are Family Foundation, the leaders of which have suggested that Mr. Dobson has possibly made an error...confusing them with the website, "WeAreFamily" (waf.org), whose purpose is to provide support to gays and lesbians, particularly those who are youth.
In view of this information, Dobson's spokesfolk made their position clear: "We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids. It is a classic bait and switch." (Paul Batura, Focus on the Family)
And how is this insidious message being conveyed? By encouraging young people to take a pledge, a TOLERANCE pledge, which says:

Tolerance is a personal decision that comes from a belief that every person is a treasure. I believe that America's diversity is its strength. I also recognize that ignorance, insensitivity and bigotry can turn that diversity into a source of prejudice and discrimination.
To help keep diversity a wellspring of strength and make America a better place for all, I pledge to have respect for people whose abilities, beliefs, culture, race, sexual identity or other characteristics are different from my own.
(from Tolerance.org)

I find myself thinking of the parable Jesus told about the guy who threw the big wedding banquet to which his hoity-toity friends did not come:

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. Go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, both good and bad, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.
“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes.‘Friend,’ he asked, ‘how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ The man was speechless.
“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’" (Mt 22:8-13)

Beware, Mr. Dobson. Heaven might be a white tie event.

Politicians In Christian's Clothing

The Republican Gospel on Gay Marriage(from Salon.com)
It's no secret that the Republican Party has been working for some time now to court America's black voters, once considered a reliable pillar of the Democrat's base. At Karl Rove's behest, the Bush administration has been forging alliances with prominent black evangelicals and the communities they represent, using the issue of gay marriage to get in the door. In a meeting organized this week by the Traditional Values Coalition, a far-right lobbying group with ties to the White House, 70 evangelical clergy sat down to draw up a "Black Contract With America on Moral Values," chief among which was opposition to gay marriage, reports the Los Angeles Times.
The right-wing Heritage Foundation, presumably an ally in the cause, has its own take on the matter. According to the L.A. Times, at the end of February Heritage will cosponsor a gathering of black conservatives in Washington designed to counter dominance of the "America-hating black liberal leadership" and to focus African American voters on moral issues.
As columnist Earl Ofari Hutchinson wrote recently, the GOP is banking on conservative attitudes about gay marriage among blacks to help grow its constituency in key swing states from the 2004 election, including Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin. In the past Bush has awarded large sums to black churches through his faith-based program, to help the Republican Party court black voters in general.
But too much focus on the fight over gay marriage might also start to work against the GOP, especially if other key issues fall by the wayside. At a meeting of black Baptist denominations last weekend in Nashville, gay marriage was far down on a long list of priorities that included education, health care, the job market and other pressing issues.
"While African-Americans have expressed certain sentiments that reflect opposition to an expansion of the gay homosexual agenda, there is still much more concern about bread-and-butter issues in terms of the public agenda that they would like to see their churches pursue," said Rev. R. Drew Smith, a Baptist minister who directs the Public Influences of African American Churches project at Morehouse College in Atlanta, according to the Chicago Tribune.
At one point Rev. Jesse Jackson addressed the delegates, who represent 15 million Americans. According to the Tribune report, he warned delegates to watch out for political trickery. Thousands of hands shot into the air when Jackson talked of a higher minimum wage, stable Social Security, affirmative action and an end to the war in Iraq, though no hands went up when he asked how many churches had blessed a same-sex union."How did that get in the middle of our agenda?" Jackson asked. "That's called a wolf in sheep's clothing. Beware."

Pumping Down The Volume

Regardless of your personal take on the Right To Life/Pro-Choice debate, it is important to be aware of an insidious decision made last week that cuts across both sides. The slice was made in South Carolina where the voice of the pro-choicers is being silenced and this silencing has just been reinforced by the U.S. Supreme Court (see article below). As much as I'd like the world to look like I look, think like I think, and support the ideals I support....I realize that just isn't the system into which we have been thrust. It is the conversation that brings us together. It is the conversation that grows us to higher ground. It is the conversation that cultivates answers to the question of how we all live together peacefully on this planet. The U.S. Supreme Court is turning a deaf ear to that conversation and in so doing, negating a constitutionally endowed right for some to be heard. This is wrong. It's not about the issue, it's about the action. Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Court Declines License Plate Case
Appellate Rulings Conflict on Allowing Antiabortion Message
Associated Press
Tuesday, January 25, 2005; Page A03

The Supreme Court declined yesterday to consider whether states may offer license plates with antiabortion messages, leaving lower courts divided over whether the programs in a dozen states unconstitutionally restrict dissenting views.

Without comment, justices let stand a lower court ruling that South Carolina's license plates bearing the slogan "Choose Life" violate the First Amendment because abortion rights supporters were not given a similar forum to express their beliefs.