Our open letter calling on Texas Gov. Rick Perry to stop using faith as a political weapon to divide Americans now has more than 7,500 signatures. One news report indicates just 8,000 people have registered to attend the Christians-only event Gov. Perry has asked a far-right hate group, the American Family Association, to organize for him next weekend in Houston.
We’re sending our letter to Gov. Perry next week. So click here to sign on if you haven’t already.
I think it is interesting that TFN has as many people against the rally and Perry has coming to it. I would take that as a “bail out while I still can” message. It also shows how few Christians (overall) actually support him and highlights the fact that most of them live in the “Jim and Tammy” corner of the church. I wonder how many of them have air-conditioned dog houses while some old person in Houston swelters near death in this heat.
I actually want to go to the shindig. But only if I can ride around Houston in a limo with Rick Perry and Jimmy Swaggart.
The Tea Party is insisting on big cuts to Medicaid and other social programs. And yet three members of the Tea Party caucus – Michele Bachmann, Chris Smith and Mike Pence – sponsored legislation earlier this year to de-fund Planned Parenthood, who spends about half their annual budget providing birth control to the poor. Never mind that there are already 17 million kids in America that don’t know where their next meal is coming from. Bachman, Smith and Pence want to walk down the street and see those kids – and many more – both sick and starving. Hypocrisy thy name is the Tea Party.
The positions of the Religious Right and the Tea Party (the two have merged) are as follows:
1) There is no such thing as a poor, hungry, or sick person in the United States—only lazy people who refuse to work to support themselves.
2) The lazy people in question somehow find money to buy cell phones, HD TVs, and brand new Acuras while expecting the people who do work to buy the staples that allow these people to survive: beer, coffee, cigarettes, lottery tickets, and junk food.
3) The government has usurped the traditional role of the church in helping the nonexistent poor, hungry, and sick people. This role of the church must be taken back from government. This requires some translation for the average person, so I will translate it for you while I take on the role of a member of the Religious Right.
“Put aid to the poor, sick, and hungry back in our hands at church, and we’ll get results. The first thing we will do is sort out the very few real poor that might exist from the vast majority that is just faking it. Then we will tell the ones who are faking it to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior as a precondition to getting help. We will then offer to help them—but only as long as they keep away from their bad habits that make us so angry. If they fail, we will kick their sorry butts out into the street to be penniless and starve to death—and we will ensure that no one helps them. As far as we are concerned, that kind of necessary pain is the only thing that will make them straighten up, fly right, and get a job.”
“When the church takes back this helping roll from the government, the government will quit taking so much tax money out of my pocket. Then I will finally have enough money to buy that new Mercedes-Benz. If the church fails to take back this role, I might have to settle for a Chevrolet—and that’s just not fair to me.”
Of course, as most of you at TFN Insider probably know, most protestant churches in the United States do not have enough money to consistently and effectively care for the poor, hungry, and sick people. My moderate-sized church has a hard time paying its own basic bills every month. We had to take up a special collection in May because we were $10,000 behind on paying our bills. So where are these Christian fundamentalist and far right wing Evangelical churches going to come up with the money to help the poor, hungry, and sick? For the most part, they are not. But then again, from their view, there is really no need for such money because their answer to the whole problem is to offer them Jesus and then kick them out in the street to die if the “Jesus remedy” fails to take effect.
And why would they do this? Because they love them.
Idiots!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Charles the right wing fundamentalist shysters, err ministers,are busy lining their pockets by preaching the gospel of prosperity to those that are most down on their luck. “Give me a donation today, a nice big donation, and God will reward you with riches beyond your wildest dreams!” Poor people? People that aren’t too bright? They were put on this earth to be taken advantage of.
I watched a 30 minute infomerical on this very topic one night on TBN; I didn’t intend to watch the entire episode but found myself enraptured and unable to change the channel A couple found themselves with 75K in credit card debt and no hope of paying it off. They bought the series of tapes for $350 from the parasite, err preacher, who was featured in the infomercial. A year later, when they were up to 150K in credit card debt but they still believed. Then suddenly a relative they didn’t even know they had died and left them a small fortune! Wow! It could happen for you too, but you’ve got to order in the next 15 minutes!
Hey! You are using great reverse psycology to get Reverend Ricky to stand up with his pandering pentecostal prosperity preachers and give us some videotape that would put the Rev. Jeremiah Wright tapes to shame. If TFN tries to get him to denounce these exclusive, evangelical egotists then he will just have to stand with them and give us a good baseline for future reference.