Fun_People Archive
31 Aug
Is Jesus Upset about Health Care for Gays?

Content-Type: text/plain
Mime-Version: 1.0 (NeXT Mail 3.3 v118.2)
X-Face: $JuL3_NrfhnRK$`uQW%rQNk6<y=l+)&gQVb(_7Iq2/G;sY|P~U}Y7Z\3|CJ~EkN4kkvZIR
	'PnxjbL%g|yxS+#aw]2OTD{e)PhD{gS#ACc>j{f<AC@=Z4IoT^~f'4HM(0H]P>
X-Nextstep-Mailer: Mail 3.3 (Enhance 2.0b6)
From: Peter Langston <psl>
Date: Sun, 31 Aug 97 23:46:00 -0700
To: Fun_People
Subject: Is Jesus Upset about Health Care for Gays?

Forwarded-by: Eric Steese <ecscc@olywa.net>
Forwarded-by: C. Cameli
Forwarded-by: Grace Landel <glandel@u.washington.edu>
Forwarded-by: BecaPA@aol.com


IS JESUS UPSET ABOUT HEALTH CARE FOR GAYS?

by Beverly Bartlett, Columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal

  The Southern Baptist Convention voted to boycott Disney.

  Well, good for the Baptists.  It's about time someone stood up to
Disney's shameless propaganda, their insistent promotion of their own
perverted sense of a family, the sorry and sickening spectacle of each
of their movie plots.

  I'm sick and tired of the way Disney solves every woman's problem--be
it her career as a hooker ("Pretty Woman"), her beleaguered
civilization ("Pocahontas") or her miserable stepmother ("Snow White,"
"Cinderella")--by having her marry well.

  And I'm still steamed about the way they gave the prepubescent
American Indian princess such big breasts.

  Yeah, boy, the Southern Baptists have really taken a brave stand...

  Wait a minute.  What's that?

  The Baptists aren't upset about the role Disney has played in
rearing a generation of girls to look upon themselves as pretty little
future wives, just waiting for a prince to rescue them?

  Nope. They're upset that the company is giving out health insurance
too freely.  Too many gays and lesbians, in the minds of these
Baptists, are getting the likes of annual teeth cleanings and Pap
smears.  And they also don't like "Ellen" or "Pulp Fiction."  So the
convention voted to banish Mickey from their homes, Snow White from
their VCRs and Peter Jennings, who works for ABC, which is owned by
Disney, from their living rooms.

  Well, no doubt their kids will be better off.  I'm not a big fan of
any of that stuff anyway.  And it's absolutely, 100 percent, their
business. No one has to watch something they find objectionable,
whatever their reasons.

  This is America, by golly.  Boycotts are our right.  And the First
Amendment grants all of us the opportunity to make our own spiritual
way.

  That is apparently what one delegate was trying to do when she
proclaimed that the boycott "will change us.  It will affirm to us and
the world that we love Jesus more than we love our entertainment."

  Fine.  But in case she or any of the other convention delegates ever
wonder why conservative Christians are sometimes seen as hateful and
bigoted and judgmental, look at how this appears from the outside. The
Baptist Convention is boycotting not because it believes Disney treats
some group or individual badly, but because they think the company
treats a group of individuals too well.

  Singling out Disney's health-care policy as "anti-family," when so
many companies don't provide employees with health care at all, makes
Baptists seem as if they don't care about helping struggling families
as much as they care about hurting the families they don't like.

  The boycott is not about easing miserable conditions at overseas
factories.

 It's not about shaming highly profitable companies for laying off
loyal employees.  It's not about shunning a movie that spreads hateful
stereotypes or ugly untruths.

  In a world of sin and suffering, they're upset that one group of
people isn't suffering enough.

  It seems awfully strange to make a moral judgment that puts
everything that touches Disney off limits--from the seemingly ancient,
sweet sentiment of "It's A Small World" to a "20/20" interview with
Billy Graham--but that excuses the production of crass productions
like "Beavis and Butt-Head," skin TV like "Baywatch" and often-crude
comedies like "Seinfeld."

  Baptists pick their battles like everyone else.  But the individuals
pushing this agenda should at least admit that their biases are their
biases.

 They are boycotting ABC not just because they love Jesus more than
entertainment, but because they love the parts of the Bible that
preach against homosexuality more than they love the parts that preach
against hate, or gluttony, or gossip, or working on Sunday, or women
cutting their hair.

  They are not, after all, boycotting NBC for providing health
benefits to Katie Couric, with her sinful bob, or Willard Scott, with
his shameless gut.

 They are not boycotting Wal-Mart for doing business on Sunday, in
direct violation of one of the Ten Commandments.

  Does anyone really think that Jesus is worried that too many people
are getting health-care coverage?

END

© 1997 Peter Langston