A Momentous Occasion!

Hey, I got my first angry response! Personally, I’m thrilled. It means that people are actually finding this blog somehow.

Of course, like most angry posts, this one is misguided. I’ve posted a response in the comments section, but I think it deserves some extra attention. After all, it’s my first.

Here’s the text of the response, to my MLK Day post, from Web_Loafer:

Tom, I have only one question.
Do you think the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted limiricks at the pearly gates?
You should be ashamed to mention the name of such a good Christian on your Christian bashing blog.

Well, first, I didn’t actually “quote” those limericks. I wrote them myself. Let’s give credit where it’s due. I said to Mr. Loafer that I believe Dr. King had a sense of humor, but that wasn’t really based on anything. I did some cursory research, and came across a very different and interesting Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. From Ebony Magazine:

Many knew him as the minister whose nonviolent social activism exposed American hypocrisy and lighted the way for the Civil Rights Movement. But few, besides family and friends, knew the human side of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.–the man who loved food and laughter, and could sink a mean basketball jump shot with either hand.

King, who moved mountains and masses with his stunning oratory, also evoked gut-wrenching laughter among friends and associates when delivering a “preacher’s joke.” While the civil rights legend stood fast and strong against abusive crowds in marches against injustices in the South, he also could swim as if water was air.

So, yeah, I think he might have told a joke at the Pearly Gates, and it was probably a damn good one.

Of course, I could turn the “indignant” card back on you, sir. You should be ashamed to come on my blog and pretend to support one of the nation’s greatest supporters of civil rights, when you support a President who has tried his best to erode civil rights since the day he entered office. How can you claim to support a civil rights activist when George Bush is leading the call to write discrimination back into the Constitution? You think liberals are socialists? Secret prisons, torture, illegal domestic spying, and a supreme Executive aren’t liberal ideals. How can you proclaim support for a civil rights activist and protester like King, when President Bush is spying on pacifistic protesters just like King and putting them on watch lists and no-fly lists? In Bush’s America, Martin Luther King wouldn’t be able to get on an airplane. How’s that for civil rights?

As far as this being a Christian-bashing blog, it’s true that I’m no Christian, but I think my previous posts have shown a clear respect for the teachings of Jesus, and for those few quiet people who follow that example. If “Christian-bashing” consists of saying that too many Christians don’t practice what they preach, if it consists of saying that too many Christians forget that Jesus’s message, and not his death, was the important part of his life, then sure, I’m a Christian-basher. My definition of Christian-bashing, however, is a little different. You know, consisting more of bashing Christians.

Pat Robertson and his ilk? Yeah, I’ll bash them ’til the cows come home. But, to paraphrase that guy in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, “If Pat Robertson’s a Christian, then I’m Mickey Mouse!”