Happy Holidays!

Dear Readers:
We are taking some time off for Christmas, but rest assured, we'll be back in 2007 with a slew of quizzes. Unfortunately, there's so much hypocrisy and corruption out there that we can hardly keep up with it as it is. But in the meantime, we wish you and yours all the best for a happy holiday season and a great new year!

Third Time’s a Charm

Can’t any of these guys keep their pants on?

First came the Rev. Ted Haggard, who had to resign from his mega-church over drug and gay sex allegations. Next came the Rev. Paul Barnes, who had to step down from his Grace Chapel near Denver over admitted homosexual liaisons.

Now comes word that Aaron Niles, a 20-year-old former church camp leader at the Super Summer Baptist Camp in Greenville, Ill., was just ensnared in his own sexual scandal. What did he do?

A. Had a child out of wedlock with his pastor’s 46 year old wife
B. Fondled three young boys on the Greenville Little League team he coached
C. Tried to get young girls to pose partially naked or perform sex acts on camera
D. Moonlighted as a transvestite prostitute in Chicago after Sunday services


ANSWER
C: Niles, whose online chat room name is “godrocks30,” was arrested on three counts of child pornography and one count of indecent solicitation of a child. At least one of his victims apparently met Niles at the church camp he worked at. Police are still combing through Niles computer, and further charges are expected.

“We hurt for the families who have been hurt by this,” said First Baptist Church pastor Jonathan Peters in a statement to his flock. “We, as the leadership of this church family, have done our best to both protect our church and to demonstrate compassion to everyone involved. We have sought to show love without leniency.”

Pray With Me

The New Jersey state Senate took the unusual step of banning a pastor, the Rev. Vincent Fields, for mixing politics with religion while giving the traditional invocation that starts each Senate session. Such invocations are supposed to be apolitical.

But what really had legislators in an uproar is the fact that Fields politicized his prayer by asking God to “curse the spirit” of those who supported a piece of legislation that was currently being debated on the Senate floor. Just what was the legislation being discussed?

A. A measure that would provide state funding to stem cell research
B. A measure that would revoke the tax-exempt status of churches if their sermons were found to be in support of a specific political candidate
C. A measure that would make it a crime to post the personal information — including home address — of abortion doctors on the Internet
D. A measure that would allow gay couples in the state to have civil unions


ANSWER
D: The Senate was to discuss a bill that would grant gay couples a limited civil union status, and apparently the Rev. Fields took issue with it.

“We curse the spirit that would come to bring about same-sex marriage,” he said in his invocation. “We ask you to just look over this place today, cause them to be shaken in their very heart in uprightness."

Afterwards, Senate President Dick Codey said that Field was out of line and wouldn’t be invited back.

The Kids Aren’t All Right

Seems there’s yet another reason that members of the religious right are worked up about the welfare of our kids.

James Rutz, chairman of Megashift Ministries and founder-chairman of Open Church Ministries and author/columnist, is upset about something he says is threatening our young ones because it is, “feminizing, and they're all over the place. You can hardly escape them anymore.” He goes on to add: “There's a slow poison out there that's severely damaging our children and threatening to tear apart our culture.” So what is this slow, feminizing poison?

A. The rise of vegetarian TV dinners
B. The steady increase of stay at home dads
C. The rise of homosexual couples adopting children
D. Cartoon superheroes who never mention Jesus Christ
E. Soybean products


ANSWER
E: Soybean products. We’ll let Rutz explain: “Soy is feminizing, and commonly leads to a decrease in the size of the penis, sexual confusion and homosexuality. That's why most of the medical (not socio-spiritual) blame for today's rise in homosexuality must fall upon the rise in soy formula and other soy products. (Most babies are bottle-fed during some part of their infancy, and one-fourth of them are getting soy milk!) Homosexuals often argue that their homosexuality is inborn because "I can't remember a time when I wasn't homosexual." No, homosexuality is always deviant. But now many of them can truthfully say that they can't remember a time when excess estrogen wasn't influencing them.”

Well, what can we add to that, except that soy has been a staple in Asian diets for centuries and they have lower cancer rates than we have in the West, far less obesity and presumably, given their climbing birth rates, there are still a few intrepid heterosexuals left.

Double Take

The hits just keep on coming!

Just days after the Rev. Ted Haggard of Colorado officially started his recovery efforts from his gay sex and drugs scandal, comes word that a second pastor from Colorado has officially left his church under tawdry circumstances.

In this case, Paul Barnes, founding pastor of the 2,100-member Grace Chapel near Denver, yesterday told his evangelical congregation in a videotaped message he had sinned and was stepping down from the church he has led for the past 28 years. So, just what did Rev. Barnes admit to?

A. Embezzling some $1.27 million from church coffers
B. Impregnating his daughter’s 18-year-old babysitter
C. Being addicted to prescription pain killers
D. Have sexual relations with men


ANSWER
D: As if taking a page out of the Ted Haggard playbook, Barnes too confessed to having gay sex while leading his anti-gay church.

"I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy,” Barnes told his church. “I can't tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away."

Added Dave Palmer, associate pastor of Grace Chapel, "While we cannot condone what he has done, we continue to support and love Paul."

Aversion Mary

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America has said that Vice President Cheney’s gay daughter, Mary, has done something “unconscionable” and “very disappointing.”
Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, has made it clear that what Mary has done is just a lousy idea.
So sinful are Mary’s actions that the White House is facing mounting criticism and the possibility of yet another drop in popularity (as if that’s even possible at this point) all because Mary did THIS:

A. Joined the liberal Unitarian Church, which openly accepts gay people
B. Adopted an HIV-positive infant son with her partner of 15 years
C. Gave 10 percent of the profits from her recent book to a charitable organization that provides support for teens with gender issues
D. Became pregnant
E. Went to Massachusetts and got married to her partner


ANSWER
D: Mary Cheney and her partner of 15 years, Heather Poe, will be getting a visit from the stork sometime in late spring.
"It's very disappointing that a celebrity couple like this would deliberately bring into the world a child that will never have a father," said Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America, a senior fellow at the group's think tank. "They are encouraging people who don't have the advantages they have." Crouse also added that the news of Mary’s baby would, in conservatives' eyes, be damaging to the Bush administration.
Carrie Gordon Earll, a policy analyst for the conservative Christian ministry Focus on the Family, expressed empathy for the Cheney family but depicted the pregnancy as unwise. "Just because you can conceive a child outside a one-woman, one-man marriage doesn't mean it's a good idea," Earll said. "Love can't replace a mother and a father."
Family Pride, which advocates on behalf of gay and lesbian families, noted that last month Virginia, where Mary Cheney and her partner live, became one of 27 states with a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
"Unless they move to a handful of less restrictive states, Heather will never be able to have a legal relationship with her child," said Family Pride executive director Jennifer Chrisler.
Chrisler went on to add that the couple "will quickly face the reality that no matter how loved their child will be. ... he or she will never have the same protections that other children born to heterosexual couples enjoy. Grandfather Cheney will no doubt face a lifetime of sleepless nights as he reflects on the irreparable harm he and his administration have done to the millions of American gay and lesbian parents and their children.”

Keroack Redux

Last week, we at Holier Than Thou took a hard look at Eric Keroack, the Conservative Christian OB/GYN appointed by President George W. Bush to oversee the federal Office of Population Affairs, which oversees a $283 million budget for federally funded teen pregnancy, family planning and abstinence programs.

And at that time we noted that Keroack — the man to be in charge of family planning for the United States — opposes contraception. But the bizarreness doesn’t end there.

Now comes word that Keroack promotes the idea that THIS disrupts one’s brain chemistry, creating a physiological barrier to a happy marriage. What?

A. Birth-control pills
B. The “Plan B” morning after pill
C. Abortion
D. Pre-marital sex


ANSWER
D: Pre-marital sex, according to Keroack, changes the chemicals in one’s brain that make it impossible to be happily married later in life. The pseudo-science behind this outlandish — and universally discredited claim — is that people who have sex before marriage are in chronic emotional pain, thus lowering their levels of oxytocin, and therefore limiting their ability to bond with others.

“People who have misused their sexual faculty and become bonded to multiple persons will diminish the power of oxytocin to maintain a permanent bond with an individual,” writes Keroack.

That, of course, and the fact that the aliens that fly out of his butt will use their ray beams to make those who have sex out of wedlock sprout horns and tails, too!

Closeted Remarks

With the 2008 Presidential race already heating up, would-be candidates for the White House are going to have to face the music when it comes to defending some of their past comments and positions.

1). Case in point, THIS outspoken White House hopeful said he was more pro-gay than Ted Kennedy back in the ’90s and during a campaign in 2002 distributed pink fliers at a Gay Pride parade wishing everyone a great Pride weekend. He even backed domestic partner benefits for public employees, winning the endorsement of the national Log Cabin Republicans. So who is this zealot for gay rights?

A. Mitt Romney, outgoing Governor of Massachusetts
B. Sen. George Allen, Virginia
C. Jeb Bush, Governor of Florida
D. Sen. John McCain, Arizona


ANSWER

A: Mitt Romney. The governor has apparently has had a big change of heart since being pro-gay is not too popular with his conservative Christian base (funny, since he’s Mormon). As recent as last month he said, “I believe gay marriage should not be legal.” Yet when he ran against Ted Kennedy for the Senate in 1994, Romney wrote a letter to the Massachusetts Log Cabin Club, pledging that as "we seek to establish full equality for American gay and lesbian citizens, I will provide more effective leadership than my opponent." During that same campaign, Romney was accused of once describing gay people as "perverse."

As governor, he appointed openly gay and lesbian people to high-profile administration positions. He doubled the budget line item for the Governor's Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth, until he tried to disband it last May.

“God’s Foreign Policy”

OK, this is the kind of stuff that even freaks us out.

The Rev. John Hagee of San Antonio is a mega-church pastor who is well connected with the Bush administration, speaking at the While House this summer on his favorite topic — foreign policy.

In fact, Mr. Hagee has often been flanked by Republican Senators and officials as he speaks passionately about what he calls “a battle between good and evil,” noting that THIS is “God’s foreign policy.”

Just what is he talking about?

A. The U.S. war in Iraq
B. The U.N.’s anti-AIDS initiative in Africa
C. The drive to eliminate Third World debt
D. Support for Israel


ANSWER
D: Support for Israel of course!

What the Rev. Hagee has in mind is the Evangelical belief that by protecting Israel, the United States is speeding up the Second Coming, by which Jesus saves the world — but probably kills all the Israeli Jews who don’t convert at the last minute (then again, we’re used to collateral damage around here, aren’t we?).

Thus, while Israel was bombing the hell out of Lebanon this summer, Mr. Hagee went to lobby the White House to press for letting the bombing last just a little longer.

Now Mr. Hagee is turning his attention to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, drawing parallels between him and the biblical pharaoh of Egypt. “Pharaoh threatened Israel and he ended up fish food,” Mr. Hagee said. One has to wonder what similar Bible prophecy Bush has in mind for Ahmadinejad during his final two years of office.

What, Me Worry?

Thank God for God! Otherwise, our elected leaders might actually have to tackle issues, solve problems, and in general, lead!

But, according to Republican senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma, despite a growing body of evidence to the contrary, one of our biggest problems as a nation really is no problem at all because, quite simply, “God’s still up there” to protect us.

So, just what issue can we all collectively ignore because God is on the case instead?

A. The War in Iraq
B. The search for Osama Bin Laden
C. The battle against AIDS
D. Global warming
E. Irregularities in electronic voting machines



ANSWER
D. Global warming need not be taken up as an issue for the Congress, Inhofe said, because after all, “God’s still up there.” What makes this statement even more disturbing is the fact that Inhofe is Chairman of the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works — in other words, the top man in the Senate regarding environmental issues like global warming.

Thankfully, Inhofe won’t be in charge of the committee much longer. He will be replaced by new Democratic leadership after the first of the year. Perhaps God is still up there after all.

Holiday Jeer

We wouldn’t have believed this one if we hadn’t read it with our own eyes. Who would have thought decorating for the holidays would be so controversial. Read on.

Last week Lisa Jensen and Bill Trimarco, a couple living in Pagosa Springs, CO, were recently threatened with fines of $25 a day by their homeowners’ association and told that their take on holiday decorating was divisive and perhaps satanic. The couple had chosen to express their yuletide spirit by doing WHAT?

A. Hanging an elaborate light display in front of their home that flashed in red and green, “Love Thy Neighbor.”
B. Displaying a four-foot Christmas wreath in the shape of a peace symbol in front of their house.
C. Decorating a pine tree in front of their house and putting the Jewish Star of David on top of the tree rather than a traditional five-point star.
D. Refusing to keep with neighborhood tradition by not putting up Christmas lights or decorations and instead displaying a rainbow flag by their front entry.


ANSWER
B: Displaying a wreath in the shape of a peace symbol. In its original letter, the homeowners’ association said some neighbors had found the peace symbol politically “divisive.” And a board member told a newspaper that he thought the familiar circle with angled lines was also, perhaps, a sign of the devil.
The fines have been dropped and the three-member board of the association has resigned, according to an e-mail message sent to residents on Monday.
Mr. Trimarco said he put up the wreath as a general symbol of peace on earth, not as a commentary on the Iraq war or another political statement.
In any case, there are now more peace symbols in Pagosa Springs, a town of 1,700 people, than probably ever in its history.
Last Tuesday morning 20 people marched through the town carrying peace signs and then stomped a giant peace sign in the snow roughly 300 feet across on a soccer field, where it could be easily seen. Merry Christmas!