You’d think that after living in the Georgia for the last eight and a half years that nothing the Self-Righteous Religious Right could do would surprise me, But no, these guys are creatively appalling. I wasn’t thrilled when they decided to change the name of Halloween to “Jesus Ween” and recommended the handing out of Jack Chick tracts (particularly the ones denouncing the EEEE-Villllls of Wicca and the Dangers of the Oh-Kult) to innocent children whose parents may very well disagree strongly with the message of those insane rants (imagine something drawn with the artistic ability of the animators of Beavis and Butthead and dialogue by Cotton Mather at his most rabid). Still, it was within the range of behavior with which I am familiar. Now they’ve topped that, as my husband would say, big dog style.
I ran across the story a couple of days ago on the local news. It made me feel sick to my stomach and too angry to face finding sources to which I could link. It happened in Loganville, a small town in Gwinnett County, the next county over from mine. Loganville is the home of Laura Mallory the local Mom who made it her quest in life to remove Harry Potter from the shelves of school libraries in Gwinnett County, thus saving them from being seduced into witchcraft and forced to sell their should to Satan and slay men, women, children and baby ducks in his honor. Maybe there’s something in the water there that encourages craziness.
Every year, Loganville holds a Halloween event on Main Street where children can indulge in games and trick or treating. This year, three thousand people attended, making it a smashing success. Unfortunately, a pro-life group called [http://project-ignite.com/ Project: Ignite!, led by senior minister Joshua Edmonds, had a table at the event. These Jesusweenies decided that handing out fetus dolls to small kids in costumes was a dandy idea.
“It was a great event with one exception: There was a pro-life group of some kind handing out 12-week-old fetus toys to the children. A man handed one of the so-called toys to my 3-year-old grandson. He asked what it was. The man that handed it to him told him, ‘This is a 12-week-old fetus. This is what you looked like in your mommy’s belly,’” Loganville resident John Ramsey said. “There is a time and place for everything. This event for handing out candy to small children was not the time or the place to be handing out toys about pro-life.
“I strongly feel that this was not the right thing to do at a children’s event. Again, this was a great event except for the people that were handing out toy fetuses to small children. At an adult event, OK, at a small children’s event, I think not.”
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He wasn’t the only one. Most of those who objected consider themselves pro-life or, to be more honest, anti-abortion. It wasn’t the message they objected, but the timing, This was a secular event for kids, after all. The event organizer didn’t agree.
“From what I understand, the models were not handed to children unless the parent approved,” she said, noting the group was also handing out candy at the event. “I do want to point out that I am pro-life. I find nothing offensive about the 12-week fetus models. In fact, I find them a rather beautiful reminder of life. I do, however, understand that some parents did not wish for their children to have them and I respect that.”
Edmonds, the minister from Project: Ignite! didn’t understand the problem at all and claims kids were amazed by the display and fascinated by it.
“The message we were sharing with children at this event was about the development, complexity and uniqueness of life as it develops in the womb ... With so much violence and disregard for life being portrayed in the world today, which then reflects into the tragic bullying epidemic in our schools, it is of immense value for children to walk away with an understanding of how precious and fragile life is.”
I wonder if it occurred to him that a lot of people took one look at what he was handing out and walked past as fast as their feet could carry them. I certainly would have, had I had children and been at the event. While I relish the occasional confrontation with anti-choice types, this would not be the place or time to tell them what I thought of them and their dolls. There were children present, and modern Halloween is meant to be a fun and secular celebration (Wiccans call it Samhain, and it doesn’t involve trick or treating, but a solemn ritual honoring the dead and letting go of areas of life which are holding us back) .
What bothers me the most is that the Self-Righteous Right believes it has the right and duty to convert other people’s children to their religion. They want to force biology teachers to teach their Creation Myth in science classes, llow only abstinence-only sex education classes,force everyone to listen to strictly Christian (and fundamentalist Christian at that; Catholics and Mormons should just shut up) prayers at the start of the school day and at sporting events and zoning board meetings, and generally turn the public square into an anteroom to their churches. Yet if a public school should teach about any other religion—say, Islam—as part of studying a culture in a social studies unit, they erupt with howls of complaint. With the Jesusweenies, it’ strictly “do as I say, not as I do”.
And that’s the crux of it for me. From Laura’s Mallory’s crusade against a YA fantasy series that got a lot of non-reading boys interested in books to the Chick tracts and Jesus Ween and now this latest appalling method of spreading their message, it’s all an attempt to interfere with parental rights. And that’s how this sort of behavior should be presented: an attempt to interfere with the rights of parents to raise their children in their own religion and their moral code. Doesn’t matter whether you’re a raving-in-tongues-while-rolling on the floor Pentecostal, a Latino Catholic, a Wiccan , or an atheist; you have that same right.
If they want us to respect their rights, they need to start respecting other people’s.