That's right. Yo. Yes, I just said that. No, I don't speak Ebonics. Heck, I barely know what Ebonics is, and I probably have a slightly skewed definition of it. I think it's the dialect of English that black people speak.
Anyway, I was reading the news today, and for the first time since I started reading it, it was really depressing! Usually I love reading about all the death and destruction in the Middle East. It's fascinating! It's one really huge drama unfolding into events that will one day be in world history text books. And yes, I'm living to see it! I'll take the high gas prices. Historical global turmoil is so worth it!
No, I'm not crazy. I'm a history major. So nyah.
So, while I was editing a set of engagement pictures I took this past weekend, my big computer was being characteristically slow, so I decided to pull up the news on my little computer to keep myself entertained while each edit loaded. Seriously, I NEED to get a new computer for my pictures. Maybe a Mac next time... after I win $10,000 and can afford anything other than a cheap PC.
*Ahem* Back from that tangent.
Anyway, the front page story was about protests at a soldier's funeral. This fundamentalist Christian group has taken to protesting soldier's funerals as a way of drawing attention to the fact that God is punishing our nation for acceptance of homosexuality by killing our soldiers.
How did they draw that connection? That's a great question! Let me tell you.
According to the news article I read, one of the fundamentalist guys said that God punishes the wicked by giving them pain, and nothing is more painful than having your child killed. Therefore, the dead soldiers are punishment for our nation's acceptance of homosexuality. Can't you see the connection? It's so clear!
Anyway, the picture on the front of the article showed a bunch of protesters holding signs that said, "God hates you," and "Thank God for dead soldiers," and "God hates Obama!" (???!)
Now, clearly, the article being slanted against these protesters, the photographer is going to take a picture of the nastiest, most vengeful, hateful signs he can find, and maybe get three of the nastiest people to stand next to each other so he can get them all in one shot. The goal of that picture was to display the bias of the article in order to create inflammatory feelings in the viewer.
Well, it worked.
Sorry, but I don't care how slanted the article was (and yes, there was a definite slant in it), but that stuff bugs me. The whole using God to promote your hateful agenda thing? Not cool. Go ahead, protest homosexuality. Stand up for your beliefs. Just do it nicely. Don't claim God hates anyone because guess what! You're not God!
**Jumping off soapbox now**
Sorry, that was not meant to be a rant on my opinion of the matter. And believe me, I could write (and have written) a whole long discourse of my opinion on that particular subject, but such thoughts are confined to me journal, which you are not allowed to read, so BA HA HA HA HA!
The thing that intrigued me was the emotional response that article gave me. I was definitely at least a little annoyed, but mostly it was just depressing. Then I read an article on the pope's efforts to combat the world's raging anti-Semitism, and I got more depressed. Then I read an article about how Tennessee is attempting to pass a law that makes following Shariah (Islamic law) illegal. Then I read an article on Gadhafi's airstrikes against rebels in Libya, and my day picked up significantly.
So, in short, today I had a great moment of self discovery, where I learned that the state of the world DOES depress me at times, but not regarding wars and explosions and blood and people dying and stuff. It's people being hateful and mean.
Meaning, if I ever want to be happy, I have no choice but to spend the rest of my life hiding from mean people. I think I shall live in a hollow tree in Manitoba. That's in Canada. I'll spend the rest of my life there, and my friends will be the snow bunnies and the moose. Mooses. Meese. Whatever.
Yeah, the news has been kind of depressing to me lately too, but mostly from knowing that all this turmoil and the resulting gas prices are going to fling us into a deeper recession... well, that and the Westboro church whacko/fanatics.
ReplyDeleteI'm really surprised, that with such doctrinal concepts, some unstable grieving person doesn't start shooting their children at the protests. It's such a small group... such a loud squeaky wheel! I'll bet that would stop their hatefulness in its tracks.
I was also amazed that their hateful conduct was upheld by the Supreme court last week as free speech. I think it should have been a hate crime, personally... just sayin'. Sure wish they could get a taste of their own medicine.