{"id":6598,"date":"2011-06-29T19:51:32","date_gmt":"2011-06-30T02:51:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=6598"},"modified":"2011-09-13T12:24:15","modified_gmt":"2011-09-13T19:24:15","slug":"church-ladies-aol-uncles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=6598","title":{"rendered":"Church Ladies & AOL Uncles"},"content":{"rendered":"

The church ladies are restless.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’m sure this has something to do with NBC’s silly decision<\/a> to edit out the words “under God” from an airing of the pledge of allegiance during a golf tournament last week.\u00a0 Reaction on the right was immediate and harsh, and now the AOL uncles are forwarding shit like this.<\/p>\n

I say shit advisedly, because to say “they no longer do that” is bullshit.\u00a0 They — we — very much still do that.\u00a0 Schoolchildren throughout the land continue to memorize and recite the pledge (including the words “under God”), just as our generation did, and no one anywhere has banned it “for fear of offending someone” — or for any other reason.\u00a0 Two seconds’ research on Google would confirm that, but the kind of people who forward ALL CAPS messages shoot first and ask questions later.\u00a0 If they ever ask questions at all.<\/p>\n

I don’t have a problem with the pledge in its current form.\u00a0 Yes, I know the original version<\/a> didn’t include the words “under God.”\u00a0 They were added by Congress in 1954 after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus.\u00a0 There’s a valid argument to be made that Congress violated the separation of church and state with that action.\u00a0 But it’s not an argument I’m passionate about.\u00a0 If Congress had added “under our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” instead of “under God,” well, that would be a different story.<\/p>\n

You don’t have to say “under God” if you don’t believe.\u00a0 You don’t have to say the pledge of allegiance at all.\u00a0 I guess I wish more people knew that, but hey, I’m not going to lose a lot of sleep over it.<\/p>\n

Obviously, though, I’m disturbed by this Facebook post, and you may well ask why.\u00a0 I commented on the post, pointing out that it was a lie.\u00a0 Within five minutes three people called me an atheist.\u00a0 Which I am, but what does that have to do with spreading lies on the internet?<\/p>\n

What upsets me about cut & paste crap like the this is that it’s meant to stir up hatred against certain people: dirty hippies, liberals, and atheists.\u00a0 People like me.\u00a0 If it weren’t for people like me, NBC wouldn’t have edited the pledge of allegiance.\u00a0 If it weren’t for people like me, we’d have a white Republican president.\u00a0 If it weren’t for people like me, we’d have prayer in schools.\u00a0 If it weren’t for people like me, we could round up all those pesky Mexicans.<\/p>\n

I’d like to ignore the church ladies and AOL uncles.\u00a0 But they’re feeling their oats these days, and if they get their way the United States will become a Christian version of the Islamic Caliphate, complete with a Christian version of Sharia Law.\u00a0 People like me will be stoned … and I’m not talking about reefer.<\/p>\n

So I just have this to say to other people like me: keep your guard up.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The church ladies are restless. I’m sure this has something to do with NBC’s silly decision to edit out the words “under God” from an airing of the pledge of allegiance during a golf tournament last week.\u00a0 Reaction on the right was immediate and harsh, and now the AOL uncles are forwarding shit like this. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[250,10,27,2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-wars","category-current-events","category-memes","category-personal"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6598"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6611,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6598\/revisions\/6611"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}