I’m an NPR junkie. While at the gym yesterday I listened to a Fresh Air episode about an evangelical group called Aliance Defending Freedom. It’s worth listening to. I reference a few random thoughts here.

1. Beware of any American conservative group with something like the name “freedom” in the title. It nearly always means, “Freedom for us to live the way we want, and you should live the way we want you to too.” I love the examples brought up in the Fresh Air conversation, particularly around the “freedom” to be a bigot and not allow blacks in a restaurant as an example of how bigots naturally want this kind of freedom of choice for themselves but don’t seem to give a shit (or even be able to acknowledge) that what they’re really doing has nothing to do with freedom but with their ability to discriminate against people they don’t like. Freedom my ass! Reminds me of other conservative “successes” like “No child left behind”–a program that penalized the exact same public schools that needed the most governmental support. Yeah, the moment I hear something like “Freedom” in the name of an organization I’d bet money it was created by some type of conservative that cares about little except their vision of what the world should look like and how their tribe exemplifies that view.

2. The whole thing about stopping a medication because a handful of doctors were found who were uncomfortable subscripting it because of the possible side effects–well shit! I could blind fold myself and easily find doctors uncomfortable (and unwilling) to provide dozens of common medications for a wide variety of ailments. By the Texas courts’ logic, we should ban all prescription drugs.

3. The idea that evangelicals don’t want America to be a Christian state is bunk. They’ve been actively pushing to do this since the late 70’s and really only started to get traction during Bush Jr’s administration. I’ve been in evangelical churches and trust me, there’s no talk about accepting a pluralastic society but plenty (plenty!) about converting every last person to fit a highly idealized version of Christianity. That’s the talk and behavior I’ve seen inside the church, it’s the talk I hear on online videos from such groups, and it’s what they’re blatantly doing in the American courts. It’s the same thing many of the same folks freak about when they try to scare us all about muslims wanting to push Sharia law on America (which is a racist, bullshit point of view, with zero evidence to support) but somehow, it’s okay when the evangelical tribe is behind it with promises of, “Well, no, we won’t force our religion on you.” Ever tell an evangelical you’re not Christian? Confusion and/or stink face and/or concern (over your soul). Predictable. Boring. And oh, get this for a crazy idea, the rest of the human race has a right to live outside that little box. Thank you very much.

That’s it for now. Rambling from my other machine.

…asm…