GOD WANTS LOW WAGES – Pay them nothing and they will teach.

•   McGill comments get national attention,
• AEA boss gives McGill failing grade

I’ve only half-joked for years that God really needs a better PR team here in the temporal world. Some of the most log-headed charlatans, grifters, and just plain logically-challenged people claim to speak on His behalf. Pat Robertson, Ted Haggard, and the ethically inept Newt Gingrich are just a few who work non-stop to tarnish God’s image.

Unfortunately, there’s another PR flack trying to grab a share of the ignobility. AL state Sen. Shadrack (Shadrack, really? Shadrack?) McGill is currently charming the nation’s electorate with the fanciful notion that God has issued an edict that teachers should be underpaid, perhaps as foretold in the Book of Ignoramus.

“It’s a Biblical principle. If you double a teacher’s pay scale, you’ll attract people who aren’t called to teach. To go and raise someone’s child for eight hours a day, or many people’s children for eight hours a day, requires a calling. It better be a calling in your life. I know I wouldn’t want to do it, OK?”

Oddly, though not surprisingly, McGill doesn’t extend the same “logic” to lawmakers. Last year he voted for a 62% increase in his pay.

Lawmakers: Bribed, Not Called

I suppose this illuminates his idea that lawmakers don’t need to be called to serve, they must be bribed to take on the job. It’s not unlike paying a large retention bonus to the CEO who ran the company into the ground because his expertise is essential to rebuilding the business.

But in his defense, McGill reasons that by paying lawmakers more they’re less susceptible to bribery – apparently bribery from someone other than the unbribable legislators themselves.

Head-scratcher, ain’t it?

It doesn’t do much for his credibility that he voted to tie legislators’ pay to the average Alabama teacher’s pay last year and reversed course this year. It’s OK though, flip flopping is a venerated sport at the Statehouse Country Club and the all seeing, all knowing God won’t really notice a little free play with facts.

Darby McGill and the Little People claim Alabama teachers are the 4th best paid in the country. Now I don’t know about you, but most people know that pretty much everything in Alabama education sucks a big weenie. They usually joust with Mississippi for the 49th or 50th spot in everything – although Propped 13 California is a strong up and commer. The true value of an Alabama teacher’s pay actually ranks 31st in the National Miseducation Sweepstakes.

Smite That Rascal Lord

Hey McGill, wait a minute. If that No. 4 standing is correct aren’t you overpaying teachers and attracting a bad crowd of the unmotivated kind? Shouldn’t you work harder to lower Alabam’s No. 4 ranking to 49th – or at least 45th?

If you’ll excuse a minor blasphemy…my God. If you claim to be serving as God’s on-scene commander, the least you could do is get your story straight. It might also sit better with the Big Guy if you didn’t stand behind his robes and yell, “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but my words and actions will never haunt me.”

God, I know you and I haven’t been on a first name basis for close to 45 years now, but I like to think we at least have a workable truce. So I beseech thee, if you’re really there control people like McGill. They do a disservice to you and just really chap the pants off the rest of us – You-fearing and not fearing alike.

Smite him o’ Lord. Cast him into the fiery pit of the unelectable. Just take away his 62% pay hike before you give him the eternal shove.

Can I get an Amen?

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• Cross posted at The Omnipotent Poobah speaks about politics, religion, economics, and crapweasels
• GOP Lawkmaker: Keeping Teacher Pay Low ‘A Biblical Principle’ (huffingtonpost.com)
• Bible Man Better Be Able to Deflect Lawsuits (patheos.com)
• Alabama Republican Lawmaker: Teacher Payraise “Unbiblical,” Defends 62% Legislator Payraise (warmsouthernbreeze.wordpress.com)

In keeping with the long and ignoble tradition of plastering the Lord’s Prayer on every flat surface in creation, Christians in the Indiana legislature have introduced a bill to require reciting the Lord’s Prayer at the beginning of every school day.

I’ve no issue with the Lord’s Prayer itself. I suppose it’s as useful as anything in helping accomplish the bill’s goal of, “establishing character and becoming a good citizen.” But prayers seem a little weak for such an important job and there is no proof it works anyway.

I also have no issue with teaching about religion in public school provided it is taught from a sociological or historical perspective and includes all religions and non-theistic points of view. After all, it is an important part of the nation’s history and understanding it can help pull us all together.

I don’t even care if religious groups want to use the school building to hold services as long as they pay the freight for that use and school isn’t in session.

But, I draw the line at requiring the Lord’s Prayer or any other religious custom or action in schools.

It’s true the bill only requires prayers at charter schools which may be partially funded by non-governmental groups. However, charter schools are, more often than not, at least partially funded with government money. And therein lies the rub.

By virtue of that government money, charter schools are open to everyone, not just Christians. Requiring kids to repeat their prayers is heavy handed and a back door to killing the concept of separation of church and state – a separation that inhibits the idea of a thriving and expanding theocracy. And BTW, wouldn’t this bill fall into the category of tyrannical Big Government that steals our liberties in a much more fundamental way than light bulb or low-flow toilet regulations?

If you insist on required prayer take your educational business to a religious school. There you can freely pray or require prayer as you wish. I don’t even care if you want to sacrifice goats (they go swimmingly with a little mint sauce BTW) on an altar. Your school, your money, your rules.

But the worst of these sorts of laws is that they are 100% unnecessary. Nothing prevents in-school prayer now. You’re free to pray all you want, any time you want. Kid got a dicey test coming up? They can put in a few quiet words to the Big Guy before they pick up their pencil. Scared they’ll be picked last for the volleyball team? “Oh dear Lord, don’t let them pick me last. Amen.”  Prayer doesn’t need to be required or recited aloud to be effective.

“Dear Lord, I beseech thee. Show those who would rob one person’s religious freedom in order to make it only for their own understand there is a way of compassion and understanding. A simple solution to a simple problem. Let them trust in your wisdom and show them the bright light of respecting all others as they ask to be respected.”

“In the Lord’s name we pray. Amen.”

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• Memo to Indiana Republicans: Reciting the Lord’s Prayer in School Won’t Make Students Better Citizens (patheos.com)
• This is what theocracy looks like (kaystreet.wordpress.com)
• Banner Banished: Court Strikes Down R.I. School Prayer Display (secularnewsdaily.com)
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• Lord’s Prayer Out in Australia (frstephensmuts.wordpress.com)
• School Board Gets Educated (steelcityskeptics.net)
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• School prayer lawsuit trial postponed (mysanantonio.com)

Michele Bachmann may have dropped out but Rick “Governor Goodhair” Perry is still inexplicably hanging on in the GOP race. And, Mitt the Mormon keeps mouthing weak-assed religious platitudes to anyone goofy enough to listen to him. However, he is careful about how loudly he delivers them lest someone pick up the cult meme again.

Newt GingGrinch has gone back to being an evil-tempered heathen because, really, who ever believed his new found piousness anyway? Ron Paul never was on the God train because he’s too busy just being  a damn weird Keebler Elf. And that other Mormon guy, what’s is name? Hunter? Huntmeister? Oh yeah, Jon “Missing an H” Huntsman is too far away from the microphone for anyone to hear what he’s saying.

Whatever happens to these goobs, Rick Santorum is still leading the Change of the Christian Brigade.  No one would describe Rick as sex-savvy, so he’ll need some help talking to the non-Fundy voters out there. Herewith: Sex Terms for Dummies.

51 Words for Vagina

51 Words for Penis

51 Words for Anal Sex (A Santorum Favorite)

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Jerusalem – Sectarian tensions rose yesterday as the UN International Dateline Commission convened its 2012 session. At issue was determining how to move the tiny Pacific Island nations of Samoa and Tokelau to the opposite side of the International Dateline.

Minor skirmishes broke out when Christian, Jewish, and Muslim supporters fought for hours over which calendar – Gregorian,  Hariji, or Hebrew – to use in planning the move. Chinese representatives remain neutral on the calendar question and the Romans voted in absentia for the Julian Calendar.

The fighting broke out after the Christian delegation charged the Muslim and Jewish delegations of declaring a War on New Year.

“They declared a War on Christmas and now they’re trying to steal the entire year from us,” said Hank Hucklebuck, Chairman of the God Says We’re Right and You’re Wrong Alliance. “Like Christmas, New Year has been part of a Christian tradition leading all the way back to 1582 when St. Greg of the Equinox threw out that evil Julian calendar.”

“Look, Christians are a fair-minded lot and we would never want to deprive others of their right to celebrate the New Year as they wish. However, we’re right, they’re wrong and only God can change that. We have already contacted his representative, Pat Robertson, to negotiate when our calendar will be chosen. We are looking forward to resolving this issue peacefully,” Hucklebuck said.

Muslim representatives had a different point of view.

“Those Christians are always going around shoving Jesus into our faces. To me this has nothing to do with the calendar. Mohamed is clearly the most important of any prophet in any religion and he chose the Hariji. Of that, there is no question,” said Isaiah Mustafa.

Israel’s Hebrew Calendar Defense League threatened violence if the Gregorian or Hariji calendars were adopted.

“We may have nuclear weapons. We have a very capable fighting force. We have the might of the last remaining global superpower behind us. We will prevail,” said Bibi Badder, Chief of Israel’s Time Continuum Militia. “If our calendar is not chosen, as as God directs, we will bomb the US Congressional Prayer Caucus, Iran, and both Michele Bachmann and that other fool…Richard Santorum.”

Fighting calmed only slightly after several unsuccessful attempts to negotiate a cease fire. Sources say that negotiations broke down when representatives could not agree on a calendar to use in setting up the ceasefire timing. A small group of Atheists tried to enter the meeting and offer a compromise based on a scientific calendar, but Islamic, Christian, and Jewish members threw stones at them until they drove them from the Temple on the Mount.

“We may not be able to agree on a calendar,” Hucklebuck said, “but we can all agree that whatever the atheists propose is complete scientific mumbo-jumbo.”

When it appeared the chance for an agreement was unlikely the Christian delegation decided to gear up their grassroots War on Christmas organization for a War on New Year. They’ve called on Fox News to launch the crusade immediately. Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity have already come aboard.

“People will call things by their proper Christian names or they will be hanged as enemy combatants for their violations of our family values. If we do not win this war – though that’s impossible because God is on our side – homosexualist indoctrinators will tell our kids they can’t pray in school and a massive outbreak of man-on-horse sex could rage,” said GOP Presidential candidate Rick Santorum.

“Mark my words.”

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The American electorate is famously uneducated. They’re easily dazzled by slick commercials that eloquently say nothing or by truthy mixes of lies and obfuscation. If guileless Americans had the tiniest speck of skepticism, political advertising wouldn’t work and money would play a smaller part in the process.

All voting blocks – left and right – have fallen for the charlatans’ siren song at some point. As a result, they make such counter-intuitive deviations from common sense they end up hurting their causes more than helping them.

Evangelicals are taking their turns this time around. Perhaps it’s their wholesome trusting nature or the irrational fear that 10% of the population is destroying America by calling Christmas a holiday. So, they’re a particularly tight-knit voting block that typically votes on a narrow slate of family values issues.

They tend to worry less about economic or foreign policy and more about shaping families in their own traditional image – something I was always taught was the exclusive province of God.

Despite their efforts, evangelical-type candidates have self-destructed this time around.  Michele “God’s on the Hotline” Bachmann flamed out early. She acted as though the voice she heard wasn’t God’s, but words from an alien anal probe. She wasn’t left or right, she’ was just over the edge. She managed to scare off a hefty portion of the evangelical vote with her ravings – not an easy thing with people who’ll unquestioningly support you as long as you invoke God often enough.

Then came Gov. Good Hair. He was properly pious. He talked about God and sounded and looked like your common tent-revival preacher. Better…until he proved repeatedly that he couldn’t read the Bible or prompts from the Teleprompter machine without falling directly into the baptismal pool. By sheer force of will and sufficiently odd behavior, he managed to snatch failure from the jaws of victory.

Next came the Godfather of Pizza. He sounded more or less sane, though not particularly light on his rhetorical feet. He was apparently not able to keep his pepperoni out of the oven. There were cries of plots most foul, but the women came out of the woodwork like termites in a broken down barn. As the situation worsened he became increasingly unbelievable and the evangelicals had to desert his sinking family values ship.

Today, Newt rides high. He’s born again, but more importantly he’s not one of those Mormon cultists. However, Newt’s closet comes with ready-made skeletons … lot’s of them … the decidedly non-family values kind. Evangelicals will either have to square Newt’s unsquareable, repeated coveting of his neighbors’ wives or ignore his transgressions. Blessed with a perpetual motion machine of a mouth and wearing his Messianic personality like  cloak of invincibility, Newt will make that a tough order, even for the blindest Godlings. Hence, Newt should be wrapping up his campaign soon, foot in mouth and looking for wife number 4.

That leaves Ron Paul, who doesn’t even talk much about religion, Jon Huntsman, who’s working on stealth campaign technology, and Rick “Man-on-Horse Sex” Santorum. Rick’s claim to fame, other than the outlandish things he says, is a Google search that features a picture of a turd. Let’s face it, while he is very good at being a turd, who wants to pick him up.

Evangelicals may be waiting for Donald Trump and/or Sarah Palin to jump back in, but both think they’re already God – a tough evangelical sell. By voting as a block on a very narrow set of issues, evangelicals will soon find themselves with a gaggle of failed candidates.

It may be time for the uber-pious to start thinking a bit more about other issues and a bit less about flag pins and whether people’s heart-felt tidings of seasonal cheer qualify as slaps to the face by encroaching heathens.

But they better hurry up, they’re running out of candidates.

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