Downward White Christian Soldiers, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #162

March 21, 2010 Mike Gold 21 Comments

Constance McMillen, a lesbian student in Jackson Mississippi, wanted to attend her high school prom and bring another woman as her date. In an attempt to provide appropriate schooling and fight bigotry and discrimination, the County School District cancelled the prom.

So now, in addition to taking all the crap uncloseted gay and lesbian high school students routinely take, all the little homophobes blame Constance for cancelling their prom and have made her life even more miserable. That’s just awesome. The emotional damage to Constance and her date is horrendous, but the statement the school is making to its charges is even worse. Kids are kids, but teachers are adults. In this case, they are adult hate mongers.

Parallel to this story, both in tone and in timing, comes word of the “edits” the state of Texas is demanding in their textbooks. They want Thomas Jefferson’s role severely diminished, particularly the parts about separation of church and state. They want America to be referred to as a “constitutional republic” and never, ever define the American form of government as “democratic.” They don’t want hip-hop noted as a significant cultural movement. They don’t want it noted that Tejanos died at the Alamo alongside Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie.

They want the official Southern version of the Civil War reported in their textbook. Excuse me, I mean the War Between The States. No, wait. I mean the War of Yankee Aggression. So much about history being written by the winners.

Why is this a big deal? Texas is a big state, school districts all across the nation are virtually if not actually bankrupt, and textbook sales are way down. In the best of times, textbook publishers cannot afford to publish customized history books for every hate group in power. If you can’t sell your textbooks in Texas, you’re out of business.

Georgia Representative Paul Broun, said on the floor of the House of Representatives “If ObamaCare passes, that free insurance card that’s in people’s pockets is gonna be as worthless as a Confederate dollar after the War Between The States – the Great War of Yankee Aggression.” Georgia seceded from the Union because Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Well, horseshit tinged in nostalgia is still horseshit.

Even so, I think Lincoln was wrong; we should have let the south go. Not only was there no constitutional ground to force the expatriates back, but given 145 years worth of hindsight, it is clear we are two separate nations with two separate and irreconcilable views of morality.

The Christian Conservatives have no clue as to the values that make the United States of America. These are the values that our children are fighting for in wars all across the globe, and have fought for ever since 1776. They think this is a Christian nation – it isn’t, and never ever has been, and that’s been on purpose. They want everybody’s children to be raised according to their white reactionary racist homophobic beliefs.

And they’re winning. Friends, this is America in 2010. As Frank Zappa said over 40 years ago, “Scab of a nation, driven insane.”

Media metaphysician and www.ComicMix.com editor-in-Chief Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking bizarro music and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com , every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, replayed the following Thursdays at 10:00 PM Eastern. Likewise, his Weird Scenes Inside The Gold Mind political and cultural rants pop up each and every day at the same venue. He’s an unrepentant northern Jewish hippie and should not be confused with Real Americans.