Two Steps Forward and One Step Back, by Mike Gold – Brainiac On Banjo #333 | @MDWorld

July 8, 2013 Mike Gold 0 Comments

When it comes to religious-driven bigotry and prejudice, there’s a tendency to think of the southern states first. This is for good reason, but we should not overlook the hatred bubbling over in the northern states as well.

For example, take Pennsylvania. It’s had a bad rap as being the deep south “between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh” – recent history has put the lie to this. We think of the commonwealth as a blue state because in 2012 it went for Obama 52 to 47% and they reelected Democratic Senator Bob Casey by an even wider margin.

But appearances can be deceiving. The Pennsylvania state constitution includes this passage: “No person who acknowledges the being of a god and a future state of rewards and punishments shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this Commonwealth.” So much for religious freedom in this hotbed of bigotry and discrimination.

Case in point: following the Supreme Court’s decision striking down the Defense of Marriage Act, Democratic State Rep. Brian Sims took to the floor in support. He had announced his plans to introduce marriage equality legislation and, therefore, is a serious threat to the Religionists’ hate-driven status quo. But when he opened his mouth, he was gaveled out of order by “a procedural maneuver.” Republican State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe objected to the remarks on the grounds that Sims was speaking out “against God’s law.”

“I did not believe that as a member of that body that I should allow someone to make comments such as he was preparing to make that ultimately were just open rebellion against what the word of God has said, what God has said, and just open rebellion against God’s law,” Metcalfe told the press.

It must really, really piss off Metcalfe and his fellow haters that a majority of the so-called Ten Commandments (so-called because they vary from bible to bible, from church to church) are unconstitutional. Yep, it’s a fact. Our founding fathers, to whom Religionists point as bastions of Christian dogma, found it in their hearts-of-hearts to banish no less than six of this ten (I am the lord thy god; Thou shalt have no other gods before me; Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image; Thou shalt not take the name of the lord thy god in vain; Remember the sabbath day to keep it holy, and Honor thy father and thy mother) from the Law of the Land.

So, Sims was silenced. He couldn’t even voice his support of a decision made – and now national law superseding local statutes – by the highest court in the land.

Yet these bigots (who, in an astonishing, dictionary-defying act of hypocrisy, say they are being discriminated against when they are labeled bigots), have the audacity to proclaim themselves pro-law and order.

Well, that depends upon whose ox is being gored, doesn’t it?

Oh, yeah. Sims is gay. Go figure.

Mike Gold performs the weekly two-hour Weird Sounds Inside The Gold Mind ass-kicking rock, blues and blather radio show on The Point, www.getthepointradio.com, every Sunday at 7:00 PM Eastern, rebroadcast three times during the week – check the website above for times and streaming information. Gold also joins MDW’s Marc Alan Fishman, Martha Thomases and Michael Davis as a weekly columnist at www.comicmix.com where he pontificates on matters of four-color.