It Is Enough: An Open Letter to the Sick at Heart

[WilliamPitt]

It Is Enough: An Open Letter to the Sick at Heart
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed

Wednersday 09 May 2012

Stop me if you've heard this one before.

A holy man stands before his flock and says, "Dads, the second you see your son dropping the limp wrist, you walk over there and crack that wrist. Man up. Give him a good punch. Ok? You are not going to act like that. You were made by God to be a male and you are going to be a male."

And then the pastor says, "And when your daughter starts acting too butch, you rein her in. And you say, 'Oh, no, sweetheart. You can play sports. Play them to the glory of God. But sometimes you are going to act like a girl and walk like a girl and talk like a girl and smell like a girl, and that means you are going to be beautiful. You are going to be attractive. You are going to dress yourself up.'"

But here's the funny part: after that Pastor gets called out for his psychotic, virulent, hateful rhetoric, he says, "I was using hyperbole in an effort to communicate the importance of the gender distinctions that God created. In the context of the scripture, Mark, chapter 9, Jesus conjures up violent images as well, when he says, 'If your hand is causing you to sin, cut it off.' He's not speaking literally. He's speaking figuratively, using hyperbole to convey the importance of the offense."

Get it?

Beat your fag boys, your butch girls, beat them into line in the name of God...but if you get caught doing it (or espousing it), wave it off as 'hyperbole,' quote holy Scripture to defend yourself, and compare yourself to Jesus...and be sure to make it a non-apology apology by using phrases like "the importance of the offense," i.e. it is the limp-wrist son and the butch daughter who are actually offensive, and not the exhortation - delivered in church, mind you - to beat them because of who they are.

That happened in America not two weeks ago, and if you're fool enough to think the incident was a one-off, a fluke, an aberration, then all I can say to you, sir or ma'am, is good luck to you, good night, go back to sleep, and don't bother reading on from here.

The rest: http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/9016-it-is-enough-an-open-letter-to-the-sick-at-heart

[hifiguy]

1. Another home run, Will.

[JitterbugPerfume]

2. K&R for Will

[CaliforniaPeggy]

3. I'm so glad you're on our side, Will...

The side of truth.

Perfectly and beautifully said!

Thank you.

Wow.

[kentuck]

4. Excellent!

In their cynical game of politics, these Republicans would deny their mother the right to equality.

If it helps them to maintain power, they are ready to throw anyone and everyone overboard. They got rid of Dick Lugar, didn't they?

And they are proven hypocrites. They criticize people for doing what they themselves do in their own closets. But they are weak and no liar is worse than one that lies to himself.

[fruitsmoothie45]

12. Can I quote you on that first line?

It's honestly, albeit sadly, true.

[kentuck]

13. Absolutely !

They would also sacrifice their first-born daughters for political gain.

[LASlibinSC]

5. Good on ya!

Great step by step map of Rove and company. BRAVO!!

[MuseRider]

6. I don't know that we can beat this.

Of course, right now living in Kansas everything looks like I am looking through the mesh of a burka (OK not yet anyway).

We can't seem to beat it here. It would help if entire blocks of states were not abandoned by the party, totally abandoned. No money, no support, just left to moulder in the grave of all you speak.

I have learned that there is no talking to the people who would vote and speak as you have noted. We still try, we still work and work and work until we are near tears or drunk after months of being told who and what we are seen through the eyes of those who rule with an iron fist here.

Education used to be the key. Nobody wants it anymore. It feels too good to just knee jerk your way through life and it is much easier than challenging what your pastor tells you every Sunday. Makes your brain hurt to think like that.

Sorry, we have just dropped off the edge of the planet here and there is more to come. When High Priest Brownback and his legislature of tea baggers get done with us we will deserve to be swallowed deep into a hole of fire. He wants to be the model for the nation. Please make sure you all work as hard as you can to save some places from the zealotry we are seeing here. People don't like this but they will, WILL vote for it again and again because as you say, liberals are evil and breathe the fire of death.

Signed, Sick At Heart

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. Oh, my dear MuseRider...

You are so eloquent. Thank you...

[MuseRider]

9. Thanks Peggy.

I am getting a lot of practice at writing and speaking to legislators. I don't know about eloquent but it is becoming a habit to write in certain ways. Maybe eventually I might make someone else think, that is if they are actually capable of it anymore.

Is it too early to drink? Ahh not quite 11AM, too early I suspect.

[WilliamPitt]

11. Sun's over the yardarm somewhere in the world.

[MuseRider]

15. LOL thanks.

It has all come down so quickly here and all at once. I mean we suspected all of this, we prepared for it, we lobbied hard against it but BAM, they are taking us all down all at once. It is so hard. Our lobbyist lives with us during session because he lives in another city. He came here the 3rd of January and is still in our upstairs bedroom and will be for at least another week and he has been here through almost all the weekends. His work has been hard, constant and brutal. The things being said by our legislators during these debates were so cruel, so clueless and so self righteous that I had to turn it off. He has to stay and listen to it. After all is said and done we may save one bill that has not come up that would wipe out all protection for LGBT citizens of this state in the name of religious liberty (bigotry). All else has failed. Our strong women have failed. The Democrats went home in their minds years ago and have little to say about those in their party who help write and support all of this crappy and hurtful legislation, you can't even get them to censure them. They talk a big game to your face (sometimes) then turn a blind eye to it all. The national party does not even know we are here, Kansas? Isn't that part of a movie about witches and little people?

We are most likely having a party to support our moderate Republican state senator against our nasty Republican state representative who is challenging her. I will be going door to door for other moderate Republicans here. There is no other way and frankly they have been better on all of this than anyone. They have heavy and hard targets on their backs, I suspect they will get little from their National party either.

You are right, there is sun somewhere. Keep the clouds away!!! I know I am not leaving this state. My Great Great (x?) Grands fought for it to be a free state, fought with John Brown, were elected to offices in the new free state and settled the area I now live in and by God and all that is good their toughness lives in my soul but for now I mourn and lick my wounds.

I will gaze at the sun and let it inspire me that not everywhere is like it is here, all gray and heavy. If all this blather is not enough to prove the state of depression I am in I don't know what would. What a load! Posting anyway just because.

EDIT because I forgot the back and thanks again!

[deminks]

21. Democrats matter everywhere they are.

But once again, the MEdia has drawn us back to the "swing" state red state/blue state farce. They have to throw fish to the sharks to make money. Howard Dean got it, once upon a time. I don't think he gets it anymore. The PTB drummed him right out of the service. His 50 states strategy worked well.

How can they keep up all that hate? It must eat them alive inside.

Also sick at heart

[MuseRider]

22. The 50 state strategy is a no brainer

and that is one reason I gave Dean no credit for it but at least he pushed it. Really, how could a national party not think that way? Oh well.

I think they, the haters, are very happy like they are. Somehow they have convinced themselves that their hate is actually love, the love of God and the love for God and that they will be rewarded for it. They are smug but then none of this is information that everyone here does not already know.

I take this post by Will as something encouraging that I will think back on after the damage from this session is all finished and we have to work through it. It makes everything we do in life harder and harder unless we are willing to give up our brains and hearts to what they say. Knowing there are others still able to be in a place where there is at least some thought given to compassion and fairness gives me a little joy once I stop feeling terribly sorry for myself. It is hard to work as hard as we have only to be mown down like this.

It is eating me alive at the moment.

I think there are a lot of sick at hearts right now.

[CrispyQ]

8. An outstanding commentary!

I am sick at heart - sick down to the deepest roots of my soul - of treating this as rational, as logical, as anything other than utter and complete derangement.

Ditto, ditto, ditto.

[sinkingfeeling]

10. Another excellent article.

[SalviaBlue]

14. Thank you, Will. Very well put.

These people are beyond crazy.

[AlbertCat]

16. A quick summation:

"giving religion political power is ruining the country"

[Flatulo]

17. One thing I learned a very long time ago...

The louder they rail against the sin, the more likely it is that they themselves are sinners.

When I was a kid in catechism, the nuns and priests would lecture us sternly about the sins of the flesh. It later came to pass that they were all fucking hypocrites.

Self-loathing is part of the human condition.

[Zorra]

18. Outstanding. K&R nt

[Liberalynn]

19. Very well said Will!

Whatever happened to "judge not lest ye be judged," "let he who is without sin, cast the first stone," "before you reach to remove the cinder in your brother's eye, remove the one in your eye," "he who is a judger of my father's law is no longer a follower of my father's law?" All of these come from the New Testament, which is supposed to be the word of Jesus, you know the one these "self called Christians," are supposed to be following.

The passage of this ammendment makes me sick today too. I am with the caller on Stephanie Miller today who said, "I'm straight but I don't hate."

[freshwest]

20. They've updated 'the Devil made me do it' to 'God made me do it.' I get it now.

The problem of taking responsibility for your own works, choices and actions are too much for some people, so they always find someone else to blame. It's always the fault of Obama, liberals, women, minorities or the poor.

They think they can hide behind the Omnipotent One they claim to be working for, who needs their help here on Earth. Wait, that's a paradox.

This is all we've come to expect from the 'personal responsibility' crowd. But we always knew you were full of shit.

[WilliamPitt]

23. Kick

[WilliamPitt]

24. And one last kick

on a good day.

[Tripod]

25. Everyone should read this, K&R

[coalition_unwilling]

26. Emphatic K&R. May be the most important essay about American politics

this year. The full essay well repays the time to read it.