Mormon Posthumous Baptism

I find this whole Mormon Baptism brouhaha a little bizarre - not the practice itself, mind you (though as a Catholic I do find Mormonism a little weird) - but that it is "controversial" and something that should be Condemned and Repudiated. That anyone should be "outraged" by an unseen symbolic ritual performed in some anonymous building in some nowhere praire town simply because the name of one of your dead ancestors was invoked during the ceremony is rather insane. And that this is big news is particularly absurd. But these are the times we live in - it is the Age of Outrage.

How Come Super-Smart People Never Thank the Lord?

I have found that people get annoyed when star athletes start off with a word of thanks to the Lord when they're interviewed after games (Tim Tebow being the latest high-profile example of this much reviled type - but it's fairly routine among athletes). But I find it very understandable and actually quite endearing. Think of it from their point of view. After spending their entire lives dominating all their peers in their athletic pursuits, they're now competing at the highest levels against the best of the best, and still doing amazing things. How can one explain such mind-boggling talent? Why, of all the people you ever knew, are you so uniquely gifted? How is it that you were the one so chosen? The Lord's grace would seem to provide the most plausible answer. What are they supposed to say - "Yeah, I'm awesome - on your knees, bitch!"?

But when Warren Buffet is interviewed on CNBC, say, he doesn't start off the first answer with "First off Becky I'd like to thank the good Lord for giving me the opportunity to..." Instead, if pressed on why he's so successful, he'll spout out some platitude about being 'fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful' which is clever but no more explanatory than thanking the good Lord. Nor have we ever heard Steve Jobs or Bill Gates or Larry Ellison give heavenly thanks for their phenomenal success. Are there any among the rich-and-powerful who are not also famous for being religiously devout who give God credit for their success?

After I wrote this, Steve Sailer put up a post about Billionaires who actually earn their fortune. The punch-line of his article is Oprah - she's probably the billionaire most personally responsible - from soup-to-nuts - for her fortune.  I don't disagree. But even as her show and network promote spirituality, she never talked about her own beliefs much, apparently - until her last show, when she gave a nod to Jesus himself:

"People often ask me what is the secret to the success of the show," she said. "How have we lasted 25 years. I non-jokingly say, my team - and Jesus."

The Bullying Pulpit

How do you bring about radical social change in a democracy? At the ballot box? Hah! Never happen - after all, the very people whose lives you want to throw into disarray are the very votes you'd need. Take your case to the courts until you get to the Supremes where you win a huge landmark decision overthrowing the old order? That's so 70's - what with the current makeup of the SCOTUS.

No, the best way is to set up a mega-righteous advocacy group that looks for vulnerable bastions of the very thing you're trying to overthrow - and sue the poor suckers for some vague civil-rights violations. We don't need no steenking SCOTUS - we'll just sue the bastards in federal court for hefty damages, dare the cash-strapped entity (and what public entity isn't cash strapped right now?) to fight back, and then ultimately settle. What's the settlement - multi-millions of dollars for the victims? Not a chance. It's a consent decree where you - the neanderthals - agree to throw out all your democratically sanctioned, old-world policies and agree to set up a formidable bureaucratic juggernaut mandated to overthrow all those crusty, traditional ways you so pathetically cherish.

The Times had an article today which highlighted a school district which - as it mentioned several times - is in Michelle Bachmann's congressional district that does not sufficiently genuflect to homosexual identity. To be precise, the article discusses a lawsuit alleging that "school officials have failed to stop relentless antigay bullying and that a district policy requiring teachers to remain “neutral” on issues of sexual orientation has fostered oppressive silence and a corrosive stigma." The charge is that homosexual students are being bullied and the school is not properly addressing this. How many students are part of this lawsuit? Six. How many students are in the Anoka school district being sued? 40,000. So these 6 students must be getting bullied really hard to justify hiring a lawyer to sue the district, right? As I'm sure you've guessed, no.

The lawsuit was brought in July on behalf of six current and former students by the Southern Poverty Law Center and by the National Center for Lesbian Rights. It charges that district staff members, when they witnessed or heard reports of antigay harassment, tended to “ignore, minimize, dismiss, or in some instances, to blame the victim for the other students’ abusive behavior.”

So what's the problem?

Through it all, conservative Christian groups have demanded that the schools avoid any descriptions of homosexuality or same-sex marriage as normal, warning against any surrender to what they say is the “homosexual agenda” of recruiting youngsters to an “unhealthy and abnormal lifestyle.”

How bad are things?

One of the plaintiffs, Kyle Rooker, 14, has not declared his sexual orientation but was perceived by classmates as gay, he said, in part because he likes to wear glittery scarves and belt out Lady Gaga songs.

Has it really gotten to this - where a kid can't be mocked for wearing glittery scarves and belting out Lady Gaga songs? Can there be no more obvious sign of America's doom - that a 14 year old boy who wears glittery scarves and belts out Lady Gaga songs gets to sue in federal court for being mocked?

But of course it has nothing to do with any student's ordeal - Bachmann's conservative district is being targeted, their Christian viewpoint is anathema, and six(6!) students out of 40,000 were enlisted to front the suit. The article notes that Ms. Bachmann "did not respond to requests to comment for this article" - and why should she? Even a President Bachmann wouldn't be able to mount a defense. (If I were President, I would put the full force of the Justice Department against the SPLC at every occasion (in this case in defense of the first amendment), potentially bankrupting them. Ah, dreams.)