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Monday, May 28, 2007

Ding dong, Falwell dead. But wait, what's that smell?

Just when you thought it was safe to carry a red handbag again: A senior Polish official has ordered psychologists to investigate whether the popular BBC TV show Teletubbies promotes a homosexual lifestyle.

If a "homosexual lifestyle" means dressing up in a big furry suit and talking in ear-splitting baby voices, why yes, yes it does.

Note the nice link to the 1999 BBC story about Falwell's fatwa on the children's show.

Labels: Focus on the Fundies, Jerry Falwell, Teletubbies

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

BREAKING: Falwell dead

Jerry Falwell has died after collapsing in his office at the far-right Christian college he founded, Liberty University. Falwell, 73, was vastly overweight.

Labels: Focus on the Fundies, Jerry Falwell

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Focus on the Fundies: Dismayed at GOP candidates

I almost missed this, but a Google-alert link to a Daily Texan editorial tipped me off. There's a far-right christianist group, tellingly called the Council for National Policy, which meets every year to attempt to unite behind certain right-wing candidates and causes. They provided early support to G.W. Bush, for example, when Karl Rove pushed him out there in 1999 to begin his presidential run.

Well, this year they met a couple weeks ago and couldn't decide whom to support in the prexy sweeps. They know McCain and Giuliani can't stand them, and even deeply conservative Christian candidates like Sam Brownback are suspicious. Brownback isn't tough enough on immigrants, and he supports the growing pro-environmental movement among evangelicals. As for Mitt Romney, the "council" has decided he has held too many liberal positions in the past, though he's now trying to claim the mantle of Family Values Candidate and Ann Coulter loves him. So the "council" is bereft of choices.

What's really happening is a generational change. The founders of the Council for National Policy -- people like Jerry Falwell, James Dobson and Jerry LaHaye, are in their 70s. The new evangelicals are looking beyond the classic hot-button issues of gay rights and abortion to care for the environment -- even things that Jesus actually talked about, like feeding and housing the poor. They include people like Rick Warren, leader of one of the largest churches in the country and author of a book, "The Purpose Driven Life," which is hugely influential among fundies, Pentacostals and the suburbanites who pack the non-denominational megachurches, of which Warren's is one.

I have the feeling that power-hungry christianists like those in the "council" will figure out by the end of the year that they have to choose between Brownback (who could never win) and Romney (who is anonymous enough to squeak by under the radar, and besides, Ann Coulter...). Meanwhile I'm enjoying the notion that they're twisting in the wind.

And this just in: A Salon report on Republicans smearing each other in a primary state.

technorati: Fundamentalists, right-wing Christians, Council for National Policy

Labels: evangelicals, Focus on the Fundies, Jerry Falwell, Mitt Romney, politics, Republicans, Rick Warren, Sam Brownback