GOP Congressman Calls Democrats Anti-Christian
Remarks in Floor Debate Stir Protest
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Page A04

Business on the floor of the House was halted for 45 minutes yesterday after Rep. John N. Hostettler (R-Ind.) accused Democrats of “denigrating and demonizing Christians,” prompting a furious protest from across the aisle. (Story.)

Hostettler was later persuaded to retract his comment when faced with the prospect of a procedural bitch-slap, but you can’t unring a bell, and the sad fact is that millions of people across the country believe this kind of idiocy. Always have – when I was a Southern Baptist youth, we were routinely taught to believe that we were under siege. It was as if there were only about eight of us and we had to meet in secret, because if we were discovered we’d be either shipped off to Siberia or fed to the lions. Looking back, I see how that persecution ideology was such an effective tactic for forging loyalty and devotion in the more reactionary wings of the Christian community – “us vs. them” has always been a powerful bonding agent in human society.

Of course, everybody I knew was Christian. All our politicians were Christians. All the business leaders I ever knew about were Christians. In fact, up until I marched off to college, the closest thing I ever saw to a non-Christian was a Catholic (and we were taught that they were going to Hell). I don’t recall anybody ever asking why, if those who wanted to destroy us were such a massive threat, we never actually saw any of them.

So today I want to encourage Rep. Hostettler and all other paranoid Christians in America to take a deep breath and consider some facts.

• The president is a Christian.
• The vice president is a Christian.
• The evil Democrat that President Bush defeated in November, even he’s a Christian.
• To the best of our ability to discern, almost all of the members of Congress in both parties are Christian (at the very least, they put on a show of being Christian).
• It looks to the neutral observer like the Supreme Court is substantially Christian.
• Every governor I have any knowledge of appears to be Christian.

And there’s this: 83% of all Americans are Christian. 83%!

Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Animists, Wiccans, Druids, non-denominational Pagans, New Age Spiritualists, Shamans, Sikhs, Baha’i, Confucianists, Jainists, Zoroastrians, Ancestor Worshippers – in other words, all other faiths combined account for 4% of the US population. That 4%, if they could organize and hook up with the 13% who call themselves non-religious, would constitute a strapping 17% of the population. That means that, at present, Christians outnumber non-Christians by something like 195 million, and they outnumber adherents of other religions by 233 million. War on Christianity? Gideon smote the Midianites with 300 men and you’re paranoid with a 20-1 advantage? Onward Christian soldiers my ass – what kind of pussy are you, anyway, Congressman Hostettler?

[Ahem. Sorry – got a little carried away there.]

Let’s review the scoreboard. Christians 83, The Everybody Else Combined All-Stars, 17. You’re not just the best team in the league, you’re damned near the only team in the league. You’re so far ahead of the rest of the pack that the only real competition you face is when you split up in practice to scrimmage.

But your intramural problems are your own. You don’t like it that a lot of your more enlightened brethren rightly understand their faith as being about something besides stomping the unbelievers, that’s between you and them. But let’s not pretend that the Dems are a front job for the Church of Satan just because they’re not calling for witch-burnings, okay?

I’m trying to remain my composure here, but the truth is that I want to slap the shellac off the hair of Stepford Christians like Rep. Hostettler and ask them whether they’re stupid or do they think we are. I mean, 83 to 4 – don’t they teach math in schools in Indiana?

[THX: Brian at Daedalnexus.]