Let us keep the lines straight.
At a time when persons from vastly different cultures and belief systems are illegally storming across American borders, the validity of your values and mine are being undermined by sheer force of the new throngs.
After hippie thinking characterized the 1960s and bald-headed lesbians emerged from their closeted closets during the 1970s, fuzzy thinking — we are all really alike — took over high school and university campuses without firing a shot.
This was the Big Lie of the ‘80s, the ‘90s and the Oh-ohs. We are not alike. I am quite unlike my sisters. Boys are different from girls. Jews are different from Christians. Blacks are different from whites — and Hispanics are different from both of us. The poor are very different from those who work harder and earn more money. Status should be earned, not given away.
I was reminded of the unmourned death of clear, critical thinking the other day when reading about the latest project of the Fuzzy Brigade.
Straight from Comedy Central?
One hundred and fifty of the balmiest thinking Jews, Muslims and Christians in Los Angeles assembled for a Saturday evening at the centrally situated Southern California Islamic Center on Vermont. Sixteen religious groups co-sponsored the lovefest.
Oh, how they twittered, fluttered and glided on tippy toes across the floor, arms akimbo — and that was just the boys.
Interfaith dialogue is to religion what Burger King is to fine dining. Everytime you swallow, one more particle of your mind vanishes. Should the football commissioner have an interfaith dialogue with the commissioner of baseball? To what end? I don’t agree with numerous tenets of your religion, which is why my beliefs differ from yours.
Undeniably, this is the trivialization of religion.
With presumably a straight face on the Saturday night in question, a woman rabbi said to the hushed crowd: “This night, and nights like this, are long overdue. Tonight we pray to come together to celebrate our differences and treasure our oneness.”
For this she trained?
She happens to be married to another Jew. But her nonsensical message sounds like the gobbledy-gook that intermarried parents feed to their confused children.
These misguided fuzzy believers who worship in the Church of I Tolerate You For Now laid down some interesting ground rules.
The program opened with the Muslim call to prayer. This is supposed to be a sacred, solemn moment. So much for tradition.
The brief Jewish ceremony of Havdalah that closes out the Sabbath every Saturday night of the year — and is not intended as a Dodger Stadium-style free-for-all ritual for any yahoo who wants to hold hands — was the next tradition to be debased.
The Tolerant Censors Were Busy
Then came a lady preacher from an Episcopal church with a pip of a message. She launched one of this crowd’s favorite phrases because it is perceived to be inoffensive, “your faith tradition.” She urged them to work within their faith tradition to help the poor and oppressed.
Oh,okay. Now I feel better.
I will bet she delivers sizzling oratory on Sunday mornings in Pasadena.
Next, a Muslim invited the ladies and gentlemen to remove their shoes and enter the prayer room for evening prayers. I can only imagine God’s reaction: “Who the hell are these guys, and why are they here?”
Christians, evidently, were the raggedy relatives on this evening.
Christians were prohibited from mentioning Jesus’s name. Seriously. Maybe violators were subjected to forty lashes.
This is the free speech gang, accent on the last word.
This may have been the coup de grace: The gospel choir from The Christ Our Redeemer A.M.E. Church was invited, sort of.
On a night when not quite everybody was brothers and sisters, the choir’s songs, believe it or don’t, were vetted for any “offensive” allusions to Jesus or the Christ.
I think it is called exemplary tolerance.
Bet you thought the church snookered the censors by slipping “Christ” into its title?
Wrong. These very liberal, very fuzzy ladies and gentlemen of tolerance crushed the name of the group in the program down to an unrecognizable “COR A.M.E.”
The appealing part about being a leftist is that you don’t have to be honest or tolerant. You only are obligated to preach those values — in churches that don’t have Jesus in their name.