Gandering Prejean, Goosing Cyrus

When Carrie Prejean made her befuddled comments at the Miss USA contest she was criticized by the silly, gossip columnist Perez Hilton. Prejean claimed she lost the pageant because of her answer—though no one has seemed to notice that other than Prejean’s claim no hard evidence was presented that this was the case. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t. But there was no organized effort to “get” Prejean. If anything she has fanned the incident for maximum publicity to promote herself.

No efforts were made to harm her, at least none have been reported, and in her Fox News interview she says she has received nothing but positive feedback. But she is not a reliable source for anything.

Yet it has been claimed that she is being victimized or censored though no one has specified how. Now contrast this with another incident where the opposite happened. There is a teeny bop singer, popular with the pubescent crowd, named Miley Cyrus. My knowledge of Ms. Cyrus is rather limited. I’ve seen far too many commercials pushing some movie she made and only by reading news stories in the last few days did I learn she was the daughter of country singer Billy Ray Cyrus. My knowledge of her father is almost as limited.

Like our beauty queen bimbette, Ms. Cyrus is also a Christian. Cyrus used her Twitter account (I still suspect Twitter is just a fad) to send out a message. She wrote a message to Hilton saying: “Jesus loves you And your partner and wants you to know how much he cares! that’s like a daddy not loving his lil boy cuz hes gay and that is Wrong and very sad! like I said everyone deserves to be happy.” Cyrus said: “I am a Christian and I love you – gay or not – because you are no different than anyone else! We are all God’s children.”

Like most religious folks Cyrus believes she can speak for her deity. That’s is irrelevant. All she actually said was that she thinks God loves gay people and wants them to be happy. She said nothing about gay marriage. She expressed no political viewpoint. She simply said that God loves people even if they are gay.

So the Christianist American Family Association has now targeted Cyrus for protest. They sent out a message to their army of fanatical followers urging them to inundate Cyrus with protest letters “stating that you do not approve of her comments.” Apparently the AFA believes, along with the nutty Westboro Baptist klan, that “God hates fags.” Cyrus only said that God loves people and the AFA wants her to know they “do not approve of her comments.” Wow! That says a lot about how deep-seated their hatred is.

The AFA told people that Cyrus “is confused and does not understand the Bible. Please pray for the Lord to open her eyes to the truth.” The truth appears to be that God does not want people to be happy and God does not love gays. I’m so glad that the pea-brains at AFA have come out of the closet regarding their hatred.

I’ve received my share of hate mail from Christians and it can get pretty ugly. Imagine what will happen to a young girl who is receiving hundreds, perhaps thousands, of such pieces of hatred in her mailbox. No one suggested an organized campaign to intimidate Carrie Prejean even though Prejean is openly saying that some people don’t deserve equal rights. But when Miley Cyrus makes the statement that God loves everyone, even gays, the Christianists start foaming at the mouth and organizing a protest to harass a 16-year-old girl for it.

This is just another example of the hypocrisy of the fanatics in the Christian fundamentalist movement. I grew up with these people and I know precisely how vicious they can be. I know that behind their saccharine smiles and presumptuous claims that “Jesus loves you” beats a very black heart. As long as they believe they can covert you they will be nice. But the moment they think you are hopeless, or worse, an opponent, they will do anything to hurt you. The smiles are a front that covers up a heart of darkness.

Prejean is an adult who said some pretty dumb things on national television. She was criticized for it. The Christian Right said that criticism was a “vicious attack” and claimed it amounted to “censorship.” When a young girl twitters the rather innocuous statement that God loves gay people and wants everyone to be happy, the same Christian Right then sends out notices to people urging them to send her protest letters.

Mind you I do not think they are censoring Cyrus, they aren’t. Neither was Prejean censored. My point is that what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Rev. Roland Martin, on CNN, claimed that Prejean was being “savagely attacked” because people criticized her. So what about the organized campaign to send a teenage girl protest letters? What does he have to say on that? As far as I can tell, he’s silent.

Surely, if criticizing a dumb blond beauty queen is a savage attack then asking hundreds of thousands of people to send protest letters to a young girl is far, far worse. But the Religious Right has always had problems following the morality they preach. The only good thing that comes out of this is that they are outing themselves as hate-mongers. I’ve long known that the god they believe in is not a god of love but of hatred and vengeance. Their deity is a cruel invention worshipped by cruel people. Their unceasing campaigns to hurt other people prove their motivation. I take solace in knowing that the more they hate the fewer people they fool. They are losing their influence and their power to harm. They are losing their members. They are turning millions of people away from their religion. And the uglier they get the faster it happens. Now that can make me say: Praise the Lord!