How do people who consider themselves to be "good Christians" reconcile their love for guns with their love for Jesus Christ? Does the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the good old U.S. of A. trump the Sixth Commandment from the Bible? This is the very Bible that these right-wing, red state Christians claim to revere.
Speaking of red states, I wonder if it's a coincidence that most of these school shootings take place in red states (or in the case of what happened at the Amish school in Pennsylvania, it took place in a conservative region of what is a borderline blue/red state).
And speaking of the Constitution, I've said it before, but it can't be said enough: the Second Amendment does not implicitly give Americans the right to personally own guns or to have them in our homes. It says specifically that for the purposes of maintaining a militia we have the right to keep and bear arms, but arms for a militia could be kept in an armory until we'd have a need to bear them. The Constitution does not give anyone the right to build up a personal arsenal. Besides, the only time that right-wingers care about the Constitution or citizen's rights is when it comes to this one Amendment. Otherwise, the party that rails against "Big Government" wants to legislate every aspect of what we can and can't do with our own bodies, but God forbid if anyone wanted to legislate programs that might help the neediest of the needy in our country. "Ah, Jesus wouldn't just give them a fish, like a handout, he'd teach them how to fish." You know what, I don't think that Jesus would have minded giving out a few fish until the hungry were able to catch fish for themselves.
But even if you interpret the Constitution as saying that we can own guns, just because the Constitution allows something doesn't mean that you have to do it. The Constitution also supposedly guarantees free speech, but we've recently learned that there are caveats to that "right," especially if you're a sixty-something year old white man trying to be hip by spouting a ridiculous racially-charged, misogynistic comment that you've uttered because you think you're making an ironic cultural reference to the Hip-Hop vernacular popularized and oft-spoken by today's youth. You have the right to say what you want, but be prepared to have some hypocritical Reverends dogging your every breath until you are universally despised and utterly destroyed.
After the Imus blow-up, Al Roker was dour especially dour on the "Today Show." I've seen him snap out of serious moments after tragedies of all sorts (violent crimes, fires, hurricanes, terrorism) with a simple "on a lighter note," which is fine because that's what's expected on a morning news program, but this Imus situation was the first time that I've seen him so noticeably serious since 9/11.
Roker is reported to have said that he was upset because Imus could have been talking about his daughter with such words. Well, does Al know for sure that none of his kids are gay, because when news of Isaiah Washington's homophobic comments came out Al should have been outraged that it was possible that Washington could have been indirectly maligning one of his children. Washington still has his job, even though there are many other parents in this country who love their gay children as much as Roker loves his daughters. Granted, Isaiah Washington's words were not intended for public consumption, as Imus's were, but the public still learned of his hate speech, just the same.
There were many Jewish New Yorkers who had young children back in 1984, so perhaps they should all have banded together and called (loudly and relentlessly) for banning the Reverend Jesse Jackson from radio airwaves and from making television appearances after he referred to New York as "Hymie Town" back when he was running for president(!) that year. It's strange how Jewish people, whom anti-Semites believe control the media, were not able to ban Jackson from radio or TV for even one day, let alone take him of the air permanently, even though the good Reverend's comment was more deliberately mean-spirited than Imus's, which was just rooted in an unthinking, foolish attempt to be hip.
If you're going to go after people for making bigoted statements, then be consistent and go after everyone, even if you are not a member of the group who is being insulted. And don't you DARE go after someone else unless you know without a doubt that your own slate is clean.
