I'll Be Here Today

People's Filibuster and Rally
Joseph Moakley Court House
Boston 1 Courthouse Way Boston, MA 02210
Wednesday, 27 Apr 2005, 5:00 PM
(Take the red line to South Station,
hop on the silver line one stop
to the Courthouse)


MoveOn.Org has organized this 24-hour rally to protest the so-called "Nuclear Option" threatened by Senator (::cough::: fascist, cough:::) Bill Frist.

I'll be there with my dog collar on, bearing a sign that says

"I HAVE FAITH IN THE FILIBUSTER."

I think the most depressing thing about having become a clergyperson in America is that, as much of an honor and a joy as it is to serve in such a capacity, I never imagined I would feel the need to attend so many political rallies wearing evidence of religious leadership around my neck. Because I never imagined in my wildest dreams that TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY LEADERS (and that goes for the late twentieth century, too) would be such a bloody medieval bunch, waving their Bibles around and using some bizarre perversion of Christianity to justify their crazy fascist misogynist Mother Earth raping maniacal capitalistic imperialistic agenda.

I love ministry, but whenever I don the collar to make a public appearance it makes me somewhat nauseous. I always imagined that by now in this extraordinary country of ours, we would have reached an understanding of the centrality of faith in people's lives, yes, but that while we would maintain a respect for the ways that faith informs political views, we would be committed to basing our public policy arguments on such mutually esteemed documents as, say, the CONSTITUTION OF THE UNITED STATES, not the sacred scriptures of one or another's religious tradition.

If I was the Teacher of the United States I would send him home with this comment on his report card: "Sam is a very promising student but he is not working up to his potential. And he needs to learn to play well with others."


[Update: It's 4 pm and I'm home with a sore throat. Lady Death required my presence in the parish today, so I'm all talk and no action as far as the rally goes. Still, you might want to note that my brother blogger The Boy In the Bands would disagree with my appearing in the collar at all (see his latest post on clerical garb) since I am not wont to wear it while about my daily ministerial tasks. Also, bloggers: how does one access the strike-through function? I thought it would have been funny to leave this post up, and to strike through the whole thing....but I don't know how. -- P.B., not so bangin' today.]