You Can't Pick & Choose Your Sins

Okay, so this morning (well, not technically morning--I woke up at noon) I'm drinking my coffee and eating my oatmeal and watching CNN, and it's nothing but incessant coverage of President Obama's speech at the University of Notre Dame's commencement ceremony.

Lots of good Catholics are up in arms that a president who is pro-choice is going to speak on their sacred campus. The Catholic Church is pro-life, and many devout Notre Damers don't want a man who goes against so important a doctrine as Abortion Should Be Illegal, to speak at commencement. Abortion is a sin. Obama supports abortion rights. Therefore, Obama should be persona-non-grata at graduation.

People: you can't pick & choose your sins.

Case in point: George W. Bush.

Bush spoke at Notre Dame's commencement ceremony, and no one batted an eyelash. Bush? Totally cool. No problems. No protestors. Welcomed with open arms.

However, Bush was (and is) pro-death penalty. I mean, that man practically had a conveyor belt of executions running full-time when he was governor of Texas. The Catholic Church is against the death penalty (and against torture, which includes water-boarding). It makes sense that they FINALLY are, considering that their savior and redeemer was himself executed (and tortured). Also, Pope John Paul II was totally against the U.S. invasion of Iraq. And which country did Bush invade..?

Neither Bush nor Obama are Catholics, but both as leaders went against the wishes of the Catholic Church, albeit in different ways.

So why is it okay for Bush to go against the Vatican and still get to speak at Notre Dame as a welcomed guest, but it's not okay for Obama to go against the Vatican. He's going to Notre Dame as a person of controversy. That's all CNN can talk about today... the controversy!

I AM SO SICK OF RELIGIOUS PEOPLE PICKING AND CHOOSING WHAT ARE SINS.

Catholics say the pope is infallible, but they pick & choose among what he says. Protestants say the Bible is the direct word of God, but they pick & choose which biblical admonitions to obey and which to ignore.

Case in point: Carrie Prejean, a.k.a Miss California 2009, and the lady in waiting to Miss USA 2009 (because if something happens to Kristen Dalton of North Carolina, Carrie, as first runner-up, will be our new nation's representative in the beauty department).

Carrie, when answering her final question the night of the Miss USA pageant, about legalizing gay marriage, said that she believed that marriage should remain only between a man and woman.

That's cool. Whatever. It's her opinion. That fact that I disagree with her is irrelevant. It's her opinion and she's entitled to it. No biggie.

But THEN, she starts making the media rounds because her answer started a hub-bub. She goes on Sean Hannity's TV show and says that it was more important for her to be "Biblically correct" rather than politically correct. This comment, "biblically correct", made her the darling of conservative Christians.

BIBLICALLY CORRECT?!? WTF?!?

What is she referring to? To the book of Leviticus? The book that says two men can't have sex, because it is an abomination and they must be put to death? Because that same book of the Bible says that if a man has sex with a woman, and also has sex with her mother, well, the three of them should be burned alive 'til they die. Imagine the movie The Graduate under those rules... Benjamin, Elaine and Mrs. Robinson, all three burned at the stake. What a fiery final scene THAT would have been.

Ah Leviticus... a woman who gives birth to a boy is defiled and impure for 7 days, and a woman who gives birth to a girl is defiled and impure for 14 days. She of course is impure and can't be touched when she's having her period. The furniture she sits on can't be touched either. Also, you can't eat rabbit meat, pork... no shrimp, no crab, no lobster... no garments made of two different fabrics may be worn (a fashion faux-pas AND a sin!).

The Bible has instructions for keeping slaves... for selling your daughters... it proscribes the death penalty for a myriad of "crimes" which today are routine behavior, even among practicing Jews and Christians.

So Miss California says she wants to be "biblically correct"?

What does she think the writers of the Bible (including the New Testament) would have done had they seen her traipsing around in a bikini in public, as she did on national television the night of the pageant?

THEY WOULD HAVE STONED HER TO DEATH.

Maybe, if she was lucky, Jesus would have strolled by, noticed the stoning, and stopped it. But after the rock-throwers had dispersed, he would have told her, "Go, AND SIN NO MORE" (in other words, "compete in the swimsuit competition no more... pose for semi-nude photos on the beach no more").

Biblically correct.... GIVE ME A BRRRRREAK.

I am so sick of relgious hypocrites picking & choosing... whether they be a bishop at Notre Dame or a 21 year-old girl in the Miss USA pageant.

ENOUGH!