Conservatives are finally getting in trouble for making bad jokes. Or, more accurately, they are finding it harder and harder to hide their bigotry behind the “Can’t you take a joke?” defense.
Roger Ailes made a really dumb joke about Bush confusing Obama with Osama, which the Democrats cited as the reason to cancel a FOX-sponsored Democratic debate. Adam Felber, who I must defer to as a qualified humor professional, argues that the joke although feeble is in fact objectively funny. Of course it is; that’s why Barack Obama made virtually the same joke at his own expense early in his senatorial campaign in order to defuse the weird spelling coincidence as a potential political problem. I don’t have Ailes comic wit, but I imagine that resurrecting the 3 year old joke might have something to do with the Senator’s current campaign.
Democratic strategists, perhaps listening for once to rank and file Democrats who don’t find the idea of a FOX-sponsored Democratic Party debate at all amusing, wanted a way out. Edwards had already pulled out. Outrage at the joke was a pretext – a convenient excuse to justify an action that would have been fully justified without it. The joke didn’t have to be particularly offensive to serve that purpose. It doesn’t matter how light any given straw might be, even the normally strong camel’s back will break if you keep piling on.
Speaking of bad-tempered ruminants, Ann Coulter has likewise lost lucre from a lamentable lack of levity. Several papers nationwide pulled her column after she called the aforementioned Candidate John Edwards a “faggot” at the recent Conservative Political Action Conference. The audience laughed and applauded while the rest of the world winced. Naturally she claimed it was just a joke. Ha ha.
Some Shakespeare’s Sister readers objected to her putting “Christian” in front of the vile Coulter’s name on the grounds that she is not a “true” Christian. Really? Who Says? Do espoused atheists get to decide who should be classified as valid Christians and who should not? This complaint is especially ironic considering that Shakespeare’s Sister was publicly savaged while working for the Edwards campaign by Bill Donohue of the so-called “Catholic League”. Did anyone in the Catholic hierarchy come out against Donohue, if only to defend their brand? No.
Whiney Christian liberals usually accept a disclaimer that “not all Christians are like that.” The request for atheist bloggers to redact the adjective is a new twist, but it makes perfect sense. If people believe that their religion is the source of their morality, what can they do when confronted with someone who, like Coulter, claims the same religious affiliation but embraces antithetical values? The only possible response is to reject her claim to be Christian. Otherwise they would have to accept that the Christian label does not represent a coherent ethical position.
The problem with Coulter isn’t just Coulter. There are thousands of her fans and millions of Americans with beliefs very similar to hers, virtually all self-identifying as Christian. If “Christian Values” means anything at all it has to encompass everyone from liberal Methodists to fundamentalist Baptists. The problem cannot be defined away by one side or the other declaring the other side invalid. The solution is secularism, and it waits for you with open arms.
- jack*
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