Every Monday at Reran Tragedy, Editor-in-Chief Cal Alabaster Jr. draws on his considerable experience in Southern politics to round up news, notes, and blatantly pasted-in press releases that readers may have otherwise missed.
Despite a Republican supermajority and the support of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, a bill to rename and renovate the RSA Tower in Mobile as the "RSA Jesus Tower" so that it "doesn't look so much like a big, gay pointy Muslim penis temple" surprisingly was a nonstarter in the Legislature in this spring's session.
MONTGOMERY — Christian political groups and deranged church leaders across the state say they are deeply upset that the Republican supermajority in the Alabama Legislature spent its last few weeks in Montgomery doing mostly important things instead of ramming a perverse form of Christianity proselytizing down Alabama residents’ throats.
While measures attempting to ratchet up the difficulty of getting divorces and some new abortion restrictions at least saw movement, church leaders say that they expected much more unhinged Christianity-based edicts to come spewing out of the Legislature this session.
Instead, legislators spent much of the last few weeks of the session trying to find feasible budget and immigration solutions that would be palatable to the conservative voters who elected them.
“Quite frankly, I am disappointed to say that I do not think that this crop of legislators has what it takes to march up and down South Union Street chanting Jesus while dragging wagons of caged 13-year-olds forced into chastity belts,” said Randy Brinson of the Christian Coalition of Alabama. “And yet they claim to be devout Christians.”
Brinson said after seeing states like Tennessee pass silly, “family-preserving” measures, such as one aimed at curbing gateway sexual activities like basic touching among schoolchildren, he expected no less than “a bill limiting eye contact because it could lead to un-Christian thoughts like premarital sex or Islam.”
Some church leaders were even more incensed about the lack of action by a Republican majority expected to have Jesus’d things up just a touch more by now.
“Jesus is my religion, where’s the bill making people all act like me so I don’t have to deal with people who don’t?!” shouted the Rev. Michael Houghton, 34, of Trussville. “The Republicans were supposed to stand against women thinking about abortion, ban people from sitting Bibles next to bottles of Sprite unless it’s antigay-kosher, and outlaw those who would stop us from locking the kids in prayer chambers at the start of each school day. And you know what we have? Women think about abortions every day by the trillions in this state, bottles of Sprite that homosexuals have drank out of are spilling all over the good word, and children are not being forced to pray in sensory deprivation chambers in the middle of school gymnasiums all because some budget had to get passed.
“The Lord’s will does not wait on the affairs of man. You think Jesus would rather have someone decide whether the poor can get medical care [through Medicaid] or if we can make government beat up on people who are of a different religion? If you are really a Christian, you know the answer.”
Anti-abortion activists are especially upset that even more strict abortion regulations were not passed by the Legislature.
“Babies are so cute, how could the legislators not personally stand in the way of women’s vaginas to stop people from aborting them?” said Karen Elizabeth, 38, a Shelby County mother of three who is a member of Alabama Christian Women for Loving Those Who Imprison Single People for Having Unprotected Sex. “I love my babies—and as a Christian, I wonder if members of the Legislature personally be there to put a hand in the way in case someone tried aborting them while they’re alive.
“And of course, all Christians are just like me.”
“It’s so tempting to do things that are not Christian seeming,” said Terry Johnson, 51, president of Alabama Christians for Making Animals Wear Pants Now. “We just don’t want to see anything that makes us think of sex, alcohol, drugs, unmarried people, gays, and thinking a little too much about drinking milk on Thursdays because it makes us insecure in our religious beliefs. Is it too much to expect likeminded legislators to force those who don’t share our beliefs to get in line with our beliefs?
“Heck no! That’s what government is there for!”
Church leaders say they expect legislators to prove their Christian belief with several proposals in 2012, including bills banning gays from reading, dictating transvaginal ultrasounds immediately prior to vaginal intercourse, and outlawing penis exposure in men’s restrooms in public schools.
‘Alabama: It Doesn’t Get Better Project’ YouTube videos warn people against hoping the state will improve
A startup grassroots movement is using new media to alert certain concerned and bullied Alabamians that the state’s political scene will never ever improve.
The “Alabama: It Doesn’t Get Better Project” seeks to use YouTube videos to let nondumbasses living in Alabama or looking to live in Alabama that it is best to stay in the closet about appreciating competence, effort and positive results in government when living in the state. Otherwise, organizers say, the disappointment and frequent grief from the Roy Moore-voting masses—people constantly on the lookout for someone with a different opinion to pee on—”just isn’t worth it.”
“Really you probably shouldn’t live here if you don’t like government that’s built on racism, shouting Jesus or dealing with any sort of hard problems whatsoever,” said Hal Carter, 31, one of the movement’s founders. “And if you’re already here… I mean… why?”
Asked why he and his family still lives here, Carter began violently sobbing.
“It’s–it’s just not good if you like good things or having a functional government,” Carter said, silently crying when a thought occurred to him. “I mean … Jefferson Co-coun-county … H-H-HB56 … just … shit.
“All we want to get across is that this place will never improve,” said Carter, before violently weeping himself unconscious over a half hour.
Once he had awakened and drank much of a bottle of vodka three hours later, Carter said if the movement is successful, organizers will start a second campaign aimed at suicide prevention.
This week in Alabama history
On June 2, 1943, a prisoner-of-war facility in Aliceville received its first batch of German captives.
Military leaders chose Aliceville as a site “because holding a bunch of Nazis in a place called the Black Belt is at least eight kinds of awesome.”
Reran Tragedy is Weld’s satirical blog about politics and life in Alabama and the South. Much of what you will read here is fictionalized, except for all the parts that are unfortunately true because they are about politics and life in Alabama and the South. You can like this blog on Facebook and follow it on Twitter @ReranTragedy. You can reach the blog’s author at calalabaster@gmail.com.
The artist known as Cal Alabaster Jr., if that is his or her real name, may or may not also be the author of the Alabama humor blog called “King Cockfight.” If true, you may read Cal’s work there at kingcockfight.wordpress.com
