I’m a little distracted today, so you’ll be getting factory-seconds snark today.My excuse for the poor quality of my mockery is that yesterday the local animal rescue group (not the little one ran by the nice but incompetent lady in the next county, but the professional but overcrowded one in this county) called and asked if I’d take an emergency rescue case.
It seems that a college student had found a dog a few months ago, and asked the rescue group if they would help her find a home for it. They said yes, and set up appointments to get the dog spayed at their expense. About a month later, they called the girl to say they’d found someone interesting interested in the dog, and the girl let them know that in the mean time the dog had gotten pregnant (further conversation revealed that the girl had failed to keep the appointment for neutering, and when she learned of the dog’s delicate condition, decided to let her have the puppies, because she thought it would be cheaper than having her operated on). Well, the head of this rescue group is a rather blunt, outspoken woman, and she apparently told the girl what she thought of her irresponsibility. So, the girl told her to go to hell.
Anyway, yesterday the girl called up the rescue group again and said that she was moving, and that they’d have to take the dog and the remaining puppies (there had been nine of them, but the girl had found homes, of dubious quality, for five) that day or she’d take them to the pound.
The rescue leader wanted nothing to do with the girl at this point, but did ask her assistant to see what she could do to save the dogs from this girl’s stupidity. So, the assistant, whom I’d met a few years ago when I adopted Jet Jaguar, asked me if I could take the mother dog. Shannon (the assistant) arranged for the puppies to be taken to an already scheduled adoption event, where I hope they all found responsible owners who will make sure they’re spayed and neutered.
So, I have Miss Lady for now. (Shannon said they will take her to the next adoption event, but they want to get her spayed first.) You can see her photo and read about her here.
Lady is a good dog, and other than waking me up five times during the night because she had to go outside (I didn’t know what she was used to eating, and gave her the same food I feed my dogs, which she loved, but which apparently didn’t agree with her), she was been no trouble at all. Well, she does want to go on more walks than I am used to, but she is much better behaved on a leash than my own little terrorists, so I guess it’s a wash.
Now, on to the slightly defective snark. Let’s now give our attention to Renew America’s Bryan Fischer, and his compelling piece entitled “Voices of tolerance demand ouster of Dennis Prager.”
Jewish columnist Dennis Prager, who argued in a recent column that newly-elected Congressman Keith Ellison should use the Bible rather than the Koran in his ceremonial swearing-in (or both), has now predictably been branded “bigoted, intolerant, and divisive” for exercising his freedom of speech.
Okay, let’s stop right there and address the popular wingnut misapprehension that the First Amendment not only gives you the right to express your views without government intervention, but that it also immunizes you from criticism. Sorry, wingnuts, it doesn’t work that way. Dennis has the right to say that Ellison should be required to use some other faith’s holy book in this ceremony, just as other people have the right to say that Prager is a bigoted, intolerant, divisive doofus. That’s how it work, kiddies. If you don’t like it, I guess your only recourse is to start your own country (Wingnuttia), with a slightly different Bill of Rights.
But let’s move on to the part where Bryan shows his true genius:
The Bible has historically been used in swearing-in ceremonies because of its insistence on the sacredness of promises made in public oaths. It is better, the Bible says, not to make an oath before God at all than to make an oath and then not keep it.
Um, actually Jesus said, “Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time, Thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord Thu oaths. But I say unto you, Swear not at all; neither by heaven; for it is God’s throne: Nor by the earth; for it is his footstool; neither by Jerusalem; for it is the city of the great King. … But let all your communications be, Yea. yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.”
So, I guess if you believe in the teachings of the Bible, you should probably not use it during swearing-in ceremonies.
But back to Bryan:
A legislator who swears on the Bible is calling the God of the Bible as his witness that he will faithfully uphold the duties of his office to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. He is essentially asking God to hold him accountable to such a promise, to bless him if he keeps his word and to judge him if he does not.But in Islamic theology, it is permissible to lie to infidels if it will provide strategic advantage for the Islamic cause.
We’ll skip all the parts in the Old Testament where people lied to infidels to get strategic advantage. (Okay, we’ll mention one: Abraham 12:11-20 — it’s where Abraham lied to Pharaoh and said that his wife was his sister.) But we want to know if Bryan is really suggesting that Congressman Ellison used the Koran in this ceremonial swearing-in so that he could betray his oath and then later say to his constituents, “Hey, I had my fingers crossed during that ceremony, so there’s nothing you can do to me, suckers!”
Islamic theology, according to expert Robert Spencer, contains what is called the doctrine of kitman, or mental reservation, which is “telling the truth, but not the whole truth, with the intention to mislead.” This is the Islamic version of crossing your fingers behind your back when telling a lie.
Okay, I guess I have my answer.
American citizens have a right to know if Ellison adheres to this tenet of Islamic faith. This is directly relevant to his swearing in, for the oath requires him to swear allegiance to the Constitution “without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion.”
And I think we American citizens have the right to know if all Christian congressmen hold to the idea that it’s okay to disregard what Jesus said about oaths — and if so, what other of His teachings do they feel free to ignore. Oh, and we should also find out their policy on claiming that their wives are their sisters, or their mistresses are their wives, etc.
Further, Islam regards Jews as the descendants of apes and pigs, and does not accept Israel’s right even to exist. Exterminating the Jewish state is a declared goal of virtually every Islamic state and organization in the world. Does Ellison share this view with his fellow Muslims, and if not, why not? If he does not believe that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs, why is he taking an oath on a sacred book that says they are?
Okay, now Bryan is getting a little too silly (and bigoted, intolerant, and stupid) for even us to deal with. But we will apologize for violating his right to free speech (i.e., criticizing his column) if he will tell us where in the Koran it says that Jews are the descendants of apes and pigs. (We know that there is a passage where some a town, presumably Jewish, broke Jewish law by fishing on the Sabbath, and were dismissed with “Be ye apes, despised and rejected,” but that’s not even close to Bryan’s claim.) Oh, and then we want him to swear on the Bible that he hasn’t told us any lies about Islam in this piece. We’ll wait for his response.
But I guess by now you want to know a little bit more about Bryan:
Bryan Fischer is the Executive Director of the Idaho Values Alliance, whose mission is to make Idaho the friendliest place in the world
Okay, that’s a nice goal! I guess Bryan and his group say hi to everyone, bake cookies for the new neighbors, and try to make everyone feel welcome in the potato state. More power to you, Bryan!
. . . to raise a family.
Oops, I spoke too soon! I am now guessing that Bryan’s real mission is to make Idaho the least friendly place in the world for gays.
He has an undergradaute degree in Philosophy (from Stanford University) and a graduate degree in theology.
And I’m going to do some more guessing, and, based on his knowlege of both the Bible and the Koran, posit that the graduate degree came from one of the many fine wingnut theology institutes one can find on the internet. I am also going to speculate that Bryan’s undergraduate degree was awarded by the Standford University of Theology, Barbering, and Shoe Repair, in lovely Stanford, ID.