Thursday, January 05, 2006

The Red Badge of Courage

Also from Dan Savage this week, a reader builds his street cred by publically admitting:

Before you write me off as a Fox News-watching, Wal-Mart-shopping, Bush-supporting Bible-thumper, please note that I am a liberal Democrat living in a blue-collar city in a blue state. I voted for Dukakis, Clinton, Gore, and Kerry. But I also try to live a Christian life. Your statements were sacrilegious. Jesus and Mary deserve a little respect.

Dukakis! Holy Crap! I wish his post had a picture with it. If I ever see this individual in public, I could then lean over conspiratorially to my friends and whisper, "Psst! That's *the* guy who voted for Dukakis!"



Dan writes the response I would have written:

I don't see how it's disrespectful, degrading, or theologically incorrect to point out that if Mary was a virgin when she conceived, and if you don't buy off on the Virgin Birth (the idea that Jesus somehow passed out of Mary's uterus and down through her vaginal canal without disturbing her hymen), then Mary's hymen broke when the Kid was born. Isn't the whole point of the Jesus Thang that He was the Word made flesh? And if Mel Gibson can portray His death in detail so gory it bordered on the pornographic, how can an aside about the mechanics of His birth be off-limits?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I take issue with this, not because of the subject, but because of the content.

The writer never said anything about Mel Gibson's "Passion", and the leap Savage takes may turn out to be true, but in the context of the letter serves no purpose other than fallacy.

-Son

MAH said...

I wouldn't say fallacy, but it certainly is over the top.