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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsCultural Genocide as Right-Wing Answer to Ireland's Gay Impertinence
PoliticusUSA
Cultural Genocide as Right-Wing Answer to Ireland's Gay Impertinence
Patrick, celebrated today as St. Patrick, was one of the Romanized British 1 percent. He is today the patron saint of Ireland. Historian Richard Fletcher writes that Patrick is a famously difficult subject for the historian.
This is apparently true for Evangelical bigots as well, as disgraced former military chaplain and current Colorado State Representative Gordon Klingenschmitt has just demonstrated in calling for a new St. Patrick to drive the gay demons out of Ireland.
There was a time when it was said that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland, Klingenschmitt told his flock.
Fletcher writes that, in studying Patrick, It might be easiest to start by indicating some of the things which he did not do. He did not expel snakes from Ireland: the snakelessness of Ireland had been noted by Roman geographer Solinus in the third century.
Patrick lived in the fifth century. So no snake herding. None.
What Patrick actually drove out of Ireland was Paganism. Patrick committed what is today known as cultural genocide. It may not have been Charlemagnes bloody physical genocide to eradicate Paganism on the Continent, but the United Nations calls the sort of activities Patrick is famed for the stuff that made him a saint a crime today.
So what Gordon Klingenschmitt is calling for is some good old fashioned cultural genocide.
Klingenschmitt doesnt believe actual snakes have returned to Ireland, of course. They are demonic snakes:
. ...
So gay people, apparently, are snakes. Theyve been called worse. But just as there were no snakes to be driven out of Ireland in the fifth century, there are no demonic snakes to be driven out today. There are, however, probably a lot of things which need to be driven out of Klingenschmitts head:
Jesus Christ defined marriage between one man and one woman and maybe its time for another St. Patrick to go back into Ireland and preach the good news that Jesus can make you free from sin and drive out the snakes once again.
Somehow, and this is as difficult for Pagans to understand today as it was in the fifth century, it became important in Ireland to care about what a Jewish guy said to a bunch of Jews five hundred years earlier.
The Irish had their own gods, of course, and their own beliefs, and were happy with them. For a time, the Church, happy to have suppressed or to be engaged in suppressing all the Pagans in the Roman Empire, did not care about the Irish or anyone else living beyond imperial borders.
Patrick changed all that. He decided everybody needed to have some Jesus shoved down their throats, whether they wanted him or not. Which, of course, the Irish having rejected Jesus, is what Klingenschmitt wants today.
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http://www.politicususa.com/2015/05/30/cultural-genocide-answer-irelands-gay-impertinence.html
GreatGazoo
(3,951 posts)you win."
The next generation of Irish gets it:
msongs
(69,912 posts)MisterP
(23,730 posts)why does Klingenschmitt want us palling around with a commie like that?
beam me up scottie
(57,349 posts)I'd love to take him on a kayaking trip with me and introduce him to some real snakes.
AtheistCrusader
(33,982 posts)An interesting rhetorical tool, as well, since demons are whatever the person who claims they exist wants them to be. Since they don't exist, no one can disprove them ( reasonable people won't find they DO exist, and no one can prove they do, but burden of proof isn't always respected whenever religion is the issue at hand) they won't 'go away' and no one can kill or eliminate them, thereby 'winning'.
It's the ultimate fabricated boogeyman for attempting to control the opinions of people who have even a shred of fear or apprehension that the supernatural might actually exist.
It's a shame more people don't know what to do when someone tries to win an argument with raw fear.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)whose office called the Irish equality law a 'defeat for humanity'
AlbertCat
(17,505 posts)... and much more harmless than blowing each other up over religious crap that isn't even in the book...
...because it is....
....and religion is ridiculous.
pampango
(24,692 posts)The Irish people have made their decision. Respect their sovereignty and move on. Mr. Klingenschmitt, you are the foreigner trying to influence the sovereign people of Ireland. Butt out! Unless 'sovereignty' is a flexible concept which really means "I get to influence you but you don't get to influence me".