Due to this week’s illness, I’m a little late to the party, but not too late to comment on the rising furor over Marc Shaiman and a star-studded cast of pals’ clever and funny “Prop 8: The Musical”:
With lightning speed, the incredibly Village Peopley-looking “Dr.” Gary Cass of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission issued the following statement:
In a short video posted on FunnyorDie.com entitled, “Prop 8 The Musical,” an all star cast of Hollywood celebrities perform a low budget musical farce that defames Christ, mocks Christians and distorts the teaching of the Bible.
“Jack Black should remember from his days at Hebrew School that homosexual acts aren’t funny and are roundly condemned in the Bible,” said Dr. Gary Cass, of the Christian Anti-Defamation Commission. “Appearing as a sarcastic, rotund Christ, Black distorts the Bible and condones shameful, homosexual acts. Associating Christ with perverse activity is an affront to all people of faith, especially Christians. Apparently Black and company find it hilarious to falsely accuse Christians while they intentionally distort the Bible. Black ought to apologize.”
It would be funny if it wasn’t so insane. Persecuting whole races, genders and sexual orientations based on the mythological scribblings of desert nomads with not even rudimentary knowledge of the way the universe actually operates is an affront to all people with a shred of intelligence.
Cass’s biggest complaint seems to be that Christ is portrayed in the sketch by… a Jew! Imagine! And not at allll a dog-whistle call to anti-Semites, either, right? (Less coded racism can be found at Cass’s CADC series “7 Reasons Why Barack Obama is Not a Christian“.)
This is not a war between freedom of religion and the equality of all people, this is a holy war against intelligence. And I’m really fucking tired of religionists framing themselves as victims. That’s not just an insult to intelligence, it’s an obscenity.
8 comments
If only I could physically stand to watch Jack Black…
I think he’s absolutely right. Jack Black SHOULD apologize.
For ‘Rock & Roll High School.’
Talk about offensive…
Thanks for the fabulous video…a great way to respond to such stupid politics…
“Cass’s biggest complaint seems to be that Christ is portrayed in the sketch by… a Jew!”
I don’t see where Cass says that. He’s not upset that a Jew is protraying Christ. He’s saying that someone raised with a background in Torah should know that the Tanakh is pretty not okay with homosexuality. In some ways, it’s as if Cass is more upset that a Jew wouldn’t remember Leviticus or Sodom and that other place that’s tough to spell.
(To end with a clarifying point: I think Cass is an idiot. I’m ready to stop giving any religion the benefit of the doubt. I just felt like your argument is weakened when your premise doesn’t seem supported by the evidence.)
Very well-put! I could not agree more.
Thank you for picking up on Dr. Gay Face’s strange and inaccurate reference to Hebrew School. As I’ve said elsewhere, Hebrew School is not a Jewish version of the Xtianists’ Sunday School – you’re there to prepare for your bar/bat mitzvah, not study what the bible has to say about “homosexual acts”.
agreed, on all points.
but what really interests me, is WHY is there a holy war on intelligence? Why, how, when did intelligence and education become a BAD thing? I distinctly remember that it used to be a good thing.
Bev,
In America, it started the day Reagan took office…
bstewart23: Rick, history seriously needs to be corrected. The (negative) impact of Reagan Republicanism has ranged from the irreparable insertion of the lunatic religious right into our political discourse to the total brainwashing of the working class to believe that predatory-capitalist greed, the cause of much of their hardship, is an American ideal worth fighting for. And still the GOP hauls his rotting corpse out, every few weeks, for a darn good fellating.
B,
Yay! We both loathe Reagan!
XOX
OXO
R