Candy-Stripers for Jesus
When John Ashcroft covered the bare breasts of the statuary framing his press conferences, that left nothing to look at but John Ashcroft, so he was soon gone.
But the effort to turn American discourse into a tent revival meeting was just beginning. The Thursday Times has a long, depressing article about how the Justice Department has reframed the entire civil rights agenda to ignore racist and sexist discrimination and hate crimes and to concentrate on blurring the lines between church and state.
One example tells the story. The DOJ has come out, guns blazing, to help proselytizers who want to send home religious advertising with schoolchildren. In Massachusetts, they cleared the way for a sect distributing candy canes as part of a biblical message in which the red stripes represent the blood of Christ.
And what do the white stripes represent?
You can almost hear the rusty little wheels turning. Oh, yes – purity! White stripes are for purity! And we all know what kind of purity the Bush Justice Department cherishes most.
They didn’t mention it, but the cellophane wrappings on the candy canes symbolize the evanescent transcendence of ape-free creation. Then there’s that grand, ubiquitous icon of human imperfection, the bar code on the package. The black bars stand for original sin. The spaces between them are the white horsemen who overslept and missed the apocalypse.
And you thought our Constitution provided for separation of superstition and corruption?
Pumping faith-based initiatives into every corner of American institutions, ultimately the DOJ will be suing to require passing a collection plate at the whorehouse. Be sure to vote for the congressman who attends faithfully and gives generously.
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