Since Halloween is a little more than a week away, I decided to do my annual search pn Google to find out what the Religious Reich is up to in its attempt to destroy my favorite holiday. Since Last Halloween fell on a Sunday, last year's effort was mostly devoted to Making Damned Sure Those Godless Heathens Don't Preform Their Satanic Rituals on Sunday, the Lord's Day. The Satanic Rituals involved are dressing up like Spiderman or a vampire and giving out candy, neither of which is mentioned in the Bible, which I've read cover to cover at least 3 times. Not that that matters--the mere fact that Halloween is very loosely based on the Celtic feast of Samhain, a pagan harvest festival in which the dead are commemorated, is enough.
This year they've gone particularly nutsy. They want to change Halloween--which is derived from All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saints Day, a Catholic feast day--to
"Jesus Ween"when Good Christians should hand out tracts and mini-Bibles to children instead of candy.
It's not enough for them that they've forced schools to call what are blatantly Halloween parties where kids get to wear their costumes "Fall Festivals" lest the wrath of the Religious Right fall upon them. It's not enough that churches run Hell Houses which feature the grisly fates of women who have abortions, teens who have sex before marriage, gay men and women who don't pray the gay away, and other sinners. It's not enough that their churches run alternative Biblically-themed parties for their children. It's not enough for Pat Robertson to condemn the holiday loudly and deem it "Satanic" and something Christians should avoid like HIV or sex that isn't intended for procreation.Nope. Now they want to change the name of this holiday which so offends them--and use it to proselytize to other people's children. And that flat-out pisses me off.
I am really glad I didn't have kids, because I wouldn't be surprised if one of my neighbors chose to go this route on Halloween instead of just turning their porch lights out and watching CBN on October 31. Were I to find a Jack Chick tract in my child's bag, I'd be forced to ask my kid where they got the thing--and then march down to that neighbor's house and tell them, politely but firmly, that if they ever again tried evangelizing my child I would consider it a form of child abuse. And then I would have to sit down with my kid and explain that they were never, ever to go to that house again.
What angers me about this new tactic is that the Religious Reich isn't content with being allowed to raise their kids in their faith--they're insisting on raising other people's in it.It happens all the time in q variety of ways. When they pushed to get Intelligence Design taught alongside evolution in biology classes, they were inserting their religion into a science curriculum in a classroom filled with students who may or may not be their kind of Christian or any kind of Christian or believer at all.When they try to get abstinence-only sex ed (which is linked to a rise in teen pregnancies and unsafe sex) into health classes, they're shoving their religious beliefs down the throats of parents who want their kids to be taught facts, not religious doctrine. When they claim that anti-bullying laws which protect gay teens from harassment keeps Christian teens from sharing their faith with their classmates, it's more of the same, as if beating up a fellow student or telling him he's going to hell for being gay is an acceptable way of sharing one's faith.
I DO understand that for evangelical Christians, converting others is regarded as a duty and a privilege, that they believe they have a God-given mission to save souls that would otherwise be lost to hell. I amnot happy when they come to my door but I just simply tell them I am not interested and close the door.
Well, with two exceptions.
I had two young men in black pants and white shirts who were either Mormons or Southern Baptists, hard to tell the difference. They got me out of the shower, and I answered the door dripping wet, wrapped in a skimpy towel, with my hair soaking. I only answered it because I was expecting a package that day. Their eyes got very round at the sight of a wet, naked woman with a very curvy body.
One of them finally gulped and asked if I'd found Jesus.
To which I replied, "Did you guys lose Him again? Tell Mary to put her son on a leash!" And closed the door.
The other Close Encounter of the Christian Kind involved my husband, who was active duty military in Japan, which meant he had to be in at work at 6:30 in the morning. Weekends were his chance to sleep in (he is NOT a morning person). He was awakened three Sundays in a row at around 9 a.m. by a trio of local Baptists (one of them Japanese) wanting to "share". Three times he'd told them not to return, that he was not interested. The fourth time, he looked through the peephole and recognized them. Slipping off his sweat pants, he greeted them stark naked and with an impressive morning erection and invited them in for coffee. They never came back.
So, while I am unthrilled with pushy people knocking on my door, I tolerate it in the name of religious freedom. The problem is, they don't return the favor. The feel they have the right to inflict their beliefs on other people's kids, and that's where I draw the line.
How about you?
NOTE: Just to clarify, I do not have children. I am childless by choice. But I know how I'd feel if I did have kids--and I'd be steaming if someone tried to convert my child to their faith.