When fundies attack

I'm turning once again to the world of football for this morning's opener, because it's just So Bizarre.

Former Florida State quarterback and local sports hero Casey Weldon was fired yesterday as head football coach at North Florida Christian School, despite having led his team to the state title game in each of the last two seasons. So why is this blogworthy? Check out the reason school president and Baptist minister Randy Ray gave for the dismissal:

The school's president, pastor Randy Ray, would not return phone calls on Tuesday but did reply to an e-mail requesting an interview.

"We are a ministry, a church with a school," Ray wrote. "As it is with all of our decisions we try to be led by the Lord we serve. Sometimes that leadership is popular and embraced by everyone and at other times it is not. In any case we must be true to our mission and follow God's leadership.

"It is the consensus of our school administration that this is God's will for what North Florida Baptist Church is trying to do through the program of North Florida Christian School."

God's will, folks. Yes, there are wars and genocide, death and destruction, climate change and poverty, and God decided he needed to fire a high school football coach. Jesus H. Christ on a flea flicker, what a ridiculous statement.

This is a HUGE deal in largely rural north Florida, where high school football is a way of life. Commenters are flooding the article's board, and one local columnist even took on the school today:

But Randy Ray, the pastor who runs North Florida Baptist Church and the school, apparently decided that God needed someone new calling the plays.

Lord, have mercy.

The pure hypocrisy of this situation numbs the soul.

Firing a football coach because it's "God's will"?

What kind of lesson does that teach the students at NFC, and more importantly, the players who were part of Weldon's team? Loyalty and commitment get trumped because of God's will?

Heaven help us.

No one begrudges Ray or anyone else the right to fire a football coach — for any reason. If you don't like the way he calls plays or you don't like the way he treats his players or you simply don't like the way he manages his team meetings, then fire him.

But have the decency to tell the truth.

Don't pass this decision off as "God's will." Be a man, be a leader — for Heaven's sake, be a man of God — and speak the truth.

Casey Weldon was fired Wednesday not because God decided to put on the headsets and call an audible.

Casey Weldon fell victim to the oldest play in the book — politics.

And God's will had nothing to do with it.

The crime here is not that Weldon was fired.

The sin is the way that dismissal was portrayed and, for that, Randy Ray should be ashamed of himself.

God's will?

Thine hypocrisy hath no limit.

Hypocrisy and fundamentalist Christianity go together like peanut butter and jelly. Whether it's Ted Haggard or Randy Ray, a sex scandal in a mega-church or some egotistical backwoods preacher firing a coach in Florida, a Baptist preacher running a school or a Baptist preacher running for president, it's all the same. And, for that matter, it's all a shame.

Jim Naugle update

Some of you across America's Wang™ and around the country or beyond might be wondering what is going on with Florida's favorite batshit crazy homophobic mayor, Jim Naugle of Fort Lauderdale.

When last we checked in with the intolerant goatfucker mayor, he was being kicked off the Broward County Tourism Development Council board. Still, he's the target of letters to the editor and newspaper articles just about every day.

A week ago, Elaine Schulze of Fort Lauderdale made headlines with her banner in support of the bigoted shitstain mayor. Reading "Thank you Mayor Naugle From the Children of Fort Lauderdale," the banner hangs over Schulze's indoctrination camp day care, Small World.

A woman who tied a large banner on the side of her Victoria Park day-care center in a show of support for Mayor Jim Naugle's controversial comments about homosexuality says she has been ordered to take it down. But she's not going to, she told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel late Tuesday afternoon.

Elaine Schulze, of Small World daycare, said she was going to comply with the city's orders but decided not to, after getting swamped with phone calls about it.

"I will take my banner down when this city takes down all the rainbow flags," Schulze told the Sun-Sentinel.

[...]

"I guess I am not allowed to show appreciation for actions that are long overdue to protect the children and the ignorant," she told the Sun-Sentinel in an e-mail.

If you're trying to help out the ignorant, Ms. Schulze, you might want to look in the mirror first.

Meanwhile, other fundie fucktards area residents are voicing their support as well, through letters to the editor like this one:

God bless Jim Naugle. Militant gays and other far left groups love to attach the word "homophobic" to anyone who disagrees with them. Let me assure you that I (and I am certain that Jim Naugle) fear no man or earthly thing.

Furthermore, we do not hate anyone. On the contrary, if we claim to be Christian, we are compelled by God to love everyone in the same way that God loves us.

My argument with these radical gays, and some other groups who love to cry discrimination, is they demand special privileges, not equality. They insist that society put its stamp of approval on what most people would consider deviant or perverted behavior. The existing laws, in my opinion, are already adequate to protect the rights of everyone, as long as those laws are properly enforced.

God bless you, Jim Naugle. I know that you are not alone and I firmly believe that the majority of the people are on your side.

I really had no idea that the Religious Right had much of a foothold (or, as Ted Haggard might say, "asshold") in south Florida, but I'm being proven more and more wrong every day. Um, as to the assertions regarding "most people" and "the majority:" wrong and wrong. But when did fundies ever let facts get in the way of a good sermon?

Meanwhile, city commissioners in neighboring Wilton Manors will vote tonight on a resolution to denounce the homophobic comments made by the vomitous fucknozzle Mayor Naugle. As Wilton Manors' population is estimated to be 35-40% gay, it's safe to say the resolution is likely to pass.

Yet, everything I've been seeing, hearing, and reading lately suggests that the pestilential waste of flesh mayor is resolute in the face of all the criticism. Indeed, I'm quite sure we haven't heard the last of the cretinous, imbecilic asshole Mayor Naugle.

UPDATE (9:52 pm 9/11/07): Regrettably, I failed to give credit where credit is due. My inspiration for the incivility of this post comes from NTodd, who is to profanity what Rembrandt was to profanity.

I mean, art.

Bonus Daily Schadenfreude

Guess you can say I'm making up for only having one DS over the weekend. But this is too good to pass up. Even the headline is nice:

Hidden life again claims a pastor

In a tearful videotaped message Sunday to his congregation, the senior pastor of a thriving evangelical megachurch in south metro Denver confessed to sexual relations with other men and announced he had voluntarily resigned his pulpit.

A month ago, the Rev. Paul Barnes of Grace Chapel in Douglas County preached to his 2,100-member congregation about integrity and grace in the aftermath of the Ted Haggard drugs-and-gay-sex scandal.

Now, the 54-year-old Barnes joins Haggard as a fallen evangelical minister who preached that homosexuality was a sin but grappled with a hidden life.

"I have struggled with homosexuality since I was a 5-year-old boy," Barnes said in the 32-minute video, which church leaders permitted The Denver Post to view. "... I can't tell you the number of nights I have cried myself to sleep, begging God to take this away."

Reading the entire article, Barnes seems a little more sympathetic a character than Haggard. For one thing, he seemed to forgo actively preaching hate: " 'I can't think of a single sermon where he ever had a political agenda,' said Dave Palmer, an associate pastor."

At this point, I would like to remind you, fair reader, that I am not celebrating the downfall of a man of the cloth. Rather, I am repulsed by the rank hypocrisy of many on the Right who say one thing and do another. Even if Rev. Barnes was not as vocal as Rev. Haggard, his message still was one of hate and oppression of a class of individuals which, as it turns out in each case, includes the messenger. Moreover, instead of accepting who he was with grace and maturity, Rev. Barnes apparently - and tragically - spent nearly fifty years trying to overcome something that was a part of his very identity.

Call it a reluctant schadenfreude, but nevertheless, Bill Frist has company on the stage today. Congratulations, Rev. Barnes ... this Blast Off! Daily Schadenfreude is for you!

(cap tip to Eschaton commenter Lil Red Ridin In Tha Hood)