West Shied Story- RichWoodsblog

If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death;
their blood will be on their own heads. -Leviticus 20:13

There is one particular Dominionist bedfellow which has created a revulsion within the GOP…. to the point where it’s like they’ve awoken to a regrettable romantic interlude after a rough night drinking.

On a public relations front, sometimes a political message can become inadvertently equated with an undesired element. Unintentional socio/economic associations –when made by the public– can be embarrassing when one is trying to create a winning political brand. Still, “image” comparisons between political brands are often easy enough to make when there is a distinct similarity in tone, and terminology.

On a public relations front, sometimes a political message can become inadvertently equated with an undesired element. Unintentional socio/economic associations –when made by the public– can be embarrassing when one is trying to create a winning political brand. Still, “image” comparisons between political brands are often easy enough to make when there is a distinct similarity in tone, and terminology.

However despite a few semantic discrepancies, or one’s willingness to employ discretionary vernacular, the evangelical-fundamentalist-Christian message is synonymous with the GOP brand. Which is why throughout the conservative lexicon, it is rare when the moral imperatives of Christianity are debated within the Republican party. Routinely those who reside on the political right support one another when assigning biblical precedence while legislating. Fearing “moral” retribution amidst their own party, no one of political significance in the TEA/GOP differs with those who espouse Christian fundamentalism.

But there is one, hilarious exception.

Unless you’ve recently arisen from cryogenic stasis, you might have heard of a delightful group of good Christian folks whose tiny church resides on the West side of Topeka, Kansas. Founded by a grandfather like fella, the late Pastor Fred Phelps –and presently led by his charming daughter, the ever engaging Shirley Phelps-Roper– this church and it’s members are dedicated to bringing the message of divine superintendence through a literal interpretation of the bible. Better known as the Westboro Baptist Church, they have become famous for their firebrand method of saving Christian souls, morality, and patriotism. And en mass, the GOP rebukes the WBC for all the wrong reasons.

The across the board castigation of the Westboro Baptist Church from the political/Christian right is moral hypocrisy at its side splitting best. Although evangelicals, Republicans, and conservative media denounce the Westboro Baptist Church for their acerbic hate speech, or for picketing of tragic events (as a means to express Yahweh’s anger at America for allowing secularism) the overall Christian message is virtually the same. Sure, the folks who made “God Hates Fags” so right-wing chic are more vitriolic in their speech than most biblical purists. But if it weren’t for Fred and Shirley’s unwillingness to be tempered by political correctness, and the lack of diplomacy they use when speaking their minds, the majority of the things that they say, and the twenty-first century GOP says, are otherwise identical.

“The way to prove you love thy neighbor is to warn them they’re committing sin, I’m the only one who loves the fags.” -Pastor Fred Phelps

“Homosexual conduct is, and has been, considered abhorrent, immoral, detestable, a crime against nature, and a violation of the laws of nature and
of nature’s God upon  which this Nation and our laws are predicated.”
– Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy “makes Fred Phelps seem tolerant” Moore

From the literal interpretation of the bible, to the condemnation of gays, to the irrational disdain for President Obama, to blaming tragedies on divine retribution, to the denial of science in favor of what the bible says, the WBC and the TEA/GOP have no moral departure from one another. But the good folks at the Westboro Baptist Church won’t play according to the rules of American politics. They don’t bother to mask their hate speech with conservative code. Neither do they make overtures to regard the crazy and stupid moral assertions that blab from their vapid traps.

So the TEA/GOP mustn’t allow their voting base to make the legitimate correlation between themselves, and the WBC. Because it might allow the more Christian-casual members of the Republican body politic to realize that they’ve been voting for xenophobes and lunatics. Indeed, the Westboro Baptist Church has unwittingly exposed how crazy and stupid one has to be in order to reference the bible for science, history, or morality. And doing so has become part of the TEA/GOP platform.

But in a way you gotta love the Westboro Baptist Church –via an unintentional satire of the fundamentalist Christian TEA/GOP– they have managed to shed a light on the psychosis of twenty-first century conservative politics.

Republican Puppeteers

A while back, the Republican party decided that it was in their best interests to court the voting sensibilities of Americans who fill stadiums to hear obscenely wealthy evangelical preachers speak the word of god. Short term, it was a good idea. Long term, who knows? But now, the craziest of the Christian crazies not only lobby the White House in order to erode the wall of separation between church and state, conservative politicians are forced to lobby evangelical preachers for their endorsements. The relationship between the GOP and the evangelical lobby has gotten so turned upside-down that it’s become like a parent asking their spoiled child for approval before making a decision. It’s nuts.

Although there have most probably always been Christian fundamentalists trying to impose their will on our nation, in the twenty-first century, evangelists are exerting more political influence over Republican legislators than ever before. The evangelical beast has become too big for the GOP to control. Sure, there are ratings to be had on conservative TV and radio, regional elections to be won by touting Christian platitudes, and donations to be pocketed from the fearful Christian proletariat… but the political cost has been that the according irrationality and incomprehension have become impossible to contain.

Now the lunatics on the pulpit make and break party leaders. To be a twenty-first century Republican politician, one is not only forbade to speak of science, neither are they permitted to exhibit a modality of conscience. Rather they are confined to the twisted version of “morality” demanded by the evangelical lobby. For it is not the morals of new testament Jesus that steer the conscience of the GOP, but rather the economics of theocrats, the business of religion, and the disproportionate division of wealth and power it accords.

Big money preachers are now the driving force behind how the GOP legislates.

But the Republican electorate seem blind to this, as they’ve had the very concept of morals distorted so as to abide their own biases. Christian Americans are provided with biblical sound bites to help them justify very “un-Christian”-like behavior. For even if one is so inclined to excuse the socio/economic nonsense that pours from the pie-holes of Christian lunatics like Scott Walker or Ted Cruz as “political conservatism”… or from Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity as “fair and balanced” journalism … they’d still have to downshift their cognitive Edsels into an entirely new delusional gear in order to rationalize the psychotic ravings from multi-millionaire evangelical preachers. Yet that’s what the cycle of conservative psychosis has yielded.

The Christian Dominionist rhetoric from both the political and church pulpits are virtually identical. The religious and political doctrines have little, if any departure from one another. Yet the cognitive dissonance of Republican voters rarely makes that correlation.

For most Republican voters do realize that evangelical preachers are (at best) insincere, yet when it comes time to pulling the voting lever, most ignore the similarities between Republican politicians, and televangelist shysters. As such, Dominionists no longer have to pretend that their political goal is anything less than totalitarian. Those predisposed to their agenda are not inclined to consider the consequences.

“Religious factions will go on imposing their will on others unless the decent people connected to them recognize that religion has no place in public policy. They must learn to make their views known without trying to make their views the only alternatives.” -Barry Goldwater

Senator Goldwater warned the Republican party about the very political dynamic of the fundamentalist Christian theocrats taking over the party of Lincoln. Now the GOP is being dictated to by crucifix wearing racketeers who demand that anyone who runs for office with an (R) in front of their name must be willing to deny basic history and science. That they must claim –in the name of “morality”– to believe that the Earth was created by Yahweh in six days, approximately six thousand years ago. Just as historical and scientific reality is not what evangelical Christians say it is, neither are their morals, or their economics.

Indeed, if conservative media and politicians are intertwined in reciprocal cycle of fact deficient, irrational socio/economic assertions, the Christian evangelical lobby is the source from whence the crazy and stupid came.

Confessions of a Boob Man

When patriarchy collides with feminism, the collateral sociological damage can be significant. The power struggle –as it concerns sexual perception and reality– has created certain colloquialistic compromises, if not sexual concessions. Indeed, these are lasciviously confusing, if not sex-o-phobic times in which we live. The result of which is often a politically correct –albeit incorrect– presumption of one’s libidinous inclinations.

And as with any other form of political correctness, it comes at the expense of honesty.

As such, the travails of boob-men are many. Denounced by the estrogenic body politic as lecherous and insensitive, those among the Y-Chromosome masses who find themselves inexorably drawn to a disproportionate female facade are often painted with the same broad brush stroke as public masturbators. Depicted as social pariahs –incapable of emoting beyond an awkward grope or an insincere motivation– men who are wired to erect at the sight of a significant mammalian cantilever have had to deny the nature of their genetic predisposition, and pretend that a woman possessing a sensationally superfluous stack is of no more carnal interest than a can of tuna fish.

But we all know that is bullshit.

For in a purely social setting, the American male is permitted by the gynecological elite to acknowledge a beautiful pair of eyes, but not a formidable pair of projectile intumescences. It is socially acceptable for a man to approach a woman and comment on the way the moonlight glistens off of her hair, but not suggest an equal affection for the pleasant aesthetics of her preposterously prolific pontoons. What makes eyes or hair a more compliment-friendly body part than her squeezies? Does this strike no other as hypocritical, when everyone involved in this perfidiously interactive fiasco is painfully aware that it takes every ounce of self restraint a boob aficionado can summon to maintain eye contact?

In a world committed to truth, and sexual equality, the conversation should go more like this:

“Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice the gravity defying slope of that majestic rack you’re so proudly displaying via the textile limitations of your sweater. I’d like to buy you a drink, and if the evening progresses thusly, it is my sincerest wish to have my face buried therein sometime in the near future. Although I would not be so bold as to suggest a proper time-table, I do so find your copious silhouette extraordinarily attractive. And should you be so inclined to not view me as a less than suitable candidate for your affections due to my candor, and would have preferred that I pretend not to have noticed the gigantic jumblies jostling under that woefully inadequate –albeit extremely revealing– top your wearing, I’d truly appreciate it. You see, it’s not that gargantuan gazongas are the one and only qualification I’m seeking in a potential mate, however they are no less important than any other feature that one might find attractive in order to make initial contact. So if you’d rather acquiesce to the truth about the nature of my libido, as opposed to the pre-existing nonsense that says that I must pretend to not be who I am, well then what’ll ya have”????

Yet for some inexplicable reason, the over sensitive sexualizing of the female breast has become ground zero for striking back at years of patriarchal subjugation. It’s almost as if the gynic matriarchy has decided that “boobs as a no-ogle-zone” are proper retribution for centuries of male domination. Verboten mastoids as a means to strike back at men. And all it really accomplishes it to perpetuate the patriarchal, sexual double standard that most women hope to escape from in the first place.

But to make matters worse, women are often their own worst enemies where it concerns preserving the sexual double standard. Insofar as women “slut-shame” one another for having the audacity to indulge their sexual inclinations –as opposed to the bronze-age perception of chastity as a function of gender– many do the same with gals who posses overly endowed orbs. In what I can only assume to be sexual repression expressing itself as petty jealousy, a significant amount of women “boob-shame” their glandularly gifted sisters.

Even more hypocritical is when women make the distinction between nature and cosmetics. For when it comes to superficiality, it is only surgically enhanced spheroids that women denounce as something lewd. “Look at those fake tits on that bimbo, mine are natural” … as if one had to accomplish anything to grow them. Call me crazy, but I think that there is something to be said for a gal who plunks down a few grand and says “Gimme the big round ones from the top shelf.” As opposed to someone whose heredity makes them D-cup predisposed.

But still, boob shaming –especially where it concerns an augmented anterior– is all too common. Where it applies to cosmetic enhancements, the pseudo- feminist boob-hypocrisy is staggering. Is that perfume? or are we to believe that you actually smell like flowers blooming in Spring? Is that make-up? Or are we under the mistaken impression that your eyelids are naturally blue? Is that a perm? Or are we to believe that your hair began to curl on its own last week? Oh, and nice roots, Morticia.

So truth be told, I love tits. The bigger the better. In particular, I enjoy a globular pair of cartoon proportioned volleyballs acquired in an afternoon of cosmetic surgery. And although mams of extraordinary magnitude are neither a deal breaker, or a singular qualification for a woman to posses for me to be sexually attracted to them… it sure as hell helps. A great ass, and the cognitive ability to form a valid opinion are important too. But for an afternoon of frolic, the funbags’ll do.

Sorry, that’s what turns me on. I have no control over it. And if feminists don’t want to be viewed as “sexual objects”, well that’s just tough. We are all sexual beings. Perhaps we should stop telling one another what we are and are not allowed to find appealing. Maybe then the sexual double standard might begin to disappear.