Christian Persecution? Yeah. Right.

I just got back from my annual vacation down to Florida.  My in laws are good people.  And the drive down and back is, well, interesting.

This morning found us cruising up the beautiful Cumberland Valley in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania.  That valley is my vote for one of the most beautiful valleys in the country.  The mountains to the northwest and southeast.  The non-existent mountain down the center of the valley (Massanutten Mountain (think about it for a moment)).  Of course, we were driving it in the dark, so the sheer beauty of the valley was not visible. Unfortunately, it is infested with fundogelicals -- and they have discovered electricity (not in the Bible, but they are willing to make exceptions I guess) so all the crosses are illuminated.


As I flicked through the radio dial, I  landed on a Christian station and decided to listen for a few minutes (supposedly if you are sleepy, listening to something you don't like can help keep you alert).  And, just as I passed a giant steel-framed cross, lit in blood red by large spotlights, I heard a preacher whining about how unfair it is that the evil atheists, darwinists and liberals have made it illegal for Christians to express themselves.

The cross itself is rather amazing.  It stands a hundred feet high and is made out of steel triangular framing.  The lights are new (well not all that new, but I hadn't driven past the depiction of a bronze-age torture device in the dark before), though (from the Roadside America article):

Now a new wrinkle has been added: color. The Open Door Baptist Church of Clear Brook, Virgina, erected a 100-foot-tall, 57,500-pound steel cross just off of Interstate 81 this past June. But 100 feet just doesn’t grab attention like it used to, so the church bought a $15,000 state-of-the-art projection system to beam colored light onto the cross after dark. “It’s a new invention,” said the church’s pastor, Ken Smith. “I was told that it can make 16.1 million different colors. An astronomical figure.”

(Just a quick aside here:  16.1 million is an astronomical figure?  Well, I guess if you believe the entire fucking universe is only 6,000 years old, then I suppose that would be possible.  Or the pastor is an idiot.  Or both.)

So this church spends the money to erect an almost thirty ton steel cross and then spends another $15,000 to make it pretty colours.  And another preacher, using an FCC-licenced radio station has the fucking nerve to complain that Christians are being persecuted?  That evil atheist-inspired laws are stopping Christians expressing their love of a fictional psychotic god(s)? 

I am amazed that my irony meter is still working.

I can honestly say that I am sick and tired of this.  If all of America doesn't bend over and give the radical right-wing Christianist nutjobs every little itty-bitty thing they want, if we don't use tax money to support their delusions, if we do not let elected and career public officials use their office to shove Christianity down our throats, then we are the ones persecuting them.

What would they think if I used my public forum as a Park Ranger to promote atheism?  Would the same rules apply?  After all, they keep claiming that atheism is a religion, so . . . .