Wow. It’s been, what, 16 hours since a gunman opened up at the Aurora, Colorado, movie theater, and we already have:
- Bryan Fischer, Dolt, saying it’s all the fault of the ACLU and the Supreme Court, for having Banished God and Prayer from School (though, interestingly, the alleged killer may well have spent some time in this guy‘s class). On the bright side, he notes, Chik-fil-A got to stick it to “Big Gay.”
- Fred Jackson, also of the AFA, saying it’s all the fault of liberal churches, liberal media, untraditional politicians, Hollywood, the Internet … and, of course, modern schools that insist on turning out lawyers and professors and teachers and politicians. Not that they caused the shooting, mind you, but that their mockery of God provoked God’s judgment in the form of a movie theater shooting.
- Jerry Newcombe, of Truth in Action Ministries, saying it’s all the fault of civil libertarians and Americans no longer afraid of God and Hell.
- Margie Phelps, one of the loathesome Westboro Baptist clan, saying it’s all the fault of gay pride parades in Colorado.
- Louie Gohmert, GOP Representative from Texas, saying it’s all the fault of “ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs” and, maybe, not enough people bringing guns with them to the movies.
Way to go in hijacking a tragedy for your political and social ends, folks! Lovely way to take a horrible, bloody tragedy and instantly abscond with the bodies of its victims to use as damned talking points.
Most of this sort of crap (I won’t mince words, much) has been from the more extreme and open-mouthed doofuses on the Right. I haven’t heard (though I’d like to think I’d similarly loathe) similarly “Hey, I can use this for my side in the Culture Wars” bollocks from the Left, except …
… well, there’s one area where there’s been a hugely bi-partisan dose of Not Helping: the nigh-instant shrill debate (yet again) on gun laws in this country. Which is certainly a worthwhile thing to debate (yet again) tomorrow: what sort of weapons the citizenry should have and why and whether the weapons that the perp is said to have been carrying were beyond the pale or what any red-blooded American should be able to get and whether a more highly-armed society would have kept this massacre from happening or make it more likely that it would happen and …
… and, yeah, it may be a worthwhile debate (given the number of lives in the balance), but not now. Not today. Not while there’s still crime scene tape and blood and people still not believing their loved ones are dead.
If you want to make a difference today, do something good for others today. Maybe something related to this particular tragedy and in support of its victims, or maybe just doing something positive to help the world at large, or your corner of it, to try to balance in some way the bad thing that just happened. Give blood, help a neighbor, adopt a cat from the shelter, donate to your favorite charity. Do something.
Something other than using these killings to make some damned point in support of your personal politics or religion (or religious politics).
For today, at least.
Is that too much to ask?
UPDATE: Rick Warren saying it’s all because we teach evolution in the schools.
Nobody’s blaming comic books? Haven’t they read Seduction of the Innocent?
Strangely, for it having happened at a comic book movie, I haven’t seen much blame of comic books. Maybe that’s a bad sign.
No, the MSM pretty much has the blame comic books and video games market cornered…