No, this isn’t about The Republican Party’s continuing war on women, as recently exemplified in the neo-fascist states of Ohio, Texas, and North Carolina. It’s just something that recent events made me think about on this 4th of July weekend. It’s not about abortion rights per se and it’s not about the hate-filled Herculean pro-death, Republican efforts to stop uterine and breast cancer screening with sneaky late night anti-democratic state legislature maneuvers. No, this is something far more base and basic. It’s about what actually drives the evil of Republicans in both their waking hours and in their dreams, and in their nightmares.
Case in point: Generations Radio’s Pastor Kevin Swanson. Generations Radio serves some sort of propaganda arm for people who call themselves Christians while exhibiting nothing Christian in their attitudes. It’s worth noting that while Pat Robertson may be gone to Hell soon, charbroiling up nicely, right next to Jerry Falwell, on Satan’s big hibachi, the Republicans will always have plenty of would-be replacements. When Pat is gone and his brand of Republican psycho gibberish no longer fills the TV screens of old lady suckers, Swanson will be there vying to take his place.
Here’s Swanson quoting from an old copy of Forbes magazine (courtesy of Daily Kos)-
“Women in the 1980s adopted a male style of dress-- ties, tailored skirt suits, shoulder pads-- in order to gain a foothold in the male dominated world of business. And Carol Moseley Braun, the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate, wore a pantsuit on the Senate floor in 1993, ending the Senate’s ban on women wearing slacks there.”My god! There she was! Slacks! Slacks! Personally, I thought women wearing ties dated back to the mods of the 1960s. I even married one such woman. Does that make me, in republican eyes, some sort of perverted same sex marriage pioneer? Oh rest assured my little republikooks, my wife and I are straight. Obviously, though, the fact that I am writing this at all makes me some sort of Devil’s spawn, right?
A close examination of Pastor Swanson’s pea brain reveals so much about the Republican mind. Notice the choice of words in the Forbes article that so appealed to him. It’s not just about what a woman is, what women are wearing. It’s also about “male dominated” and “African American woman.” Damn, right there on the floor of the U.S. Senate; flaunting it! Flaunting her election, her feminism, her ethnicity. It’s too much for a republican to bear! And, he’s quoting about something that happened twenty years ago!
Get over it bozo. Have you even noticed that women Senators now come in the Republican flavor? We have lots of them, right there on the Senate floor, a place that was one of the last bastions on male domination as you would spit it out, Pastor Mr. Christian Love moron. The only thing that’s weird about that, to me, is that any woman, in this day and age, could profess to be a Republican at all, not that they are a Senator representing kooks like you, Pastor Swanson. And, just how did you get to be a pastor anyway? Some back of a matchbook ad while you were lighting up a crackpipe?
It gets weirder. Remember back to 1991: the Clarence Thomas hearings? Thomas was before the Senate, an institution known for its policy of sex harassment (pro); defending himself against charges of sexual harassment and a fascination with the porno movie exploits of a chap named Long Dong Silver (party affiliation unknown). During the proceedings, we had the already senile and still Senator, Orrin Hatch, brandishing a copy of The Exorcist, waving it in the air as if it somehow reflected on Thomas’s accuser, former co-worker named Anita Hill, but, that wasn’t the funniest part. The funniest part was another Senatorial nutjob named Arlen Specter saying to the accuser, “Tell us about the b-b-b-breasts”, like some sort of 13 year old sleepaway camper wanting uber-detailed information from the older kid in the bunk next to him. Sen. Specter could barely say the word. It had so much power over him. He was so worked up.
Here’s Pastor Swanson again:
“Coming back from Australia, I’m stuck in 14 hours of these visual presentations, sitcoms and stuff, on 17 screens in front of me and I’ve never seen so many breasts in all my life. The immodesty going on in our society is far worse than it was back when Cheers, Family Ties, and The Cosby Show was playing. I mean every form of aberrant sexuality and women’s breasts are shown in front of me almost non- stop for 14 hours. It’s such an oppressive, horrible, horrible world and so man of our young girls in our Christian churches are running down to Wal-Mart and buying the same clothes… Why do we have to submit to these sexual sins again and again?”I’m amazed at so much here; “aberrant sexuality”, “oppressive, horrible, horrible world,” “submit.” Apparently, Wal-Mart is the work of the Devil. Well, to be fair, and I am always fair, Swanson may be right on that point but not for the reason he thinks, unless, he’s worried about how prone to wardrobe malfunctions and inconveniently placed tears Wal-Mart’s cheap clothes may be.
But, wait, there’s more. There’s always more when it comes to Republican kookery. Boys are b-b-b-bad, bad, bad, too!
Hey, Swanson, God gave some women facial hair for a reason, too. What about it? And, is this facial hair obsession some sort of Muslim thou must grow a beard thing?“I brought up androgyny and how many young boys are running out and doing the metrosexual thing with the skinny pants and the little fairy shoes. They’re working on the gender blender for themselves and they don’t want to look like a man and God is just so upset. He hates it when men are not manly in their approach. 1 Corinthians 6 speaks about homosexuality and feminine behavior and feminine dress for men. God does not want men to be androgynous and feminine-like in their approach.or that Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy. Our country has suffered your kind before, even when you manage to slow things down. Here’s a tip for you, in the end, you and your sick brethren will inevitably lose and you will take your place in Hell. In the end, you might say that God will shine his grace on thee, and all of us anyway.
Lindsey's fairy shoes
He gave them facial hair for a reason.
There it is. Cover up the women in burkas. Men must grow beards; and, this from the party that drums up fears of sharia law taking over the land. It’s a classic example of accusing your “opponent” of being what you, yourself, really are. That’s your Republican Party in 2013 and beyond. It’s one of the older strategies of subterfuge in the history of mankind. By the way, Swanson is beardless. If you were to ask me, I might say that, by his own pronouncements, he just might be in league with ol’ Beelzabubba, hisself.
I had wondered why Swanson had failed to mention Will & Grace, a show which featured a-- dare I say it aloud-- gay character, right out there on the TeeVEE for all to see! Well, now we know. He was just saving the gay stuff, or trying to repress it, or something. Maybe, he just hadn’t caught up to this particular sitcom, which ran from 1998 to 2006. He tries so valiantly to live in the past, longing for a time where everyone was buttoned up and in their place.
“Little fairy shoes”? Most normal people got over this stuff back in the 60s when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones came along in their slightly high-heel boots and longish hair, but not Republicans. I remember being called ‘Miss” because of my very long hair back then. I also have very clear memories of a couple of people who, very most likely, never made that mistake with a long-haired guy again.
The problem is, of course, that Republicans want to go back right past the 1960s to the 19th century, but not the 18th; men wore wigs then, and frilly coats, and stockings, and… Ya know what, our country grew and progressed just fine, and, no, tragic events like the Civil War, Lincoln’s murder, lynchings, the Depression, and the murders of civil rights workers and leaders, were not caused by a punishing god. Those events were caused by reactionaries and greedmongers who were fighting, so much like you, Pastor Kevin Swanson, to preserve a status quo that had already passed.
Swanson, you whine about “fairy shoes” and have bad little dreams about being attacked by big bad breast monsters. You look at the moon and see giant areola and nipples where normal people see craters. You look at the clouds and see threatening vaginas. Maybe the biggest irony is that you are so much like the very reactionaries who nailed your Jesus to a cross and threw a spear at him in an effort to maintain that status quo. You, Pastor Swanson, and all your kind in the aberrant state legislatures across this great land, and in Congress in Washington, DC, have more in common with Richard Speck or that Texas Chainsaw Massacre guy. Our country has suffered your kind before, even when you manage to slow things down. Here’s a tip for you, in the end, you and your sick brethren will inevitably lose and you will take your place in Hell. In the end, you might say that God will shine his grace on thee, and all of us anyway.
