Good for you, Texas! You did it!

A lot of people thought that you couldn't possibly legislate your way into a completely alternative reality than the rest of the world with just a little gumption and a fair share of prayer to Bronze Age Middle Eastern deities, but not me! I always had faith in you!

And you did not prove me wrong…

After three days of turbulent meetings, the Texas Board of Education on Friday voted to approve a social studies curriculum that will put a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks, stressing the superiority of American capitalism, questioning the Founding Father’s commitment to a purely secular government and presenting Republican political philosophies in a more positive light…

The conservative members maintain that they are trying to correct what they see as a liberal bias among the teachers who proposed the curriculum. To that end, they made dozens of minor changes aimed at calling into question, among other things, concepts like the separation of church and state and the secular nature of the American Revolution…

They also included a plank to ensure that students learn about "the conservative resurgence of the 1980s and 1990s, including Phyllis Schalfly, the Contract With America, the Heritage Foundation, the Moral Majority and the National Rifle Association."

Great ideas all around. I've always said that we need more information about the NRA in our schoolbooks. Don't you feel like you had a dangerously low amount of semi-automatic rifle learnin' back in grade school? (Yes, you do, obviously.)

Oh, and that's not all! The Texas BOE also voted to keep out references to deviants like transvestites, transsexuals and Thomas Jefferson. It's about time someone booted that old queen, am I right. (Yes, of course I am, obviously.)

We all know this one: A group of young kids with rock & roll dreams form the only heavy metal band in the entire capitol city despite the oppressive religious mores that could possibly have them killed for doing so. They write some songs, have some laughs, the United States illegally invades their country sending their society into chaos. One of them probably falls in love with a world-wearied groupie, and then a scud missile explodes their practice studio…

Here's the film's synopsis from the website…

Heavy Metal in Baghdad is a feature film documentary that follows the Iraqi heavy metal band Acrassicauda from the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003 to the present day. Playing heavy metal in a Muslim country has always been a difficult (if not impossible) proposition but after Saddam’s regime was toppled, there was a brief moment for the band in which real freedom seemed possible.

That hope was quickly dashed as their country fell into a bloody insurgency. From 2003-2006, Iraq disintegrated around them while Acrassicauda struggled to stay together and stay alive, always refusing to let their heavy metal dreams die.

Snooze! That story's been told a million times. As a matter of fact, I think that most of that synopsis was lifted from Dokken's wikipedia page.

Here's Janet Porter — of Faith 2 Action and WorldNetDaily — praying, with the audience at Convergence 2010, to the Lord Almighty Jesus Christ that He will see fit in His wisdom and mercy and crush everybody in the media under the theocratic heel of the Christian Right, thus that they may control every aspect of every thing that you and I read, watch and hear.

Amen…

What concerns me the most about the prospect of Porter's prayers ever being granted is what it would for the porn industry. I don't like the idea of conservative Christians controlling the porn that I watch.

Mostly because I don't like gay porn.

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^{* Q: Why was Adam a famous runner? A: Because he was first in the human race.}

Just look at these happy, loving couples finally getting the opportunity to join their lives together in the eyes of the law, will you? Turns your stomach, doesn't it? Gay people, pretending like they're real people. Ugh!

You tell me what kind of a loving God wouldn't take offense at this kind of joyous display of human affection. Certainly not a Catholic God, as evidenced by this video…

Way to make a stand, Catholic Church! If gay people are allowed to not be treated like half-citizens, then no one gets health care! Everybody can just get sick and die from all the sinful pestilence that will be stirred up into the air, for all you care. I totally remember that part from the Bible. (It was right near the part with the unicorn, I think.)

Speaking of which, you know all the recent seismic activity lately? Turns out that those are all preemptive strikes against this abomination by the Lord…

"The lava under this Earth's crust is busting loose all over this place," [Westboro Baptist Church] member Tim Phelps told Fox News. "This nation is going to be utterly destroyed and it's going to be with fire."

Scientists!

At least our soldiers know that they're fighting for a good cause.

At least our soldiers know that they're fighting for a good cause.

At least our soldiers know that they're fighting for a good cause.

At least our soldiers know that they're fighting for a good cause.

(via BuzzFeed)

I doubt I'm stating a particularly unpopular opinion when I say that Westboro Baptist Church leader Fred Phelps essentially a human pustule. I'm pretty sure that even most Baptists would be hard-pressed to find fault with that statement.

That said, when Snyder v. Phelps hits the Supreme Court this fall, I think I'm gonna be siding with the human pustule…

The court agreed Monday to consider whether the protesters' message, no matter how provocative and upsetting, is protected by the First Amendment. Members of a Kansas-based church have picketed military funerals to spread their belief that U.S. deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq are punishment for the nation's tolerance of homosexuality.

…over the grieving father, for whom my heart goes out…

The justices will hear an appeal from the father of a Marine killed in Iraq to reinstate a $5 million verdict against the protesters, after they picketed outside his son's funeral in Maryland.

A jury in Baltimore awarded Albert Snyder damages for emotional distress and invasion of privacy, but a federal appeals court threw out the verdict. The 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the signs contained "imaginative and hyperbolic rhetoric" protected by the First Amendment.

Hey, it's called the First Amendment, not the First People Should Think the Same Way That I Think. (That sounded more clever inside my brain.)

Anyway, I think it was Evelyn Beatrice Hall who said "I disapprove of your terrible, hate-inspired bigot-speak and kind of wish you would suffer a brain aneurysm, but I will defend to the death your right to say it while hoping that the aneurysm is on its way." Or something like that.