Thursday, April 30, 2009

Possibly even more blasphemous!

We'll see who you feel is more blasphemous? Me or Florida?

According to this article my very own state is proposing a new license plate.

And it's quite a beauty.

Wait for it....

How I wish I could format this post somehow so you'd REALLY have to wait for it... cause it's just that good.

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Photobucket

Ah yes, I had to add my own little Photoshop touches to that. Because seriously, WTF?

I'm sort of torn on this whole proposition. There's one part of me that says "Hey, if radical Christians want to throw more money into our state by buying these novelty plates while at the same time showing me exactly who to steer clear of on the road, then I'm all for it!"

But wait... the plates don't benefit our state... they benefit Christian based teaching programs. Oh joy!

So then there is another large part of me that wants to jump up on a table and protest this. Hello? Separation of church and state, anyone? I'm a huge cheerleader for it and this just seems not right! What's next? Are we going to change our state motto from The Sunshine State to The Christian State? I mean, if this isn't a state endorsement of Christianity, then what is?

Where's my Buddhist plate? In fact, there's a huge (GIANT) population of Jewish residents in our state... where's the Star of David plate?

Our governor states "I would not veto those" and "If they don't want one, they don't have to buy one."

Thanks Governor Crist... thanks for making it clear where you stand on the issue. I'm sure glad I voted for you.

I think a great point was made by Howard Troxler of the St. Petersburg Times:

My first thought upon hearing this news, as an erstwhile Methodist and reader of the Gospels, was not about the legal separation of church and state in our secular democracy — though this surely violates it — nor whether Muslims, Jews, Buddhists or atheists should now get their own plate — though surely they are entitled, since they pay exactly the same taxes to the state — nor even whether the Legislature should stick to the pressing worldly matters of the day, such as opening up Florida to oil drilling, handing out new tax breaks and protecting old ones in a budget crisis, and otherwise running the state entirely into the ground, a secular task at which it appears to be doing a bang-up job.

Instead, my first thoughts were more about the stories of Christ in the Bible, angrily throwing the money changers out of the temple, and instructing his followers to pray privately in their closets rather than displaying prideful piety on the public streets like the "hypocrites" (which is exactly what he said. Look it up.).

Most of all, I thought about the story in Matthew when his enemies tried to trick Jesus, tried to get him to come out against paying taxes so that he could be arrested. Jesus threw it back in their faces by saying, show me a coin — whose face is on it? And they had to reply, it is Caesar's face.

"Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's," he said, "and unto God the things that are God's."

Since everybody these days claims to know What Jesus Would Do, let me ask a question. Do you think he would want to be mass-produced by Caesar's state, sold for money and displayed on the public streets to gratify an act of pandering political piety?


Thanks Mr. Troxler. I couldn't have made that point any better.

So, I'll try to stay away from the anti-Christianity for a while here at Domestic Spaz. Unless, of course, something else truly ridiculous comes up.


1 comments:

Karen said...[Reply to comment]

This makes the baby Jesus cry. As do the blow up "Manger scene" yard decorations at Christmas.