Perils of Pope Pauline

Personally, I don't like to talk about abortions. It isn't that I have any problem discussing such controversial issues as abortions represent. It's just that, personally, I can't have any. Abortions, that is.

For, contrary to any previous claims to the contrary, I am not now, and never have been, a woman. Thus, there is not now, and never has been, a pregnancy option on the old Wesmobile. Since I can't get pregnant it is extremely unlikely that I would ever have to decide whether I should get an abortion or not. I might want to decide such a thing. I might even want to have to decide it. But I wouldn't have to decide it.

Likewise the Pope doesn't have to decide whether he should get an abortion. Like 100% of all other Roman Catholic priests, the Pope, AKA Bishop 001, isn't a woman, has never been a woman, and if he became a woman at this late date he wouldn't be allowed to be pope anymore. There can't be a Pope Joan Pauline.

If the Pope became pregnant, they would snatch his pointy hat and curly stick away, refer him to a home for wayward girls, and call together the Electoral College of Bishops to do that weird thing they do with the colored rocks and the smoke and elect a new man to lead the club.

So it is something to wonder at that not only does the Pope want to decide who else should get abortions, but that he feels equipped to decide this issue himself, personally, without even so much as asking for input from anyone, like for instance a woman, who might ever have need to decide whether to get one.

Ordinarily what the Pope decides on behalf of all women, none of whom get any say in the matter, wouldn't be a huge concern of mine, since my one-time relationship with the Roman Catholic Church suffers from considerable neglect. But now one of their lesser bishops is forcing me to jump into the gravy and roll around in it, if you know what I mean.

Here's the deal. Some pea-brain bishop in Colorado heard that some other bishops were saying that politicians who are pro-choice shouldn't be allowed communion. Having a pea-brain, this Bishop Michael Sheridan decided that just punishing the politicians for disagreeing with him wasn't enough. He would punish the voters themselves. So if you're in his diocese and you vote for a pro-choice candidate for, say, the presidency, no more Body of Christ for you.

Never mind that he doesn't know who votes for whom. As he puts it, "God knows." He has the power of guilt working for him, and he takes for granted that these, his people, are guilt-ridden people. He relies on the honor system for now. (Maybe later he will scour rolls of campaign contributors.)

Now if you have followed me so far you should have caught the fact that I do not now regularly consume Christ Body, nor do I live in Bishop Pea-Brain's diocese. So you could very well be asking, "Wes, why the hell do you care?"

I'll tell you why I care. I don't want to trade my American citizenship in for citizenship in a New Christian Iran of America, where some Roman Catholic bishop sets himself up as the Ayatollah of Colorado Springs and starts issuing fatwahs against anybody who doesn't vote for his candidate.

I want a government that doesn't try to tell me that holding someone's head under water and pretending to drown them doesn't constitute inhumane treatment. I'm still waiting to hear George W. Bush order such treatment stopped at Guantanamo. What's taking so long? Do we have to wait for the Wizard to make him human?

I want to be proud of my country. I want the people in my country to vote for a president who would not dismiss the Geneva Convention under any conditions.

I want Americans to have a free choice between torture and not-torture. I also want them to be able to freely choose against unjust wars, pre-emptive wars, and/or wars of economic exploitation.

I take this all very personally. I don't want my country to torture in my name.

Whites Priced At Five Dollars Each

Let's talk about religion!

No, let's not talk about religion! I don't want the headaches! Let's talk about religious authorities instead. Don't religious authorities do the darndest things? I guess it's because they're authorities.

Take your imams, for example. With all the war and misery going on in highly Islamic quarters of the world these days, I would be very surprised if the world's imams weren't making pronouncements right and left. But the other day when I went looking on Islam.com for a pronouncement or two to get the flavor of them, I didn't expect to see a fatwa on the importance of men tucking their shirts in. (Just so you know, the imam issuing the fatwa basically says tucking the shirt in isn't necessarily evil, although he personally would never do it.)

With that kind of focus on gender-specific grooming tips vis a vis fiery hell, you can all imagine for yourselves how the fatwa on homosexuality read on the very same page. Likewise re the archived fatwa on the same site concerning surgical hymen restoration. Hint from me on that one: "If you break it -- you pay for it." OK, that hint sucked. Let's try this one: "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten. Now go publicly bury this bucket of kittens in your front yard, you harlot."

Speaking of homosexuality, I want to take time out to say that, although I am not myself a homosexual so far as I am aware of, I am deeply grateful that the Supreme court has now recognized my right to practice sodomy in the privacy of my own bedroom with consenting adults, because I've been doing it anyway.

Of course Islamic imams do not hold the monopoly on fatwas. The Vatican just issued one of their own on gay marriages. Having once been a card-carrying member of the Catholic Church (in my impetuous youth I favored the classics) I find its decrees delightful and fascinating. In much the same way that I find forced live oyster eating riveting. This particular decree compares especially well with the shirt tucking decree in its decreeness, or decree-osity.

Will someone please explain to me how exactly does allowing at least civil homosexual marriages undermine heterosexual marriages? What exactly do people think is going to happen? Do they think all the straight guys are going to wake up one morning and think, "Hey, I could have married one of my buds!" and immediately divorce the wife and ditch the kids and elope with Steve in accounting?

The Vatican decree whinges on and on about the blessed sanctity of procreation, as if allowing gay marriage is going to make one iota of difference to the frequency of condom failures during straight sex.

But enough of that nonsense. What I really want to talk about here isn't a fatwa or decree, but it's still coming from a religious authority. I want to talk about Bishop Fred Caldwell's decision to pay white people to come and diversify his overwhelmingly Black-attended church in Shreveport, Louisiana. Five dollars for Sunday masses, fifteen for Thursdays.

Whoa! Can you say "spiritual ho's?" My first reaction was to recall that when an impoverished homeless guy I was often bribed with food to attend meals. I thought: this just cuts through the BS. They pay the money; I can spend it the way I want. Maybe I don't want turkey tetrazinni. Maybe I'm in the mood for chicken diablo. It's my choice.

But then I thought, wait a minute, what's all this saying? I mean, first of all, how white do you have to be to collect your fee? Does a Quarter-white get $1.25 on Sundays? Does Michael Jackson get anything; does effort count? How about comportment?

You know, if it were me, in Louisiana, I'd pay more for an Asian than a white person, out of supply considerations.

When someone suggested that Bishop Fred might give the money to the poor instead, he said that that was the sort of thing Judas Iscariot would have proposed. I'm wondering: if Judas Iscariot were to tell Bishop Fred not to jump off a bridge, would he do it?