Our Latest Stories:

Tonight, I received a lurid email from Donald E. Wildmon, chair of the far right Christian group, the American Family Association (some mysterious character signed me up for this email list a few months ago, and I’ve been getting crazy emails regularly ever since) described its “shocked” reaction to an incident that occurred during a recent NASCAR broadcast.

Apparently, some driver named Bobby Gordon used what the American Family Association refers to as “the ‘S’ word” while on TV. The S word? Does anyone know what the S word is? Sassafrass? Silly? Surreptitious? Secular?

Oh, wait, here it is, a little bit further down in the American Family Association email, the S word is described a little bit more: “sh–”. Shoe? Shed? Shin? No, no, that can’t be it…

Oh, yes, it’s Shit!

The American Family Association believes that when someone says “shit” on television, it’s a national emergency. This right wing group is mobilizing its forces in a panic, marshalling all its power to combat the base evil that is saying “shit” on television. “You can still take action!”, the American Family Association tells its followers. Aren’t you relieved?

Well shit. What the American Family Association doesn’t bother to mention to its followers, until far down in the email, is that the word “shit” was mentioned on a cable television network: TNT.

This is a television channel that American Family Association members have to pay to bring into their homes. But, does the American Family Association advise its members to simply cancel their cable TV subscriptions? Shit, no. It would be too hard for right wing Christian families to go without cable television. Instead, the American Family Association wants its followers to demand that TNT and NASCAR fine the offending race car driver and suspend him from further races - all for saying “shit”.

Well, after all, what kind of person would say “shit”? Must be someone really really horrible. Like the authors of the Bible.

Yes, it’s true. While doing a little research into the matter, I found an article from the New York times, scheduled for publication in the paper tomorrow, describing the universal role of naughty words in human culture. It turns out that every single culture on the face of the Earth has words that it says are naughty. In every single one of those cultures, people go on saying the naughty words in spite of the taboos. And, surprise surprise, none of those cultures fall apart as a consequence.

When I say “every single culture”, that includes the culture of the ancient Jews, as preserved in the Christian Holy Bible, II Kings 18:27, which uses the word “shit.” Well, okay, the King James version translates the word as “dung”, but come on, it’s all the same shit. What, is it okay if I write the words dung, or poo, or fecal matter, but it’s bad bad wicked evil bad if I write the word shit? The Bible talks shit - or the ancient Hebrew word for shit anyway. Translate it anyway you want, a fact is a fact: The Bible has shit in it.

So, Mr. Donald E. Wildmon, before you go screeching at NASCAR to punish its drivers for saying “shit”, perhaps you ought to consider punitive action against the authors of the Bible. Ban that dirty book from your churches! Clear it out of family homes! Demand that Christian bookstores remove it from their shelves! Then, issue email alerts insisting that printers pay heavy fines until they agree to stop printing that shit-spewing Bible.

Then, and only then, will your email action alert about the S word on NASCAR broadcasts make sense.