Snarky in the Suburbs: Maybe we should care about issues of biblical proportion, like war, disease, famine

I am so tired, exhausted really, from all the religious brouhaha and posturing concerning Kentucky clerk Kim Davis and her refusal to issue marriage licenses to gay couples. The rallies, the fanfare, the presidential candidates come a-calling. Yuck.

It turns my stomach, especially using the Bible to justify doing whatever you want as long as you can find a passage that kind of works for you. You want to hate on someone? Well golly gee, let’s see if there’s something we can cherry pick from the holy scriptures that will make you feel not just good, but proud about being a gigantic piece of human refuse.

And maybe if you pray really, really hard, your hate will be celebrated, rewarded even, and if you’re “blessed” you’ll get a three-book deal (perhaps even one featuring Crockpot recipes for Slow Cooking Your Self Loathing), a GoGetFunding account, and perhaps a new position will be created for you at some “Christian” rights group. Maybe an associate vice president of hate mongering. Oh, wait that won’t look that good on a business card so let’s change that to associate V.P. of biblical elucidation. Yeah, that will work. This way the job title is open to many interpretations, just like the Bible.

It’s no wonder that research shows millennials are significantly less religious than any previous generations of young Americans. Who can blame them? I now consider myself significantly less religious. I don’t want to be a part of anything that doesn’t just favor hate but joyously celebrates it.

In fact, I want to start a new religion called Don’t Be An Idiot. No Bible, just a pledge to be a decent human being who attempts to make our communal journey through life filled with compassion and just maybe — what’s the word I’m looking for? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Yes, that’s it, love! Where did love go?

That may be too big a concept, and truthfully my brain is hurting, so let’s dumb it down a little and think about where common decency went. Or if that’s still too painful let’s ponder what happened to the concept of MYOB. I swear Kim Davis is like the world’s worst HOA president: self-righteous and all up in everybody’s business.

Seriously. People need to back off the judging and condemnation of their fellow man. It’s become a blood sport, especially for those who think they’re Jesus Junior because they’ve parked their butts in a pew from time to time or have memorized a couple of lines of the New Testament.

Um, here’s a news flash for you — just because you go to church doesn’t give you an all-access pass to being a hater the other 167 hours of the week.

Church attendance isn’t like a cloak of invisibility where simply by attending you’re granted the right to sit in judgment of others regardless of your own behavior. I don’t think a little introspection ever harmed anyone. Hey, that concept might even be in the Bible.

And of all the things to get judgy about, why gay marriage? Why the vicious, go-for-the-jugular hate? I could care less about the whole same-sex thing. I mean why would I base my judgment of someone because of their sex life with another consenting adult?

In our lifetime we will spend significantly more hours brushing our teeth than we will having sex. Would I judge someone based on their oral hygiene? (OK, that could be a bad example because oral hygiene is important to your overall health and I love minty fresh breath and my Sonicare toothbrush.)

Here’s a thought. What if all the folks and presidential candidates that have picked hating on gay marriage as their battle cry took a little bit of break and thought about, I don’t know, some other issues of biblical proportion like war and famine?

Yikes, those kind of topics don’t sound fun or camera-ready at all. They’re onerous problems that will require untold efforts to solve. Hating on gay marriage is easy-peasy. You hold up signs, share Bible verses on Facebook, have press conferences and, if you’re feeling really motivated, organize a rally where you hope you get a chance to cry on national television and up your social media cred.

All that sounds so much better and less time-consuming than the hard labor involved to attempt to make even a small difference in just one person’s life. Besides, I don’t think the TV crews will be around for that kind of boring stuff, and you know what that means? There goes your book deal, and you just know — like divine intervention know — that the one with the Crockpot recipes had best-seller written all over it.

This story was originally published September 15, 2015 at 7:07 PM with the headline "Snarky in the Suburbs: Maybe we should care about issues of biblical proportion, like war, disease, famine."