For Crying Out Loud

Would-be theocrat Sarah Palin has now managed to seriously piss me off, despite a lot of forbearance and tolerance on my part. Since being elected Governor, she's spent $13,000 of Alaska's taxpayer dollars traveling to religious events.

What, there are no acceptable churches in Juneau?

I call bullshit on this. Politicians can earn my support despite being overtly, sincerely, and devoutly religious. I think it's all a bunch of hokum, but so many people buy into this kind of hokum that I'm considered the abnormal one for being willing to state out loud the patently obvious fact that there is no God. But people of good conscience and intelligence can disagree about this and we need to live together in a civil, tolerant society. So fine, Gov. Palin, you're a very religious woman as well as a politician of substantial skill and charisma. Good for you.

If you the Reader, Gov. Palin, or any other American citizen wants to go to church, or go to some kind of special religious event, that's cool. That's your right as an American and I will argue on these pages, in courts, and if need be pick up a rifle and fight for your right to worship a four-thousand-year-old sky-god who whose sense of justice includes capital punishment for masturbation and exile for eating bacon, if that's what you want to do. But I am not paying for you to do it. Why not? Because I will also argue on these pages, in courts, and if need be pick up a rifle and fight for my right to not force me to worship or support that same sky-god against my will. Which is exactly what you've gone to your constituents and that, Governor, is contrary to your oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States.