Never Mind The Bollocks, Jane, Here's The Real Bollocks

Wednesday was opening day of the short session of America's Third Worst State Legislature™ (Motto: "Kansas? Hah! We were frittering away the public's time and money on religious mumbo jumbo back when they were still wantonly killing Clint Eastwood's family in The Outlaw Josie Wales!"). And as befits a solidly Red Republican controlled state, we're already making WaPo's page A3 for a wholly manufactured squabble about Praising Jesus in story and song to open every House session. Question: aren't you guys the party of Small Government? Used to be we didn't even have a short session. Go home and pray all you want.

Should you happen to read all the way to the end of the Post story you'll find Speaker of the House and Lord High Deacon Brian Bosma delivering this piety:

But Bosma, a lawyer first elected in 1986, said he will not honor calls for defiance.

"Open defiance of the judge's order, I believe, would send the wrong message to every Hoosier and especially every young person, regarding obedience of the law, even laws you may disagree with personally," Bosma said.

which somehow left out the fact that the first call for defiance was from...wait for it...Bosma himself, who listed "ignoring it" as one of two options he was considering after losing in court.

And if you'd read the Indianapolis Star article covering the "Prayer Protest" meeting these pious hypocrites people who respectfully disagree with my religious views just had to put on for the cameras prior to their showy prayer huddle in back of the House chamber before the session began, you would have seen this:

Outside the House chamber, peering through a window at the proceedings and carrying a sign that said "In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen," 15-year-old Praise Jerusha Sharp, Crawfordsville, was among those who objects to Hamilton's ruling.
She took a day off from her private school to make her feelings known. "If they don't start praying in Jesus' name, our country is going to fall," she said. "I've asked (God), and he doesn't like it."

I think we can at least all thank our personal divinities we still live in a country where you are free to name your child "Praise Jerusha" and indoctrinate her to the point of schizophrenia by age 15. Amen.

The local news last night did manage to squeeze into its ten-minutes-out-of-every-half-hour coverage a brief clip of the Rotunda gang chanting, "Jesus! Jesus!" in a way that actually embarrassed me for Christianity. I can't wait for the Satanists to turn up for a good Beelzebub Pep Rally. Besides, they're a lot more telegenic.

There is a flip side to this. Shouting, "Save me, Jesus!" and "In the Name of the Great I Am" (which is apparently something the evangelicals think makes Jews imagine they're in solidarity), is pretty much the least damage these people can do. Maybe we should demand they pray 24/7 and leave us the hell alone. At least they wouldn't be able to pass Rep. Troy "I Fell On the Daylight Savings Grenade for Mitch Daniels and All I Got Was This Lousy Sucking Chest Wound" Woodruff's proposed legislation banning all abortions except where the mother's life is threatened--aka the "Let's spend a few hundred thousand tax dollars defending an empty gesture" Bill, or the proposal to fund Statehouse statues of every President or Vice President who was an Indiana resident, which I'll support only if Dan Quayle is holding a nine iron. That's the news from the sticks, folks. Wish I could send you back to saner climes.