David Triguiero's Idaho

Judy Fights the Curtain

 

A lot has changed since I attended Weiser High School. There’s a new building with two gymnasiums, the sports teams are winning and there are no cheerleaders. Well, there are cheerleaders, lots and lots of them, because virtually any girl who tries out is on the team, but they seldom do cheers. They do athletic routines – throwing each other up in the air, kicking over their heads in line like the Radio City Music Hall Rockettes etc.

What’s gone is the Pep Club. In my day, pep girls all wore red skirts and white sweaters and sat together in a bloc at football and basketball games. Girls who participated for a couple of years got to wear a red W on the front of their sweater, just like the boys playing. They responded to the cheerleaders in call and response cheers. “Fifteen for the team!” the cheerleaders would yell. The Pep Club would respond with fifteen “rahs” then everybody would yell “team, team, team!” That sort of thing.

There were only four cheerleaders and they were the prettiest, most popular girls in school. They were chosen at a spring assembly where girls trying out demonstrated their cheering ability and the whole school voted.

In my sophomore year, there was an attractive young girl who had moved to Weiser that year from North Carolina. The high school was not especially cliquey at the time, but poor Judy Wonch didn’t quite fit in anywhere.  She wasn’t rejected or shunned, but never really accepted either. She had a deep southern drawl, which we unkindly interpreted as a sign of stupidity calling her Daisy Mae behind her back. We thought her behavior was goofy, but she was probably trying extra hard to make an impression and fit in someplace.

Judy’s tryout came near the end of the assembly. She cupped her hands over her mouth to form a megaphone and shrieked “Fiftayn fo’ tha tayum!”. Leading the rah rahs, she strutted across the stage bouncing from foot to foot, knees high, her arms punching the sky. At the end of the 15 rahs, for the grand finish, she shrieked “tayum, tayum, tayum!” then flung herself into the air throwing her hands up and over her head as if trying to touch her heels. She landed flatfooted, lurched forward, stumbled across the stage and grabbed on to the curtain for support. She disappeared into the dusty red folds of the curtain as it twisted around then stumbled out the other side and added another “tayum!!!” like it was all part of her routine.

The students sat stunned for half a beat then burst into laughter. There were a couple more contestants, but for all intents and purposes the tryouts were over. At the finish, the boys began stamping, clapping and chanting “We want Wonch, we want Wonch.” To her great credit Judy simply assumed they liked her performance and went on with her life. She was never exactly popular but dated regularly and ultimately married Rodney Green, a handsome young man several years ahead of her in school.

I had always assumed that this was the end of cheerleader tryouts. I honestly don’t remember any cheerleader assemblies after Judy’s debacle, but apparently they went on for a number of years. But, by 1980 there was a full slate of girl’s sports at Weiser High School and most girls preferred playing to cheering. The Pep Club ceased to exist.

 Today, the only people who stand up and cheer and football and basketball games are the same people that stood and cheered in the 50s and 60s.

 

Letter to Blue Dog Walt

Walt Minnick

Idaho First District Representative

Washington, D.C.

 

Dear Walt:

 

I am your mirror opposite. I was raised in Idaho as a Republican. I plastered I Like Ike, Robert E. Smylie and Jim McClure stickers on my parent’s car bumpers.  They voted a straight Republican ticket as their parents had before them.

Things began to change about 35 or 40 years ago when Richard Nixon resigned the presidency in disgrace. We had voted for him in 1960 and 1968 and in general believed he had done a pretty good job. The Watergate scandal put us off Nixon but not the Republican Party. We had always liked Gerald Ford and approved of his presidency. We were disappointed when he lost to Jimmy Carter.

Then came Ronald Reagan and you can guess the rest. Deregulation we could take, but buying off the Ayatollah Khomeini to hold off releasing his American hostages until the Reagan had defeated President Carter was too much. By the time President George H.W. Bush was over we were Democrats in all but name. President Bill Clinton was the only thing that kept us from going all the way. President George W. Bush pushed us over the edge. We voted for Al Gore and came out. We joined the Democratic Party and have been active members ever since.

Now, I have no way of knowing what route you took on your way to becoming a Republican in all but name, Walt, but I can make a better than educated guess. Bill Sali, a state representative and certified religious psychopath, defeated a long list of much better qualified candidates in the Republican primary because his religious base was solid. His merely right-wing opponents split the sane base of the party.

Come November 2006, Sali rode the Republican wave defeating a highly qualified real Democrat.  Then the wave broke. Senator Larry Craig was caught soliciting homosexual sex in an airport washroom. Meanwhile Rep. Sali was making Idaho the laughing stock of Washington. Even conservative Republicans were making fun of the strutting little pug with Jesus as his political advisor.

Come 2008 the country was clearly fed up with Republicans. Idaho was still safe, but any Republican elected in November was certain to sit on the minority back bench with no opportunity to make a name for himself. More than that Sali’s psycho base remained in tact; a converted Democrat didn’t stand a chance against him in the primary.  The Democratic base, such as it is in Idaho, was solidly in tact and a lot of Republicans were desperate to shut off the laughter in our nation’s capital.

Well Walt, that solid Democratic base won’t be there in November 2010. It wanted a Democrat and got a Republican posing as a Democrat. You can prattle about being your own man all you want, we know whos man you are. You have been bought and paid for by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.  That’s what it said on the mailer you sent around the first district claiming credit for President George W. Bush’s Medicare Part D coverage, one of the most expensive wounds inflicted on health care in America.

We also know why you didn’t vote with other Democrats for President Barak Obama’s health care initiative. Your Pharmaceutical owners, who are raking in the doe from Part D, told you not to.

So that’s it., Walt. Rahm Emmanuel can call me developmentally challenged, but I am starting a Dump Walt Committee. Your best chance is to come out of the closet and run in the Republican primary this spring. There are several solid Republicans lined up so you can’t expect to win, but it won’t be as humiliating as the landslide defeat that awaits you in November. You may have a million dollars in your re-elect Walt kitty, but I would rather vote for an honest conservative Republican than a lying Blue Dog Democrat.

                                                           

Sincerely,

                                                            David Trigueiro          

                                                            Chairman

                                                            Dump Walt Committee

 

Missionary Entrepreneurs Saved

If you don’t believe in miracles, then you just haven’t been paying attention to the news. Eight brave missionaries from Idaho were released from a filthy jail in Haiti without any help from the American government. All they had was the prayers and money sent up to heaven and down to Haiti by fellow Southern Baptists. Who says Jesus isn’t an American.

Okay, so two missionaries remain in jail and a suspected child prostitution contractor pretending to be their lawyer disappeared with two thirds of the cash. He says he’s innocent and is almost certainly headed to El Salvador to defend himself against the charges. He also confirmed that Idaho’s own missionary entrepreneur, Laura Silsby, was not his accomplice in any alleged scheme.

Silsby is probably still in jail, along with one other of her entrepreneurial team, because her mission in Haiti is not yet completed. There is still a luxury ocean front villa and orphanage to be built in the Dominical Republic, which shares the island of Hispanola with Haiti. There are still desperately cute children to be purchased from their destitute parents to fill the villa with laughter and halleluiahs.  There are still great and good families in the United States with their checkbooks ready waiting to adopt them.

And who says this Jorge Puello or Torres, or whatever name he is using now, really recruited young women and girls to walk the streets of El Salvador for fun and money. The government of El Salvador, that’s who. And who says he was smuggling illegal immigrants into the United States from Canada? More governments, that’s who. We all know that governments lie just as we all know that Jesus never lies. Jesus opened the gates of Haiti’s jail and released eight pearly white entrepreneurs after the Haiti government stuffed them there.

Yes, the Idaho Statesman and other media that aren’t Fox News tried to tar Laura Silsby as an opportunistic self-promoter taking advantage of a disaster. Well, was Jesus taking advantage of a disaster when he healed the sick? I don’t think so. And Jesus was an entrepreneur too. He filled his disciples nets with more fish than they could hold, then told them to follow him and fish for men.

Laura Silsby was not only fishing for men, she was fishing for boys and girls too. Her supporters told the Statesman where to get off in the comments section of its Website. It’s reporters were nothing but “God haters attacking Christians,” they wrote. “She is an active good Christian being torn down by arrogant, dirt dealing, twisting truth news reporters, promoting voodoo.” That pretty much says it all.

The only newspaper that reported things as they really are was one called The Onion. It said: "Look, these people live in some of the most remote parts of the country. They're semi-educated at best and prone to superstition. They don't know the language. So we can't expect them to travel to Haiti and fully comprehend the seriousness of their actions."

Wild Zingerella Stirs Passions

 

 

Once they were royalty in every sense of the word. They presided over community events, rode in chauffeured Lincolns and Cadillacs, greeted visiting celebrities and politicians and promoted local produce at fairs throughout the state. True, they didn’t have any royal power, but neither does Queen Elizabeth and no one questions her credentials to carry out the same functions on a higher-class circuit.

The difference is that the Idaho Potato Princess, Miss Boise and all the county Misses are elected by a panel of judges rather than ascending by birth or marriage. To most that makes them illegitimate royalty, although common sense would seem to dictate the opposite.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter because the small town aristocracy of America is on the way out. Feminism, television and the decline of small-town culture have done their work and it is harder and harder to find candidates. Most Idaho counties no longer have pageants and produce  princesses and rodeo queens are serving several terms.

I think this is rather sad. I have nothing but good memories of the pageants in my hometown. Competition in those days was always hot, but one year in particular things nearly boiled over. For me and the other rabble of six graders it marked our first sexual experience. Not a real one, of course, but not exactly a metaphorical one either. It was something in between – an indication of things to come, then beyond our understanding.

This was in the pre-Playboy days, but the Police Gazette and like publications available in barbershops dedicated several pages to pictures of voluptuous women falling out of their clothes. Our interest in these girls was largely anatomical. All of our discussions revolved around the relative size of the features and what they would look like if the dress slipped just a quarter of an inch more. None of us would have admitted it, but we had only the faintest idea of why that mattered.

Yvonne (pronounced Wy-vonnie) Biggs changed all that with her dramatic reading at the Miss Washington County pageant. When the lights went up she was standing on the stage, legs astride, arms akimbo and her hair flying wildly in all directions. She was wearing a leopard print bikini that, while very modest by today’s standards, revealed parts never seen at the Weiser swimming pool.

“What is my name?” she shrieked, eyes blazing. “Wild Zingerella!” she answered flinging her arms in the air, sending her best feature jiggling tantalizingly. “Where was I born? High in the eagle’s nest,” she continued dropping her voice to a growly purr.

Now Yvonne was no Mother Teresa, but she wasn’t exactly a streetwalker either. Just a normal high school girl with intense dramatic ambitions. There was nothing overtly sexy about her performance, but it was for us an experience that completed the connection between those barbershop pictures and previously unfocused inner yearnings with electric effect. We were men.

 

 

 

Fanning Away Miscreants

 

            There is something nostalgic about the cascade of catalogues falling into our mailboxes these days.  It takes me back to the days when Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward catalogues were where kids in small towns and farms did their dream shopping.

Anticipation is by far the best part of the toy experience and nothing stirs dreams like advertising hype.

             Back when I began pouring over catalogues, the kid’s pages were filled with baby dolls that wet and cried “momma” for girls and electric trains and six-guns for boys. Then, in the late 1950s, toy manufacturers discovered realism. Barbie appeared with a real bosom, as breasts were called when it was absolutely necessary to talk about them in polite company. She was followed by something equally risqué for boys – the Fanner 50.

It was the ultimate toy six-gun. Virtually indistinguishable from a real Colt 45, it had the power to turn any snot-nosed fourth grader into Wyatt Earp. Or so the advertisements led us to believe, and I believed every word.

The handle was real imitation white bone. The long barrel, coated with high-gloss plastic chrome, glinted menacingly in the sun.  The Fanner 50 took its name from the elongated hammer that was easy to fan with the heel of your free hand and spray bullets into the entire Clanton gang at the OK Corral. It was the closest thing to an Uzi in the cowboy arsenal. It was fitted into a 100 percent leather quick-draw holster that rode low on the hip for ready access.

I had plenty of uses for such a gun and fantasized about transgressors I would call to account once it was riding on my hip. First to go would be Chuck Jones, the foul-tempered town cobbler who lived across the ally and kept any balls that rolled into his yard.

I planned to wait behind the garage door until Mr. Jones came out to sit on his back step to suck and egg and a beer as he did every night. I would hold back until he got settled, opened his Carling Black Label and pecked a sucking hole in the eggshell with his pocketknife.

I would emerge silhouetted against the setting sun, my right hand casually caressing the bone handle of my Fanner 50 and my left hand poised to fan. “Jones!” I would snap in a clear, authoritative voice, “I want those balls and none of your lip.” He’d laugh because I was just a kid. Then I’d whip out the 50 and with one deft fan shoot the egg out of his hand. “The balls, Jones, and I don’t mean maybe!” I’d say, then casually blow the beer bottle out of his other hand as he stared slack-jawed in terror and disbelief.

Sometimes he still balked and I had to finish him off. Sometimes I would have him crawl under his porch to fetch the balls, whimpering for me to give him another chance, which I would.

I had similar confrontations with Mrs. Daniels who gave me a D in spelling and numerous other miscreants before I actually got a Fanner 50 for Christmas. For some reason, once the ultimate weapon was actually riding on my hip, blowing people away didn’t seem fun anymore. I had dreamed so much that I was sick of the Fanner 50 before I got it. I never used it much.

Golf Shirts Hole Idaho

 

 

             

            Idaho’s legislature has gone the Tea Party Golf Shirts one better. Not only will the state not participate in a federal health care reform plan, it will budget $100,000 to ensure the undeserving poor never get health insurance. Beat that, Rush Limbaugh!

            And, as for you Glenn Beck, Idaho, former home of the American Nazi Party, may no longer have a Human Rights Commission. Its fate has not been decided, but the future is bleak as the hold of a slave ship. Governor Butch Otter wants to roll it into the Department of Labor; many Republican representatives and senators want to sell it down the river. Let’s see you do better, Glenny-boy.

            Okay, so I’m giving the Idaho’s Republicans the same treatment Limbaugh and Beck give the Democrats and President Barack Obama. And it doesn’t work very well. You can’t use negative enforcement and expect positive results; unless, like the Golf Shirts, your objectives are all negative.

They don’t see them as negative, of course. The poor are lazy and unresourceful. Providing them free or reduced priced health care only makes them more so. The rich are keen, resourceful and hardworking and making them pay taxes somehow makes them less so.

 For some reason this does not apply to teachers who do less work the more you pay them, according to Republican Golf Shirts. Taking full advantage of the recession, conservative Idaho legislators want to slash public school budgets and encourage charter schools.

The Republican legislature has already laid the groundwork by taking over operations at public schools. The state collects the property taxes and doles them back to local districts based on enrollment. Originally all revenue from the state sales tax was to go the schools – that’s how it was sold to the public some 40 years ago. Now it is dumped into general revenue and nobody is certain where it goes.

Charter schools have not been doing well in Idaho, which they blame on not enough money. Republican Golf Shirts in the legislature tend to agree, even though charters get the same per student allotment as public schools.  Money is not the issue in the minds of ultra-conservative Republicans. The issue is who gets the money. Should it go to public schools that have to teach every student who shows up or charter schools that skim off the cream?

They have allies in some curious places -- The U.S. Department of Education and the White House, for instance. There is a difference, however.  Democrats see charters as a way to improve schools by involving parents and teachers more directly in day-to-day operations. They give high priority to negotiating contracts with teacher’s unions.

 The Republicans take the opposite, negative view, which, of course, they call positive.

Raj Patel, a leading social economist, faults them both for ignoring schools’ ultimate goal: to incorporate everyone into the American community making them active participants in the day-to-day workings of society. “These days, the function of education is to get labor to be more responsive and productive. The purpose of education is to make money,” he writes in his blog.

 

 

 

No More Swats

            The paddle is long gone from American schools, but not forgotten; at least not in Idaho. Every time the subject of school discipline comes before the public self-styled traditionalists call for its return. Having matriculated at Weiser Junior High School during the age of the paddle, I have the experience to evaluate its effectiveness.

Holly Crosby taught boys physical education and health. He was one of those men who, on entering adolescence, liked it so much he determined to spend the rest of his days there. From the locker room to the fraternity house common room then back to the locker room as coach, life was a bawdy continuum of practical jokes, watching girls and snapping towels.

The symbol of the coach’s authority was a great oversized shoe sole of inch-thick leather. Only members of a select circle of athletes were ever hit with the fearsome looking paddle, however. Coach would say, “Drop your Jocks and grab your socks,” and the chosen one would strut to the front of the room bend over and take his punishment like a man then saunter back with a smirk on his face while the rest guffawed. (The Jockey shorts reference was included only for color and meter.)

To them, taking swats was an important rite of macho passage. As wielder of the paddle, Coach was assured a prominent place in the adolescent inner circle and, out of class, could be seen swaggering through the halls surrounded by quarterbacks, power forwards and starting pitchers. Together they kept order.

Those of us outside the fraternity of the paddle were kept in line through a number of humiliating punishments administered by Coach. His favorite was to draw a small circle on the blackboard just above nose level and then order the miscreant to stand on tiptoe and hold his nose there until told to withdraw.

This was particularly embarrassing for me because I had developed an ample spare tire that would not disappear until a growth spurt in high school suddenly stretched it out. Whenever I was pressed against the dusty blackboard several inches of bare midriff were usually exposed offering an inviting target for Coach’s peashooter or squirt gun.

Needless to say, I would have preferred a swat with the paddle, but, like all exclusive clubs, the fraternity of the paddle automatically excluded anyone who wanted to get in.

Amanda and Willie

Why do Europeans dislike Americans? For the same reason we don’t like them. Because we think they don’t like us.

Unless you are one of the few Americans who pay attention when traveling, this will come as a surprise. Yes, Europeans don’t like us very much and they know we don’t like them. They think we are ignorant, arrogant, and patronizing. In other words, they think about us in much the same way we think about them.

 But how could they? Aren’t we always nice to them even though they can’t speak English? Don’t we always leave big tips, even when they don’t serve hamburgers or steak and baked potatoes in their restaurants? Don’t they call us racists even though they are more racist than reddest redneck in Mississippi? They’re just a bunch of hypocrites.

Europeans would say the same about us and a recent show on ABC television news demonstrates why. When an Italian court convicted Amanda Knox of Seattle and her Italian boyfriend of murdering her English roommate, Diane Sawyer demanded to know if the trial was fair. The story’s lead-in had already said the direct evidence was scanty and went on to say the American had been convicted in the press before the trial began.

Indeed, the stories in the Italian quality press as well as the tabloids were salacious. The 20-year-old Knox was described as a slithering temptress who lured men into her chamber for drugs and kinky sex. It played on all the stereotypes of American women. The innocent English victim was allegedly killed for refusing to partake in the fun and games. This pretty much summed up the evidence submitted in court. Direct evidence consisted of a knife, found in Knox’s boyfriend’s apartment, with just enough blood left on the blade to match the victim’s DNA. Knox’s fingerprints were on the handle.

People are electrocuted in the U.S. on no more evidence than that. Knox and her boyfriend got 26 and 25 years in an Italian prison with comforts and privileges American prisoners can only dream about.

ABC News found an American writer for Vanity Fair named Judy Bachrach, who had lived in Italy for four-and-one-half years. She assured Diane Sawyer that Americans are discriminated against in Italy and to be charged with a crime is as good as being convicted. Italian courts give a nod their constitution’s assurance that the accused is innocent until proven guilty, she said, but ignore it in practice. Bachrach and Sawyer agreed that this rarely if ever happens in the United States.

There are, of course, thousands of men, mostly African-Americans and Hispanics, stuffed into America’s severely overcrowded prisons who would dispute that assumption by two rich white people nestled securely in their penthouse lair.

 As to conviction by the press, Dr. William Kennedy Smith might have something to say about that. About 25 years ago, he was accused of rape by a girl he had picked up in a bar near the Kennedy family estate in Palm Beach, Florida. He was acquitted by a jury, but not by the press.  Both the legitimate and the tabloid press continued to publicize evidence so suspect that it was not permitted at the trial. This ultimately led to a lawsuit against Smith by another woman alleging sexual misconduct that was dismissed by a Chicago court as frivolous and completely without basis.

 

 

 

Why Joe Biden is Not President

 

            Mrs. Redford was right. I will never be president of the United States. Neither, for all I know, will anyone who spent a year studying eighth grade history under her unrelenting gaze. All were at some point either caught cheating or suspected of it.

            Each time a “wandering eye” was caught dallying over a neighbor’s paper or casting secretive glances at a carefully hidden crib sheet during a test, Mrs. Redford would announce to the class that “No cheater will ever be president of the United States.”

A couple of elections ago Vice-President Joe Biden proved her right. The then Delaware senator dropped out of the presidential nomination race when he was accused of cheating in law school. He has since redeemed himself enough to make Vice President, but the top job will probably ever elude him.

This got me wondering what would have happened to Dennis Johnson’s political ambitions if he ever had any. He was one of the few boys never so much as suspected of cheating, even by the ever-vigilant Mrs. Redford. At that time cheating by girls was unknown. They were the ones who supplied the material for us to copy.

But even Dennis was not perfect. His undoing came suddenly and without explanation one sunny spring afternoon. We were bent over our desks writing out from memory, as best we could, Abraham Lincoln’s famous Gettysburg address. The best seats were one row over from and one seat behind either side of Carla Hennings. She was dignified as well as smart and always sat upright offering the casual observer a full view of her round and readable Palmer hand. That may be why Mrs. Redford placed girls in those seats.

I was sitting directly in front of Carla. I had devised a foolproof hiding place for my crib sheet. I had stolen my father’s loafers and placed a carefully printed miniature of the Gettysburg address inside the shoe under my left heel. All I had to do was hunch over my desk in deep concentration while pulling my feet under my seat. This would automatically slide my heel out of the shoe and I would glance casually down to view my crib sheet. If Mrs. Redford approached, I had only to sit back stretching my legs out in front of me and my heel would slide over the evidence.

My plan went wrong from the beginning. I had trouble seeing the bottom of my shoe and the sweat from my foot had blurred the tiny writing on my crib. I had to almost put my face in my lap to read it. I was in this position when I suddenly spied Mrs. Redford’s high-heeled shoes making a beeline for my desk. I jerked my head up banging it against the desktop when she suddenly stopped two seats ahead staring in disbelief at Dennis’s lap.

 “Dennis, I’m surprised at you,” Mrs. Redford announced, icicles hanging from every word. Reaching into his lap, she snatched a piece of plain white paper on which was typed the Gettysburg address. Holding it aloft between index finger and thumb, she led Dennis, beet red, to the cloak closet. It was the only time she failed to give her warning about cheaters and the presidency.

Nobody knows what got into Dennis that day. He wouldn’t talk about it and brushed off my thanks for saving me. He went on to be a very successful engineer, but never went into politics.

 

Meddling Mary Took Back the Night

 

                        Long before women marched through the dark streets of American cities challenging rapists and muggers, Mary Sutton took back the night in tiny Weiser, Idaho, population 4,208.

            She was the wife of Arthur Sutton, district judge, a pillar of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, an insufferable snob and a meddlesome prude. On weekend nights after last movie and at end of dances Mary would set out with her flashlight for an evening walk. She walked from her grand craftsman bungalow on West Main Street north one block to Court Street then east to Kiwanis Park, a favorite “parking place” for teens lucky enough to own cars or borrow those of their parents.

            This was long before the days of two cars in every garage. In fact, many families in Weiser did not own a single car. Nonetheless there were always a few cars parked along the streets surrounding the block-sized park. Mary shined her flashlight into the windows of each parked car. If there was a couple cuddling in the front or back seat, Mary mentally registered the girl’s name. When she returned home she called each of their mothers and reported her sightings.

            I don’t know how many “date rapes” Mary’s unsolicited inquiries prevented, but I strongly suspect it was as many as all the take-back-the-night marches, college tribunals on sexual assault and criminal rape court cases combined.

While mothers in general and society at large did not go to the lengths Mary Sutton did, restrictions abounded on teen couples. Signs of affection during school hours were restricted to holding hands; dances were resolutely chaperoned; in virtually every home visits by members of the opposite sex were permitted only when parents were present. Couples who managed to slip through the net and become pregnant got married, no ifs ands or buts. Why? Because they knew abstinence had to be strictly enforced.

Like everything else it didn’t work especially well. Men like sex and women like sex. They’re supposed to like sex; that’s how they evolved or were created if you prefer. Many continue to ignore this causing great suffering.

In this country they are mostly Republicans who also call themselves Christians. When these Repubtians controlled Congress and the Presidency they sanctimoniously granted $15 billion to fight AIDS in Africa. Virtually every dollar was designated for abstinence education with only a widow’s mite left over for condoms and worthwhile sex education. Meanwhile, Repubtian missionaries headed to already heavily missionaried Africa with their own brand of “Christianity” – sex outside of marriage and, especially gay sex, are a one-way-ticket to hell.

Little wonder then that Uganda’s Parliament is currently considering a bill establishing the death penalty for engaging in gay sex or even talking about it. The Anglican (Episcopal) Archbishop of Uganda has criticized the bill saying punishment should be limited to life in prison. Some US Episcopal parishes, angry their church has consecrated two gay bishops, have placed themselves under his jurisdiction splitting the American church.

What would Jesus say? All we know for certain is that the Bible contains no record of him ever mentioning homosexuality. Adultery, yes, he was against it as a betrayal of trust and said so; as to homosexuality, never a word, even though it was widely practiced among Greek and Roman gentiles whom he welcomed into his church.

 

 

 

 

 

 

some may call itgenocide but