Tolerance, Wing Nut Style.

Nothing really new about the punchline to this joke, but it's disturbingly humorous how wing nuts define tolerance, per se, or just twist the idea to include the most heinous of folk. Who are usually wing nuts. Here's an example of that, where Bobby Jindal excuses that bigot anti Mormon preacher who's a pal of Rick Perry. The quote line:

JINDAL: I don't think it's for any of us to judge somebody else's religious views, their relationship with God. The Bible is very clear, that's up to God, not up to us. I have some experience with this. Last time I ran for office, the Democratic Party in Louisiana attacked me for my faith.

GREGORY: Why not call on Perry to denounce this very strongly?

JINDAL: It did give me a chance to explain my Christian beliefs to Louisiana voters. It's not for any of us to judge somebody's faith, relationship to God. I think that would be inappropriate. The Bible is very clear. That's not our role.

Go Here for that.

Let's deconstruct. Jindal basically dodges the issue. In the lead up to this, Tim Pawlenty expressed the idea that,"it’s disappointing that Governor Perry and others who didn’t denounce Pastor Jeffress and those comments more directly, we have a country where we don’t have prohibitions on a particular church attendance for public office. In fact, it’s prohibited in the U.S. Constitution." And Jindal just punted. His punt gives cover to not only one unapologetic christianist bigot. But one who is merely a good representative of the sentiments suspected by if not embraced by a vast number of christianists. Who tend to vote GOP. So Ya. Either (as the writer there suggests) it's a huge example of butt kissing the bigots in the Wing Nuttysphere. Or a huge example of cowardice. Or a huge example of Jindal's own not exactly constitutionally rooted values where freedom of religion is concerned. Cause if you are defending the religious bigots, you are on the wrong side. According to Jefferson at least.

But there's another level of twistedness here. I will quickly deconstruct the bigotry. And as someone raised Catholic but now is a super agnostic, I find it itself disturbingly humorous that someone from one the renegade protestant sub groups is pointing the finger at anyone else saying they are really not christians. That irony seems to lost on these people. Cause they are pathologically incapable of believing they are wrong about anything, even if the earlier main versions of Christianity were practiced for over a thousand years before Jan Hus laid out the basics, and then that plagiarist Luther manged to get the "heresy" published and disseminated.

Ironically in of itself, Jindal's a Catholic, who's institution gave up it's own gross bigotry, who is now basically defending that kind of gross bigotry.

But in the end this is less about religion and religious bigotry than it is about the twisted soul of the republican party. Ya can't offend the bigots and expect an easy time of winning the nomination.

Oh. Last shot. And I am working up to a slam on Jindal. Take another look at the inconsistent argument he makes there. He argues that he was judged by these christians, so he knows what that is all about, so he says it's wrong to judge people by their religions, while he is DEFENDING these peoples' being able to judge people by their religions. Jindal is a fool.