| Part one of three |
| SPINBUSTERS |
| "I Don't Have a Daddy" |
| Today while walking down the supermarket aisle, I saw a woman coming my way, carrying a boy atop her shoulders. He was a bald-headed little chap, perhaps three or four years old, with saucer-eyes that scanned around him as he rode. When he got about ten feet from me, I flashed him my warmest grin. He appeared startled � curious but taken aback � by my gesture. I thought little of it, and moved on. A smile, a kind word, is never wasted on a child. I try to do my best. A few minutes later, as I was perusing a shelf at the pharmacy, there he was again, a few feet to my right, atop his perch, while Mom waited at the prescription counter. A female pharmacist chirped at him: �Wow! You�re really ridin� high! I�ll bet you�re as tall now as your Daddy.� The boy paused a moment, gazed at her, then replied, �I don�t have a Daddy.� I�m telling ya, me droogies, it about broke my heart. The hurt, the distance, the raw absence � the crystal-clear WANT � in that child�s voice just racked me up. I took a long look at them both: the matter-of-fact little dood, and the single-mom carrying him in what � once upon a time in a very different world � was the classic fashion of fathers. Even as my own father oft hoisted me, proud and public. (Well, okay � he cut off the rides after I turned thirty. But, hey, I�m skinny!) A couple of hours before this scene occurred, I�d been reading about the taxpayer-supported, federal grants earmarked for religious and �nonprofit� organizations �to advance the nation�s child support enforcement system,� according to a story on Boston.com. The 2.2 million dollars is an early salvo intended to �promote and emphasize the value of marriage,� as one of the chief elements of King George the Second�s �Faith-Based Initiative.� Stripped of bureaucratese, this means that the Right-winged little prick leading us in our �War on Evildoers� across the globe � and most especially here in the former Land-of-the-Free � has once again trashed the secular principles of the nation, by awarding privileged, entitled status to his favored churches, amidst what should be open competition for social-service federal contracts. Welcome to your New, Improved, Faith-Based Unemployment Office, fellow droogs. Read your Bible today? What�s the content of 1 Thessalonians 2:7? Don�t know? Oh, sorry, brother. God works in mysterious ways. Hey, have a nice day in the dumpster. Thus does the Chief Demon of the Land coerce membership in his false and fallen Temples. Get you gone, Foul Moneychanger! King of Thieves, Betrayer of Men. The Big Poppa in the Sky says "You Lie." But what has His Majesty's most recent foulness to do with our little boy riding atop Momma�s shoulders, calling unto his elders for his father? For his own kind, that is. A father. Any father. Everything. The attempt by Bush and his pseudo-religious cronies � and his co-conspirators across Matriarchal America � to force men into marriage and the pews is a key element of the hypocritical, authoritarian, pussywhipped Right. It�s merely another extension of the Deadbeat-Dad demonizing that both the Left and the Right -- servants to the Gynocracy all � have dumped on American men over the past four decades. And it�s gonna get worse, me droogies. Much, much worse. Wanna see your kid? Wanna stay out of prison? No, problem, boy. Just sign on the nuptial contract line, stand docilely like a cow before the reverend-ettes in our Approved Church, and we�ll grant you access to your kid. Limited access, to be sure. Access that our MommyState and Mom herself can � and will � withdraw at the slightest sign that you�re getting Uppity. Or even secular, God forbid. It�s another kick to the collective nuts of U.S. males -- this time disguised under the thin cover of �religion,� and the Federal Government�s new unenumerated Power to hawk marriage, and to disadvantage any who fail to comply. Now let�s see. What segment of the American population could such a policy possibly be serving? Correct. The same segment served by all the other fucked-up laws, regulations, coercions, and policies instituted during the past four decades: WomanChurch. �Cause let�s face it � like all other American institutions, �religion� has regressed and corroded into Simply Another Scam for Ma�am and her flying money-monkeys. |