As usual, Sullivan nails it.

The blog post by Andrew Sullivan that WC points at begins,

The relationship between religion and politics is, to my mind, the central question of our time. As the false totalisms of the twentieth century – communism, fascism, Nazism – have been revealed as oppressive, murderous lies, insecure and inadequate human beings in need of totalist solutions to the human dilemma have returned to religion. But more accurately, they have returned to fundamentalism, because only fundamentalism, with its absolute certainty and literal precision and binding, unquestionable authority, can assuage the anxieties of a world dislocated from tradition, up-ended by capitalism, globalized to the point of cultural panic….

And later,

This ideology comes perilously close to arguing that something must be right because America does it, or has done it. It paradoxically removes the potential for moral improvement and reform by arguing that America was immaculately conceived, and that all that is required for its revival is what Sarah Palin calls a “fundamental restoration”. The core moral narrative of the country – its founding on slavery and its bitter brutal internal conflict to achieve racial justice over the centuries – is simply ignored. This is what we are hearing from Santorum and Romney and Palin: American fundamentalism.

All of this is routine for authoritarian nationalist movements. What distinguishes this one is a co-optation of Christianity. But, of course, Christianity cannot be co-opted by nationalism. It is opposed to all such distinctions:

There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

Yes, the Messiah came from a Chosen People, but in Christianity, Jesus’s death and resurrection made the whole world that chosen people. At the Feast of the Ascension yesterday, we Catholics heard at Mass the words of Jesus from Matthew:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.

And so the notion of America as a unique nation in the eyes of God is a Christian heresy.

But read the rest.

Here, again, is a reminder of what Christianism is.  Also known as Christian dominionism, also known as Christianity as political ideology, rather than religion. In this case, it’s a form of nationalist idolatry, or idolatrous nationalism — the stuff, in any case, that theologian Paul Tillich wrote about in in a passage of Dynamics of Faith whence comes this quote:

In true faith the ultimate concern is a concern about the truly ultimate; while in idolatrous faith faith preliminary, finite realities are elevated to the rank of ultimacy.

Among which idolatrous faiths counts the style of Christian dominionist nationalism practiced & preached by Palin & her ilk.

Related posts:

1. Christianist, defined
2. Illimitable god, & related thoughts about why I’m not a Christian
3. Good, evil, & great waves of god

My own reaction was a combination of glad he can no longer bring harm, but also pensive & mournful about the harm his followers & sympathizers, as well as his detractors & enemies, have already caused & will continue to cause.  That, or something like it, seems to have been a pretty common reaction… a sense of relief or release coupled with sadness, as at the end of a long ordeal. One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers:

You know the odd thing? I’m not feeling … ecstatic. I’m just feeling a kind of sad relief. I recall reading Miep Gies‘ book about her role in hiding the Frank family. When it was declared that there was victory in Europe, she said that people in Holland were hysterical and tearing into the streets to celebrate. But her husband, who’d risked so much working in the resistance movement, just sat quietly. She asked if they should go out and celebrate with everyone. He said no. It seems too much had happened. Too much pain witnessed. Too much death as a result. He was tired. It was enough to just know that it was finally over. I think I know what he meant.

Andrew Sullivan himself:

I pray tonight for the souls of the departed who died that awful day, and all their family members and friends. I pray for the souls of those great Americans who resisted on Flight 93. I pray for all those who have died in the two wars that followed this atrocity. As a Christian, I am also required to pray for the soul of Osama bin Laden. Yes, even him.

Some conservative Christian leaders quoted a biblical caution:

Do not rejoice when your enemies fall, and do not let your heart be glad when they stumble. (Proverbs 24:17)

(Never mind that there are also biblical verses that celebrate the deaths of enemies.)

Quote added 12:05 PM: His Holiness the Dalai Lama today in Los Angeles, per the Los Angeles Times:

As a human being, Bin Laden may have deserved compassion and even forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said in answer to a question about the assassination of the Al Qaeda leader. But, he said, “Forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened. … If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures.”

Here’s my take.

In 1979 I wrote a paper in college in which I quoted an article from a Japanese academic journal from 1970. (In translation — I didn’t know Japanese then, & I don’t know it now.) The article was “Religious Consciousness and the Logic of the Prajnaparamita Sutra” by Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945), an important Japanese philosopher.  I still have my college paper somewhere hereabouts, but damned if I’m going to track it down in the middle of the night. However, I still have the quote handy because I wrote about it on an email discussion list I was part of in 1998.

(Yes: I have email archives that go back that far — as far back, in fact, to 1994.  Besides having an MFA in Creative Writing & a B.A. in Religion, I am also a geek of the email-retentive variety.)

Let’s assume that there is not only Him and man represented in the quote which follows herewith, but also Her and woman:

The absolute God must include absolute negation within Himself. It must be God who can descend into absolute evil. It is a truly absolute God by being God who saves the wicked and the immoral. The highest form must be one which transforms the lowest matter into form. Absolute Agape must reach even to the absolutely evil person. In the relationship of inverse polarity, God must be hidden even within the heart of the absolutely evil man. A God who merely judges is not an absolute God. But this does not mean that God looks indifferently at good and evil….

I don’t have any illusions of being absolute God in my abilities or desires to love, agape-wise, the absolutely evil person.  Yet to the extent that I can recall my own wrongdoings and, by extrapolation, imagine my way into the skin of someone further along the spectrum towards evil than I (presumably!) am — well. I’m not sure how far I can go.  But I can go at least a ways in that direction. Usually I can find there a person who is recognizably human, and recognizably suffering, and  recognize my own humanity and suffering in that person.

Sometimes I can’t imagine that far. Yet I’m certain that illimitable god, the truly absolute God by being God, can.

I have been a universalist (in a nondenominational sense) for a long time, in at least some degree since late junior high when I put behind me the belief that there is only one way to God.  Universalist: someone who believes that all will be reconciled to god: in my case because if, as I believe, god is the universe and everything in it, then no one is completely separable from god.  God is in our breath & our bones, our very substance — body, mind, & spirit.

Nishida Kitarō (1870–1945). Via Wikimedia Commons.

I think that conviction was implicit in my understanding as early as back then, in late junior high; but it was probably my 1979 encounter with Nishida Kitarō which brought it explicitly to my consciousness. (A big thank you to my professor, T. James Kodera at Wellesley College, who put Nishida’s article, & so much else, in my hands.)  I don’t have that article still, but I recall Nishida saying something about how (in the Christian scheme of things) God is seen as absolute good, Satan as absolute evil: but that by virtue of them being absolutes in opposition to one another, that also puts them in relationship with one another.  They are not, in other words, flung off from each other, but are inextricably tied to one another, like the two ends of a ruler, or two ends of a rope in some cosmic tug-of-war.  With God, of course, on the winning side, such that even Satan will ultimately be pulled over to the side of good.

Actually, I can learn much more from Nishida now, because I recently ordered a couple of books by/about him, which are sitting at my bedside as part of that rather large pile of books to be read. And in fact one of these books, Last Writings: Nothingness and the Religious Worldview, appears to incorporate Nishida’s discussion in the article I encountered in 1979.

But I’ll get to that later. Right now its enough to know that in 1979 I found Nishida’s argument persuasive, and I still find it so today.

In the relationship of inverse polarity, God must be hidden even within the heart of the absolutely evil man.

And so it was with a sense of recognition that I read a blog post that a Facebook friend linked to yesterday.  It’s a post by Susan Piver called “Osama bin Laden is dead. One Buddhist’s response.” Here’s the passage that particularly stood out for me:

Was there even a hint of vengefulness or gladness at Osama bin Laden’s death? If so, that is a real problem. Whatever suffering he may have experienced cannot reverse even one moment of the suffering he caused. If you believe his death is a form of compensation, you are deluded.

There has been an outpouring of misdirected jubilation, as if a contest had been won. Nothing has been won. Unlike winning a sporting event, this doesn’t mean that our team has triumphed. Far from it. There is only one team and it is us. When those of us (especially our leaders) who now foment violence choose instead to try to create peace, then we will truly have cause for celebration.

One of us is gone, one apparently horrific, terrible, vicious one of us…is gone. I don’t feel regret for him or about this. I’m regretful for the rest of us who are now left thinking that this is a cause for celebration. It is not.  It is a cause for sorrow at our continued inability to realize that there is no such thing as us and them; that whatever we do to cause harm to one will harm us all. [emphasis added]

There is only one team and it is us. Not just a Buddhist sentiment: I agree with her.  For whatever reason, some twistedness took hold of Osama bin Laden, & in thus he wrought evil upon evil.  All the same, he is — he was — one of us, as much as were all the people who lost their lives or loved ones in consequence of his twistedness.

But while I myself can’t bring myself to celebrate bin Laden’s death, precisely, nor do I regret it.  Nor do I begrudge or judge those who do celebrate it.

A God who merely judges is not an absolute God. But this does not mean that God looks indifferently at good and evil….

That’s all the further I got with the quote when I cited it in an email in 1998.  But what’s Nishida say after the ellipsis? In Nishida’s Last Writings, the same or a similar passage (with some differences — whether because Nishida refined his language, or because it had a different translator, I don’t know) reads:

A God who merely judges the good and the bad is not truly absolute. But this does not mean that God looks indifferently at good and evil. To conceive of God as a supremely indifferent perfection does not square with the testimony of our spirit. [emphasis added]

It’s the testimony of our spirit that leads some of us to raucous celebration of the death of the terrorist who did so much evil — just as many must have celebrated the death of Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot.

As for me, the testimony of my spirit is that doing good — being in right relationship with and taking right action toward myself and others and this grand and infinite universe of which we all are part — is reward and motivation in itself to continue to do good.  I feel at peace & easy in my skin when I do good.  Whereas to do wrong is its own punishment: it makes me feel horrible to hate, & even worse to harm others — to harm is a hell that also harms me: it twists me, it makes me ugly, it makes me a stain on the face of creation & a stink in my own nostrils.

That’s what Osama bin Laden did to himself, however much he may have rationalized that such twistedness was demanded of him by God.  Few of us who suffered from the evil he did will ever be able to forgive him.  If illimitable & absolute god is not merely a judge — yet god does judge.  And so, part & parcel of god, do we.

And sometimes the testimony of our spirit demands that we take ruthless action against those whose evil would continue to spread, if we did not stop them.

In that sense, I am glad that Osama bin Laden is dead.  I find myself untroubled to know it.

Meanwhile, I also agree with what my niece, who’s living in New York City now, wrote on her Facebook wall yesterday:

maybe folks think it’s tacky to be happy about bin Laden’s death, but I think it’s even tackier to criticize the NYC folks’ feelings about it.

Obama 1, Osama 0. Photo by Dan Nguyen taken at Ground Zero in New York City after the announcement of Osama bin Laden's death. Photo used per Creative Commons license.

Related posts:

1. The death of Osama bin Laden, & an Obama appreciation
2. Good, evil, & great waves of god
3. My story of 2009

• Conspiracy theorists: did Alaska’s HAARP research facility cause Haiti quake? (@adndot.com) http://bit.ly/4rdCYA // HAARP caused Palin. #fb #
• U.S. Supreme Court 5-4 sells out democracy to the highest corporate bidders. Democracy on its deathbed. http://bit.ly/7G4Mur #fb #
• RT: @celticdiva RT: @Greytdog: One person one vote. One Corporation – unlimited votes. Democracy in 21st century America. #democracyfail #
• More from @shannynmoore on the Supreme Court approved corporate takeover of American elections http://bit.ly/8VxIRN #fb #
• Andrew Sullivan highlights the Mormon hierarchy’s “plausible deniability” – Prop 8 a front for religious groups. http://bit.ly/8mwoD2 #fb #

Related posts:

1. Alaska Supreme Court won't block Troopergate investigation
2. Toward a 28th Amendment: Corporations are not human persons
3. Government by psychopathy

Christianist is a term I first heard from Atlantic Monthly blogger Andrew Sullivan — a useful term that to me conveys not Christiantity as religion, but rather Christianity as political ideology.  Sullivan, who is gay, Catholic, & conservative — but not a “war of values” social conservative — does not feel any more represented by the religious right than my friend Dianne O’Connell of Immanuel Presbyterian Church does; in an essay written for Time magazine, Sullivan writes, “let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism.”

Hence, a handy term to distinguish the politics of Jerry Prevo & his followers & allies — the ideological contemporaries & descendants of the Moral Majority — from other forms of Christianity found in Alaska, the U.S., & the world.

Related posts:

1. An indictment of the Christian heresy followed by Palin & friends
2. Illimitable god, & related thoughts about why I’m not a Christian
3. The new Carrie Prejean?

As tomorrow approaches, there are some things I wonder, & some things I don’t.

• I don’t wonder if the fundamentalist anti-ordinance forces will bus in a lot of red-shirted adults from the Mat-Su — outside the boundaries of where the ordinance, if passed, will have effect — to advocate for the denial of equal rights protections from people who will be affected by whether the ordinance passes or not.  After all, they’ve already signed up to testify, & have already been told that their testimony will be heard.
• I do wonder if the fundamentalist anti-ordinance forces will also bus in scores of kids in red shirts, as they did last week, to act, again, as walking billboards for the Alaska Family Council and other views that the kids themselves don’t necessarily understand.
• I don’t wonder if I’ll be there.  In blue.
• I do wonder if the the latest beauty queen candidate to join Carrie Prejean in the hearts & minds of conservative antigdaydom will make another appearance in tiara, sash, & bright red shirt.

But I shouldn’t wonder.  Maybe I should just look up the official events on the schedule of the recently crowned Mrs. Alaska United States®, Renee’ Scott.  Nope, nothing for Tuesday the 16th on the calendar.  We’ve learned the Anchorage Assembly will continue taking testimony at a special meeting on Wednesday the 17th, too — but nope, nothing on Mrs. Scott’s calendar for that day, either.

But if you look back a week, at June 9 — last Tuesday — you’ll see this item:

June 9, 2009
Anchorage City Assembly Meeting
Mrs. Alaska and Mrs. Anchorage attended the Anchorage
Assembly Meeting discussing city ordinance measures.  CLICK
HERE to watch the Channel 2 KTUU video footage.

I first heard of Mrs. Alaska United States® last week shortly before I headed over to the Loussac Library for last Tuesday’s Assembly event, when I checked Facebook & found someone had posted a brief item by Julia O’Malley.  Julia, you may remember, had the week before posted a story about meeting Rev. Jerry Prevo of the Anchorage Baptist Temple. In this item, titled  “Mrs. Alaska and gay rights,” Julia wrote:

Just when I thought I’d heard everything when it comes to the city’s equal rights ordinance, I got a press release about Renee’ Scott, aka Mrs. Alaska, the state’s newly-crowned representative in the competitive world of married beauty queens.

As her first act of business, she will be showing up at the Assembly meeting tonight to stand against the mayor’s “effort at instating special rights for homosexuals.” She’ll be wearing red, the color of the ordinance’s opponents, along with her crown and sash.

Really? We have record numbers of homeless people dying in the woods in Anchorage, villages decimated by flooding on the Yukon, sky-high rates of domestic violence and alcoholism, and the Mrs. is getting wound-up about protecting gay people from discrimination? This is priority number one?

Julia went on to quote Mrs. Scott’s press release, which was apparently issued on June 8, the day after the Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant was held at the Anchorage Marriott Downtown:

Newly crowned Mrs. Alaska to stand against proposed Sexual Orientation special rights proposal at Anchorage Assembly meeting.

Just last night, Renee’ Scott of Anchorage was crowned Mrs. Alaska United States 2009 and tomorrow night, June 9th, she will be at the Anchorage Assembly meeting at 6:30 pm at the Loussac Library to stand against Acting Mayor, Matt Claman’s, last second effort at instating special rights for homosexuals.

On Sunday night, June 7th, Renee’ Scott won the title of Mrs. Alaska 2009, and just 2 days later, June 9th at 6:30 pm at the Loussac Library, she will be wearing her newly acquired Mrs. Alaska sash and crown at the Anchorage Assembly meeting standing against Acting Mayor, Matt Claman’s, move to instate special rights for gays, lesbians and transgenders.

A member of Anchorage Baptist Temple, Renee’ Scott plans to wear the color “red” with other opponents of the proposed measure, along with her new Mrs. Alaska sash and crown.

Renee’ Scott plans to use her title as Mrs. Alaska United States to represent traditional marriage and family-focused issues.

I read that & just kind of shook my head.  I’d never heard of the Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant before — I’m not a pageant follower — though like pretty much everyone else I knew that Gov. Sarah Palin was a past runner up in a statewide contest.  And who hasn’t heard about former Miss California USA 2009 Carrie Prejean, who having initially retained her crown in the wake of her anti-same sex marriage comments at the national Miss USA contest, lost it last week (the day after Mrs. Scott donned her red shirt at the Loussac)  on the grounds of “continued breach of contract issues.”  I haven’t cared about the Carrie Prejean controversy any more than I have about beauty pageants in general — sorry, the world of beauty pageantry is not that significant to me.  Besides,  maybe I’m just used to beauty queens making themselves into representatives of the forces opposing equal rights for LGBT people.  Remember Anita Bryant?

So here’s what I learned from the story:

1. there’s a pageant called Mrs. Alaska United States®;
2. a new Mrs. Alaska U.S. had just been crowned;
3. the newly-crowned Mrs. Alaska U.S. was a member of the Anchorage Baptist Temple; &,
4. guess what, she’d be using her official Mrs. Alaska U.S. tiara and sash to stand forth against “special rights” [sic] for LGBT people.  (Translation: she would be standing up for special rights for Anchorage Baptist Temple members & other conservative Christians to discriminate against LGBT people in employment, housing, credit/finance, and public accommodations, & to demand that all other people including those who didn’t want it have that special right too.) — Oh yes, & I also learned from the story that
5. anti-ordinance forces would be wearing red.  I hadn’t known that before.

Mrs. Alaska United States® and Mrs. Anchorage United States outside the Wilda Marston Theatre near the Assembly chambers

Other than passing that info on to another couple of people, I forgot all about it until later in the evening, when I  took advantage of a break from the proceedings inside the Assembly chambers to visit the restroom, & caught a glimpse (duly recorded with my Nikon Coolpix S10 digital camera) of not one but two women in tiaras & sashes standing just outside the Wilda Marson Theatre.  The other woman, I learned later, was Mrs. Anchorage United States ®, Anna Foerster, who had also received her title on June 7, apparently a title which came to her as runner-up in the pageant.  No idea if she’s also an ABT member.

Mrs. Carol Prevo (Rev. Prevo's wife) beside Mrs. Alaska United States®, Renee' Scott. Photo courtesy AK Muckracker

Then back inside the Assembly chambers and, as I described in my account of Tuesday night’s events, I knew little else of what was going on outside until I got home that night and read Phil Munger’s Progressive Alaska post about outside events, & the following day AK Muckraker’s Mudflats account.   AKMuckraker reported:

Miss Alaska and Mrs. Alaska were both there in tiny dresses and tiaras to support those who were opposing the ordinance. I don’t get that excited about beauty pageants, but aren’t these women supposed to be representing the whole state? Why, I thought, were they here in full regalia on such a divisive issue?

(Slight correction: based on other info, I think it was the newly-crowned Mrs. Anchorage U.S., not Miss Alaska, who was accompanying Mrs. Scott.)

Mrs. Alaska United States® prepares to parade children through the protest. Photo courtesy Phil Munger

Phil Munger’s post was principally about on the red-shirted kids that had been bused in by Anchorage and Mat-Su fundamentalist churches; his mention of Mrs. Alaska U.S. was in that context:

The kids, some less than ten, were mostly without parents. They were sort of clumped together, perhaps by congregation, or by home schooling support group. Dozens of adults were taking pictures of the kids, some encouraged by the Christianist adults around the youngsters. I took about 70 photos. Here are a few. The first six are of some of the kids. The last two are of Mrs. Alaska, as she prepared to parade some of the kids through the demonstrators, and then as she paraded them.

(Christianist is a term I first heard from Atlantic Monthly blogger Andrew Sullivan — a useful term that to me conveys not Christiantity as religion, but rather Christianity as political ideology.  Sullivan, who is gay, Catholic, & conservative — but not a “war of values” social conservative — does not feel any more represented by the religious right than my friend Dianne O’Connell of Immanuel Presbyterian Church does; in an essay written for Time magazine, Sullivan writes, “let me suggest that we take back the word Christian while giving the religious right a new adjective: Christianist. Christianity, in this view, is simply a faith. Christianism is an ideology, politics, an ism.” That’s the sense in which Phil used the term.  I use it sometimes too.)

Mrs. Alaska United States parades kids outside the Loussac Library, June 9, 2009. Photo courtesy Phil Munger

But all in all, the exploits of the new Mrs. Alaska United States® were pretty low on my radar, & on the radar of most people I was talking with too. But it did come up in discussion last Thursday on the Facebook wall of a friend of mine.  A few of us started exchanging information.  Being something of a research geek about things that inspire my curiosity — given the right hook, apparently even about beauty pageants — I started doing some extra digging.  Here’s some of what I & other people learned:

• First of all, don’t confuse Mrs. Alaska United States® with Mrs. Alaska America.  They are two different pageants with two different sets of sponsors. This year’s Mrs. Alaska America will be held on July 18 at Bartlett High School; the pageant is affiliated with the national level Mrs. America pageant.  I can’t find any official statement to confirm, but private information has it that the Mrs. Alaska America pageant organizers are less than happy with the confusion created by use in the media & blogs of plain old “Mrs. Alaska” as Mrs. Scott’s pageant title, since the Mrs. Alaska America pageant doesn’t wish to be mistakenly associated with Mrs. Scott’s anti-ordinance, anti-gay political agenda, which they do not apparently share.  Notice how carefully I’ve been using the title Mrs. Alaska United States® or Mrs. Alaska U.S. throughout this post?  This is why.  Don’t forget the little registered trademark mark! ®
• The Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant is affiliated with the national Mrs. United States pageant. Eligibility requirements for competitors: “The Mrs. Alaska pageant requires its competitors to be at least 21 years old, a property owner or resident of Alaska, and married (no specific length of marriage is necessary).   Contestants are judged on 1/4 personal interview, 1/4 swim wear, 1/4 evening gown and 1/4 on-stage question.  Besides the overall title, contestants may compete in various optional competitions.”
• For those who wonder, as I did, if title-holders are supposed to wear official tiaras and sashes while representing political views which may not be the official views of the pageant, I could find only this  statement: “The Pageant Sponsors, Directors, Judges and Pageant Officials Do Not Represent the Personal Opinions, Expressions or Platforms of the Contestants, Reigning Mrs. Anchorage, or Reigning Mrs. Alaska.” My thought: all those capital letters make that Really Hard To Read.  My other thought: don’t you have that backwards?  Don’t you really mean to say that the personal opinions etc. of the contestants & title-winners don’t represent the views of the pageant sponsors & official?  Think about it: would Donald Trump really need to tell us that he doesn’t represent the views of Carrie Prejean?  Just saying.
• Speaking of sponsors, here’s their sponsor page. Apparently the list is not quite complete, since it omits a sponsor mentioned on the events page, to wit: “Escorted by an official pageant sponsor, Harley Davidson of Alaska, Mrs. Alaska United States® 2009, Renee’ Scott and Mrs. Anchorage, Alaska 2009 will be participating in the downtown Anchorage 4th of July parade.”
• The pageant’s director is Laura Dagon, who is founder and director of pageant sponsor Laura’s Modeling & Talent Agency.
  

Now, I don’t plan myself to write to the pageant or any of its sponsors to protest Mrs. Scott’s use of official tiara & sash in her Tuesday anti-ordinance action. I’ve got better things to spend my times writing — like this blog post!  Besides, I don’t personally use the services or products of any of the pageant’s sponsors, not did I even have Clue #1 that this pageant even existed before last Tuesday, so for me to tell them I was going to boycott their services would be something of an empty threat, no?  Besides which, I believe in free speech.  Of course, free speech also means you have the free speech right to write to the pageant & it’s sponsors if you want to, which is part of why I put this info together: so you’ll write to the correct people.  Again, don’t confuse the Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant with the Mrs. Alaska America people.

Besides which — well, read that press release again.  Here, let me post it again:

Newly crowned Mrs. Alaska to stand against proposed Sexual Orientation special rights proposal at Anchorage Assembly meeting.

Just last night, Renee’ Scott of Anchorage was crowned Mrs. Alaska United States 2009 and tomorrow night, June 9th, she will be at the Anchorage Assembly meeting at 6:30 pm at the Loussac Library to stand against Acting Mayor, Matt Claman’s, last second effort at instating special rights for homosexuals.

On Sunday night, June 7th, Renee’ Scott won the title of Mrs. Alaska 2009, and just 2 days later, June 9th at 6:30 pm at the Loussac Library, she will be wearing her newly acquired Mrs. Alaska sash and crown at the Anchorage Assembly meeting standing against Acting Mayor, Matt Claman’s, move to instate special rights for gays, lesbians and transgenders.

A member of Anchorage Baptist Temple, Renee’ Scott plans to wear the color “red” with other opponents of the proposed measure, along with her new Mrs. Alaska sash and crown.

Renee’ Scott plans to use her title as Mrs. Alaska United States to represent traditional marriage and family-focused issues.

Now think of some of the other things we saw last Tuesday night that originated wholly or in part from the Christianist political mind of the Rev. Jerry Prevo.  Anti-ordinance people in red shirts bused in from the Matanuska-Susitna Borough to ask a government other than their own to continue to permit discrimination against its own citizens.  Check.  A hundred or so freshly scrubbed children in red shirts bused in to carry signs mass produced by Alaska Family Council which made the ridiculous assertion that ordinance AO 2009-64 would “outlaw dissent.”  Check.  Do you begin to see a pattern here?

With this very specific press release, with all its repetitions of details — “wearing her newly acquired Mrs. Alaska sash and crown and along with her new Mrs. Alaska sash and crown — well, isn’t it pretty obvious that this was all a cynical ploy by Prevo & company, with Mrs. Scott’s willing participation, to bait us? They wanted us to react.  They were hoping we’d make a big old stink, & then they could complain about what intolerant meanies we were, just like that meanie Perez Hilton & all those other meanie California homosexuals who were just so mean to poor Miss (former) California Carrie Prejean.  Perhaps they hoped to make Mrs. Scott into the next Carrie Prejean, a martyr to the cause of Christianist special rights.

How disappointing for them, then, that mostly we ignored her.  While there’s been some comments here & there, mostly of the “do you believe this?” sort, we have better things to do than worry about a pageant that frankly most of us had never heard of before. Let the pageant owners & sponsors themselves police whatever contractual obligations Ms. Scott has as a representative of the pageant; let the pageant owners and sponsors worry about the cynical use Prevo & company have made of their organization. Frankly, I reckon this was just what Rev. Prevo did instead of putting some beardo-in-a-devil-mask in the Loussac women’s bathroom that night.

Pretty comical, really.  Rev. Prevo, you’re losing your knack.

Or maybe it’s just that more people in Anchorage are on to you now. Enough, even, that you had to bus people from outside the Municipality to shore up your support.

That leaves me just a couple more points to make. First, when we were discussing this on Facebook last week, I initially believed that Mrs. Scott had possibly colluded with Rev. Prevo in manipulating the pageant without the pageant’s knowledge.  It seemed to me that she had possibly mispresented her platform as a contestant.  A couple of weeks before the pageant, answering Kellie Davis of examiner.com, she gave her platform as follows:

My platform is age oppression in young girls. As a mother of a seven year old daughter I have found that the media in every facet is trying to shrink the window of innocence in our young girls. Influencing them to dress provocatively which has even been linked to the decrease of self esteem and increase in suicide rates in teen girls. Promoting birth control instead of abstinence, and marketing “toys” like tattoo Barbie. Parenting isn’t about raising a daughter that has low self esteem that feels like she needs to be 16 when she’s 7. I want to raise a confident, strong, beautiful on the inside and out young woman. I believe if we raise awareness in other mothers about this issue we could change our next generation mothers and create stronger healthier women.

But according to her press release:

Renee’ Scott plans to use her title as Mrs. Alaska United States to represent traditional marriage and family-focused issues.

I have no idea know what she told pageant judges during the pageant itself, but if she told them the same thing about age oppression in young girls as she told Kellie Davis, that too gives the impression that she misrepresented her intentions about how she would wield her crown to the pageant.  But then again, in her June 8 radio interview on KASH Country 107.5, when asked about her agenda as Mrs. Alaska United States, she talked very personably about the age oppression issue, and said nothing about the ordinance or plans to represent “traditional” marriage.  So maybe this was just a one-time deal?

At any rate, turns out that at least some pageant officials approved of her ordinance plan.  I emailed Julia O’Malley to ask if the press release she’d quoted in the ADN came from Mrs. Scott personally, or from pageant.  Her message back was brief and to the point:

The press release came from the Mrs. Alaska USA Pageant, and gave the head of the pageant as the contact person.

Given that her activities last Tuesday night at the Loussac are also included on her official Mrs. Alaska United States® events page, this indicates that opposition to the ordinance, and opposition to equal protections under the law for LGBT Anchorage residents, is an officially sanctioned position of the Mrs. Alaska United States® pageant. (I have no idea if it is also sanctioned by the national Mrs. United States pageant.)

And you know what?  That’s fine. That’s Mrs. Scott’s right, & that’s the pageant’s right.  The pageant is, after all, a private enterprise.   Registered trademark and all.  So as far as I’m concerned, I’ll leave ‘em to it, & let ‘em alone — other than to point out, as I have now, at length, their participation in a fairly obvious tactic by Mrs. Scott’s pastor to bait us.

Point the last. Who does Mrs. Alaska United States ®egistered Trademark represent?  Here’s what she claimed to KTUU Channel 2 News:

As Mrs. Alaska I represent married women and Alaskans and I find it shocking that the Assembly is trying to pass this ordinance without giving Alaskans the right to vote.

Hey, I’m an Alaskan, she doesn’t represent me.  But how about married women?  Why, I know a married woman who also happens to be an Alaskan.  I decided to ask her.  So earlier this evening, I called up my sister-in-law.

“I’ve got a couple of questions for you, Linda,” I said.  “First, did you vote for Mrs. Alaska United States®?”

Turns out Linda, too, had never heard of this pageant, but after a brief moment of confusion, she laughed and said, “No, of course not!”

“Do you feel that Mrs. Alaska United States® represents you?” I asked.

“No,” she repeated, “What are  you talking about?”  After a brief explanation of the pageant and Mrs. Scott’s claim of representation, Linda told me that she figured the only people who had voted for Mrs. Scott were the pageant judges, opined that privately trademarked beauty pageants were not, in point of face, representative democracies, and furthermore said she doubted Mrs. Scott represented any of the married women who are Linda’s friends.

No more representative of them, in fact, than the Christianists are of the rest of the Christians.

Related posts:

1. Debbie Ossiander & the Christianist filibuster
2. The noise begins
3. Assembly report 1