Jesus Bans "Christian" Group

Blogger's Note: Friday levity not leviticus.
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Jesus Bans "Christian" Group Shocking announcement sends militant Focus on the Family organization into crazed tailspin -
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, December 9, 2005

In an astonishing but not completely unexpected announcement, Jesus H. Christ, vice president and CFO of All That Is Inc., appeared today on a large tortilla at a roadside taco stand in Zacatecas, Mexico, to announce that, effective immediately, the pseudo-Christian group Focus on the Family, led by Dr. James Dobson and best known for its blazing hatred of gays and its fear of glimpsing the human female nipple during nationally televised sporting events, is effectively banned from His Divine Beneficence.

"What happened was, the heavens and all spirits of goodness, along with Buddha and Shiva and Allah and Kali and a few others, well, we were having some margaritas and playing poker and tossing around recent headlines, when Allah chimed in that this Focus on the Family group -- a real scab on my big toe for years, I gotta tell you -- well, they just decided to yank all their accounts from a bank over the bank's support of gay rights," said Jesus, dressed in black Diesel jeans, Hugo Boss motorcycle boots and a snug tank top featuring a large OM symbol across the chest.

"J-Dog," as he is known to his friends, was referring, of course, to the recent story about how the militant, Colorado-based "Christian" group has just pulled all its accounts from Wells Fargo Bank after learning that the bank had donated a small sum of money to gay rights causes, including GLAAD, a sum totaling about $50,000, or about one-tenth of what Wells Fargo gave to the GOP last year.

The Christ, apparently, had had enough.

"This is what I realized: Rampant homophobia, ignorance of sex, derision of women's rights, a decided love of tepid dogmatic sameness at the expense of the luminosity and uniqueness of the individual human soul -- it was all just too much," Jesus said, this time appearing as a curiously shaped oil stain on a freeway underpass in Saragossa, Spain. "Then the bank thing happened and it was the straw that broke the Mary's back."

It was, apparently, the right response. "Totally in the moment," said Buddha, nodding vigorously in agreement. "It's about time," Vishnu sighed, painting his nails beet red and lighting some Nag Champa incense. "It's decisive and it sends a message," agreed Kali, counting her poker winnings. "You guys have any hummus?" Allah muttered, rifling through Christ's well-stocked fridge and not really paying attention.

"A slight ban is definitely in order," Christ continued, calmly, now appearing in a pile of instant mashed potatoes in a truck stop in Bowling Green, Ky., where his visage appeared to be weeping, but which Jesus said was merely caused by all the onions he'd been chopping to make his famed "Holy Christ!" hot salsa for the Seraphim Christmas office party.

"Nothing serious, just maybe three, four thousand years wherein these Focus on the Family nutballs and especially this hateful Dobson fellow shall receive only sporadic blessings and deferred prayer responses and will have to go all the way to the back of the line, behind Dick Cheney and Tim LaHaye and Mel Gibson, to await salvation."

"Hell, I still love them all. Even Dobson," the One added, flashing his trademark dazzling, compassionate grin. "I just don't like them very much."

When the news reached Focus on the Family's Colorado Springs headquarters, stunned members were seen running into walls and bashing their foreheads with large Bibles and ramming their Toyota Corollas and Ford pickups into each other and muttering incoherent lines from "Passion of the Christ" and popping Prozac like M&M's.

"Where are the Ken dolls! Someone get to the dungeon and make sure my Ken doll collection is safe!" screamed James Dobson himself, emerging from a secret room in a fuchsia leotard and launching into a bizarre rant no one could quite understand. Reporters seeking comment could only look at each other in stunned silence, wishing they could be in a bar somewhere.

In related news, the Tupelo, Miss.-based American Family Association, another right-wing, anti-gay Christian group that allegedly pressured Ford Motor Co. into yanking much of its advertising from upscale gay publications, has, apparently, accidentally banned itself.

"Someone who is no longer in the organization had the bright idea that we should ban any American company or group that supported the outright ignorance of Christ's true message," sighed AFA chairman Donald Wildmon, chugging from a large bottle of Red Bull and stroking the hairless cat in his lap and making a strange hissing noise with his tongue. "Hell, it sounded great at the 'Harry Potter' book-burning rally. But then again, most everyone was buzzed on spiked Kool-Aid and Kumbaya pie."

"Turns out, when all votes were counted, the group that most needed banning, besides the Catholic church and Dobson's clan, was us. Apparently, we have no real clue as to what Christ truly stood for. Who knew?"

Effective immediately, the AFA's ban on itself means its members will no longer be able support or endorse anything it says or does, until further notice from itself.

"It makes shopping, like, totally impossible," said Beth-Ann Binderbottom, mother of nine and AFA member for the past 17 years and devout watcher of "Touched by an Angel" and committed scourer of all live radio and TV programming for any trace of female nipples, curse words or Jessica Simpson's butt.

"Due to the ban on myself, I now I have to buy the exact opposite of everything I would normally buy," she lamented. "What the gosh-golly heck am I supposed to do with all these green vegetables, Tom Robbins books, bottles of wine and hot porn DVDs?"

Christ, who will be in negotiations with the lords of the underworld next week about what can be done about Jerry Falwell, summarized it this way: "Hell, at the root of it, we're all pagans," JC said with a wink, from a lovely pattern of bark on an old-growth sycamore in a heavily wooded forest somewhere in Bavaria.

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Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which includes a tiny photo of Mark probably insufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts.

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URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/12/09/notes120905.DTL