THIS is why I hate the Religious Right.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

What follows is a true and accurate depiction of real events, in the order I experienced them, as far as I can remember.


I grew up lump of technically-human tissue attached to the hip of a religious family.  My early childhood was filled with hymns and tri-weekly visits to the nearest fundamentalist Baptist church.  By the time I was 5, I had been baptized and 'born again.'  Fuck if I knew what that was, I only knew that's what was expected of me.

My parents were usually pretty busy with the newest baby or the next pregnancy, or some project at church, or "fellowshipping" (which means go to your room and wait for dinner while the grown-ups talk), so most of my actual human interaction was through my paternal grandmother.  She shared my sense of humor, she took me out to the park and stores, drove me around in my wagon.  The usual kid shit, you know.  She smoked cigarettes, which she was made to feel guilty about by my dad.

She never came to church with us, I didn't know why.

Anyway, by the time I had reached junior high school, I was thoroughly indocrinated.  Fuck the sin, fuck the sinner.  Love god.  Love, of course, means OBEY (not love, which is for fags and hippies).  The mother of all sins is abortion.  Murder.  Death.  Hellfire and brimstone for that shit.  No joking matter.

I was also a normal human kid, albeing restricted and pent-up with guilt and all that other crap that comes with religion, so I start doodling little pictures.  The subject matter gets darker, as I strive for some kind of acknowledgment of my uniqueness (terrible sin, vanity).  One day, I draw this picture.  It's fairly amateurish, just a field with the Grim Reaper standing in the middle of it, looking grim.  On little spikes surrounding Mr. Reaper, sticking out of the ground, are bits and pieces, chunks and globs of torn-apart babies.  Arms, torsos, heads.  At the bottom of this picture, a caption reads "It isn't your body."

I was particularly proud of this picture.  I thought I got the shading just right, some of the effects were great and I was sure I'd outdone myself.  AND, it had what I had been raised to consider a positive message.  My grandma was working at a restaurant down the street a ways, and being her favorite grandchild and she my favorite parental-figure, I knew she would get to see it first.  I trucked down there and pulled it out of my bag and said HEY GRANDMA CHECK THIS OUT!.

She took one look at it and disappeared into the bathroom for 15 minutes.  I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what it could be.

The next day she wasn't at work.  Her boss said she'd called in sick.  I went to her house, and my grandpa said it wasn't a good time for me to be there.  She'd be okay, but she was too ill to have visitors.

Within six months, she was dead.  Drank herself to death with a full gallon of cheap vodka every single day.  Every day, for six months.

I didn't blame myself.  I found out she had had drinking problems in the past.  My dad said he suspected she'd never quite gotten over it.  I was sad, of course.  I'd lost a great friend.  But I went on with life.

That is, until I was snooping around in my dad's stuff one day, and I found a diary he'd used as part of a counseling program he'd been in (apparently, Jesus can raise the dead but he can't do shit for Manic Depressive disorder).  That book gave me a lesson I'll never forget.

It was true.  My grandmother had had a drinking problem, years before I was born.  But those FUCKS never told me that the drinking problem was brought on by her guilt at having an abortion in 1969.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Wow.

My family doesn't believe in closets.  The fact that we have 3 of 4 generations illegitemate (mine excepted, but my oldest kid not), a gay aunt, an abortion or two (pre-legal, mind you), and a pack of boozers, etc, means nothing to most of my family (except for my fatass republican brother, who is properly scandalized, the fuck).

I guess I'm fortunate that way.  But then again, my family was always a pack of doomed sinners.

[Jasper]

That really happened?  It reads like something from a dark comedy.

Yeah, endless contempt for straight religions.

[Cramulus]

That's rough, vex. Too bad about the whole thing. Don't take it personally though - you couldn't have known, especially not at age, what, five?

[hunter s.durden]

Guilt kills.

To strike back, fuck as much as possible.
Tell fundies the lurid details.

Also: Fuck fundies, and tell them you've sent them hell with your "devil stick."

[DJRubberducky]

....

*hug-availability*

It sucks I don't know what else to do/say.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

i know it could be construed as emo, but that isn't how i feel about it. for me, it just pisses me off to no end that there are ideologies on this planet that can take a kid and, unknown to him, twist him into a weapon that can destroy those he is closest to.

[Jenne]

vex, what happened to you is sad indeed.  And your life paralleled a LOT of mine, minus the grandmother who was your friend.  I had that same exact brainwashing experience--down to the 5 year old baptism after accepting Jaysus into my wee blood-pumping organ.

I can't see this as any part your fault but instead all the adults in your life who protected you.  I have one side of my family who does this (my mom's) and one that doesn't (my dad's).  My mom's side is very Bible-belt, but they are the ones with all the dark secrets.  Shows a lot about the Bible-thumpers that they are so straight and "proper" but the REAL shit gets shoved under a rug.  For "shame" reasons, I'll bet, eh?

My great-grandmother was knifed in the belly during WWII while my ggrandfather was fighting the war, and they lynched the man who did it.  A mob went and took him out of the hospital and then drug him to a remote part of the town near the local train tracks and lit him afire.  In front of my then-9 year old grandfather.

This is the sort of shit that, at 15, when you learn about it, it fucks you up.  There was a university paper that later became a fullfledged BOOK about this incident, and yet my grandparents won't discuss it.  Ever.  It needed to be dealt with--still does.  There are innate prejudices RIFE in that family...but none of the "adults" will deal with them head-on.  They'll Jesus and Holy Spirit your ass to their graves, though.

In my case, though, the 500 lb. elephant in the room was dealt with by my greatgrandmother herself, she told me about it about 5 years before she died.  She shares no culpability in this--she didn't kill the man, but her son carried the guilt of being there, even though he was forced to do so, and still does.  And her brotherinlaw was most likely the one who did it.

I'm sorry this happened to you, vex.  It's a shitty, shitty thing.

[Lies]

Hey Vex - Thanks for sharing.

[P3nT4gR4m]

These stories and others like them are the exact reason I made this graphic...



I was lucky, i got fed some half hearted bullshit at school by a protestant minister (protestants don't really believe in the bible or expect you to) When I was about 13 I ended up on a fundie brainwashing summer camp but that was only a week of my life and I was strong minded enough by then not to fall for the bullshit. I took offence, tho, to this attempted invasion of my sanity and have been working my ass off to destroy christianity ever since.

Somewhere along the way I guess the turbaniacs must have pissed me off too because nowadays they reside in the same gas chamber.