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For free and unrestricted use with attribution.
It’s Open Season
on Christians Again
Bigotry is Bad! (Unless of Course, The Target is
Christians.)
By Rabbi Daniel Lapin
Toward Tradition, Seattle
One time girlfriend of
quirky California
governor Jerry Brown in the 70s, singer Linda Ronstadt has been busy
lately. She dedicated her song Desperado to Michael Moore and his
bogus-mentary, Fahrenheit 911,
she got herself tossed out of the Aladdin casino in Las Vegas,
and she gave an interview to a newspaper.
Although I doubt this was her intention, she has actually taught us
three lessons: One, she and many of
her fellow entertainers do have a religion—I’d call it
“secular fundamentalism.”
Two, it’s open season on Christians, the last unprotected
minority in America. Her third lesson, well, I’ll tell
you that in a minute.
When loud protests
greeted her sycophantic tribute to Moore
and his anti-Bush movie she got thrown out of the Aladdin. The casino management ejected her, not
because they are all Republicans but because they are all businessmen. Given current political demographics, it is
likely that at least half of any randomly chosen audience is conservative and
business professionals dislike their hired entertainers insulting half of
their customers.
How could someone who
has been entertaining professionally for thirty-five years not know that
people come to a Las
Vegas show to be entertained
not to be politically polarized? The
answer is that of course she knows this but she is serving a higher cause
than her career. She has found
religion, the religion of Secular Fundamentalism.
Any seriously committed
Jew or Christian would put faith before career. Like countless Orthodox Jews over the
centuries, I would unhesitatingly jeopardize my career in order to stand up
for my faith. My many Christian
friends would do no less. So why
should anyone be surprised when Linda Ronstadt also puts her faith ahead of
her career?
Just as both Judaism
and Christianity each puts a face on evil, so does Secular
Fundamentalism. At this stage in America’s
second civil war, the face belongs to George W. Bush. Linda Ronstadt, as one of the priestly
class of entertainers, feels the call to denounce the face of evil, and that
call of her faith is more important to her than her career.
Her soul told her to
say, “The Bush administration is awful, and so lying and so deceitful.
And they're doing so much harm. They're making it more dangerous for us. They
have to be stopped, I think. We have to throw the neocons out," (Note to Linda: President Bush is not a
neocon.)
Then, in a remarkably
candid interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, the entertainer said: “It’s a real conflict for me
when I go to a concert and find out somebody in the audience is a Republican
or fundamental Christian. It can cloud my enjoyment.”
What do you suppose
might be the reaction if an entertainer would say, “It’s a real
conflict for me when I find out someone in the audience is Jewish. It can
cloud my enjoyment”? Or what if
some politician had once announced, “It’s a real conflict for me
when I find out that someone in the audience is homosexual. It can cloud my enjoyment”? Of course almost no entertainers or
politicians would ever say anything as bigoted.
But singer Linda
Ronstadt did. The point is, however,
that she didn’t insult protected minorities like Jews, homosexuals,
Moslems, or blacks. She insulted what
she calls “fundamental” Christians. (Note to Linda: the term, if you must use
it at all, is Fundamentalist.) To
quote a line from the lyrics of your song Desperado,
Linda, “Lighten up while you still can, don't even try to
understand.”
The media and the
do-good-kiddy-clubs all explode in paroxysms of righteousness any time a
public figure inadvertently insults one of the protected minority groups but
nobody ever demands an apology when a secular celebrity demeans
Christianity. That is because many
Americans view Christianity as a problem, an execrable obstacle to America’s
progress. The rest of us, including
many serious Jews, view Christianity as part of the solution to America’s
problems. We think
“progress” is the problem and what we need is a return to
traditional morality. That is largely
what today’s civil war is all about and Ronstadt has shown us on which
side she fights.
Oh, and I did say that
I’d tell you the third lesson we can learn from Linda’s
antics. It is that she herself has
learned little since those far-off days when she consorted with Governor
Moonbeam. She backed losers then and she
is backing the losing side now. To
quote another line from that song she sang before being banned from the
Aladdin Hotel, “We may lose and we may win though we will never be here
again.”
Radio talk show host,
Rabbi Daniel Lapin, is president of Toward Tradition—the American
Alliance of Jews and Christians—a Seattle-based, bridge-building
organization providing a voice for all Americans who defend the
Judeo-Christian values vital for our nation’s survival.
For
more information or to schedule an interview, please contact: Rachael Whaley
(206) 236-3046
www.towardtradition.org
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