I promise I will once again blog about my creative efforts and cocktails and the labyrinth soon, but there’s just so much crazy out there clamoring for our attention.

Today’s crazy is a quote from a Baptist preacher in Nashville:

“We have to do something quickly, because there’s a cliff ahead of us, a civilization, and it’s within sight,” said Lydon Allen, a pastor at the Woodmont Bible Church in Nashville.
(Read more at http://wonkette.com/598063/god-turns-his-back-on-gay-hatin-tennessee-lawmakers#XHSlVK4E41COLxer.99)

This pitiful bleat is in reference to the Tennessee legislature’s failure to pass a bill nullifying the Supreme Court decision on marriage equality.  (I know, right?)

It’s not actually coherent, but we’re going to give the poor man the benefit of the doubt because his meaning is plain: we have limited time to repent of our Somdomite¹ ways before we… Well, the country will… Um…

Okay, his meaning isn’t clear either.

Here’s what I don’t get about these apocalyptic warnings: they don’t actually mean anything.  None of it rises above Revelation-of-John style “beasts with nine heads” or “scarlet woman” ravings.  Sure, it’s scary, but what precisely are they telling us is going to happen if we don’t straighten up (!) and fly right (!!)?

There’s a cliff ahead of us?  Right ahead of us?  What does that mean in practical terms?  If we were talking about investing in new infrastructure projects, we could argue back and forth with numbers and data and historical precedent and facts so we could arrive at a decision on whether or not we need to keep the bridges from falling down.  But a “cliff”?  How are we supposed to make rational decisions about that?

The answer is, of course, that we’re not, at least not for these poor people who keep making these prophecies.  It’s all lizard-brain fear, all of it, and that’s enough for them and their followers.

But just once, I’d like someone to ask Rev. Allen, “What do you mean?  What, exactly, is going to happen if we don’t go back to stomping on gay people?  Names, Travis, I need names.”

I want a list of specific events, with a timeline, and then check in—very, very publicly—on the timeline to see if any of the terrible things have come to pass.  None of them will have come to pass, of course, not that it will matter to the End Times crowd, but I want these people marginalized and ridiculed back into their caves where we don’t have to pretend they mean anything to our society.

Thank you for listening.

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¹ [sic]²

² cf.