[CONTENT NOTE: mass shootings, domestic terrorism, description of a rape, domestic violence. No violent images.]

A longtime Loyal Reader™ sent us an image of a recent New York Daily News cover, which we found quite interesting.

The New York Daily News, in case you are blissfully unacquainted, is a New York metro-area tabloid that could perhaps best be described as the unholy offspring of the city’s two other daily rags, the New York Times and Rupert Murdoch’s bird cage liner The New York Post. Its editorial slant is yawningly predictable and pro-status quo; its coverage of the pope’s recent visit, for example, fawning. In a word: conservative. That is why it is extraordinary to see this headline in giant screaming letters: “GOD ISN’T FIXING THIS.” The “this” refers to the recent shoot-’em-up that left 14 dead in San Bernadino.

I don’t know about you, but I read that as a scathing rebuke of some god or other (it’s not entirely clear to me which one). To add insult to injury, the cover features tweets from four prominent Republicans posturing about prayer—their single, inept and reflexive response to mass shootings—and highlights the fact that these very “cowards” are among the only few people on Earth in a position to actually do something about US gun violence. Then, as a final insult to Zeus (or whoever), prayers to the deity in question are openly derided by the Daily News as “meaningless platitudes.”

BOOM.

This is fantastic news, obviously: I think it’s only fair to conclude that the editors at the Daily News have been reading my blog and have (finally!) come to understand the importance of god mockery, if I do say so myself. :D

Anyway, speaking of terrible people and terrible gods who do absolutely nothing about mass shootings, it should come as no shock that the recent terrorist shooter at a Planned Parenthood in Colorado—who I will not name here because seriously, who cares?—is a conservative Christian, a violent, abusive, controlling, misogynist, a rapist, stalker and wife batterer, with a looooong history of right-wing weaselry. Apparently it’s all good though, because his god totally forgives him for anything and everything he does, no matter how senseless or evil. As one of his three ex-wives said in court papers, “He says that as long as he believes he will be saved, he can do whatever he pleases.” Seems this Christ god, then, is a bit... problematic. I mean, this is the kind of thing he is only too happy to forgive:

Planned Parenthood shooter d00d made advances to a mall employee who repeatedly rebuffed him—quite justifiably, as it turns out:

[He] reportedly began to harass the woman on and off the clock. He followed her to her home and on Nov. 29, 1992, he reportedly ambushed her as she attempted to take out the trash.

“The suspect then allegedly put a knife to the victim’s neck and forced her back inside her residence,” said a police report about the incident. “The suspect then allegedly forced the victim down into the couch, struck her in the mouth with his fist, and then sexually assaulted her.”

The assault continued with [the conservative Christian] dragging the woman into a bedroom and continuing to rape her there.

His second wife, to whom he was married at the time of the rape, described the Christ-forgiven violent rapist in divorce filings as “controlling, abusive and serially unfaithful.” She said he “routinely gambled away the family’s money [but] was ever reluctant to provide for his wife and children financially.”

Hot-tempered and unstable, he “erupts into fury in a matter of seconds,” said [the evangelical Christian’s] second wife Barbara Mescher to attorneys. In her time with [the devout follower of Jesus], she testified, she continually “lived in fear and dread of his emotional and physical abuse.”

Also:

“[The godly white male shooter] has a history of arrests in South Carolina out of Colleton and Beaufort counties, records show,” said the Post and Courier‘s Glenn Smith and Melissa Boughton. “A background search completed by The Post and Courier found that [the Christian conservative mass murderer] was arrested in 2003 on a cruelty to animals charge but was found not guilty in 2004. He was charged under the state’s Peeping Tom law in 2002 but that charge, too, was later dismissed, according to a background search.”

A different ex-wife “called police in 1997 after a beating from [the forgiven Christ follower], but like the Charleston rape victim, she ultimately declined to press charges.”

Hey, if the god of the bible forgives him, why should anyone bother to prosecute amirite?

Now okay, I admit it, here is where I get a little…confused. A timely report on a survey issued by a Christian organization reveals that the followers of Jesus Christ have the most abortions:

This makes a lot of sense of course, when you consider that half of all fertilized eggs “spontaneously” abort, making the Christian god by far the most prolific abortionist of all time. Obviously Jesus looooves abortions, so those who worship him and aspire to be Christ-like themselves should be having a whole lot more of them! And even if he’s changed his mind about this, why would he need the likes of this violent misogynist d00d shooting at police and executing strangers on his behalf, just to get his message across? And in any event, surely he could forgive people for having abortions too? Wow, theology sure is hard!

But if you take nothing else away from this little rant, take this: forgiveness is overrated. And so, incidentally, are gods.

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I would be remiss if I did not extend a warm welcome to all of my new Loyal Readers™ at the New York Daily News editorial board! Watch and learn, editors! Watch and learn.

[a version of this post appeared at perry street palace.]