Governor Chooses NFL over Liberty

Yeah, She Did It……Football Trumps Liberty in Arizona

Mandeville, LA – Exclusive Transcript – “Apparently it’s okay to be bigoted and discriminate if you’re an NFL fan, provided that you discriminate against devout Catholics, devout Lutherans, devout Eastern Orthodox, any of the Christian religions that have not mailed it in and decided that they are wiser and are going to usurp the word and will of God and of our Father as passed down to us in the form of canon and in the form of sacraments, and, as I say, sacramental marriage.  Anybody else have a problem with that?”  Check out today’s transcript for the rest…

Begin Mike Church Show Transcript

Mike:  So I have this story from the D.C. Examiner.  I actually read this while I was sitting in a little restaurant at the Charlotte International Airport, Charlotte Douglas as they call it today, a major hub for U.S. Air, “NFL could pull Super Bowl if Arizona religious rights bill passes.”  Oh, really?  And how is that?  Why would the NFL do such a thing?  Why is the NFL wading into the internecine politics of the State of Arizona?  I might even ask the question, for you people that are Arizonans, I seem to recall that when Arizona was awarded that franchise, lured it away from St. Louis — remember, it used to be the St. Louis Cardinals.  Arizona had to lure the cardinals away from St. Louis, or whoever the owner was wanted to leave St. Louis and found a willing home, whatever the case is.

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In any event, I seem to recall that when the new stadium was going to be built in Arizona, that it required the acquiescence and the support of the taxpayers of Arizona.  Am I right or am I wrong?  I believe I am correct.

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I don’t have the exact number in front of me.  Again, I was traveling yesterday, but I bet young Eric could find it in a matter of a minute or so.  I know that vainglorious stadium was built using, as most of them are, public funds, or public funds that guarantee private funds that are to be sort of paid back.  The same taxpayers that got on their knees and bowed down to the altar of Pete Rozelle and Roger Goodell and offered hundreds of millions of dollars of their hard-earned money to put a stadium up in the middle of nowhere so that this team called the Cardinals could play there are now being told: If you guys happen to practice some sort of religious aversion to homosexual marriage, we’re yanking the Super Bowl.  You’re not going to get it.  Even though we promised it you can have it, you’re not going to get it.  Really?

The thing that really ought to roil you is that Greg Aiello, the NFL spokes mouthpiece says, “Our policies emphasize tolerance and inclusiveness and prohibit discrimination based on age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or any other improper standard.”  As part of a religious practice, if my religion tells me — and it’s one of the largest religions on the planet — that homosexual marriage is an aberration, according to our church and our canon it is a sin, it is not sacramental and it’s not going to be sacramental, and if I adhere to that, NFL, Greg Aiello, you’re then going to proclaim me a bigot below the dignity of the NFL and you’re going to yank the Super Bowl that you guys promised to bring over here?  Really?

Apparently it’s okay to be bigoted and discriminate if you’re an NFL fan, provided that you discriminate against devout Catholics, devout Lutherans, devout Eastern Orthodox, any of the Christian religions that have not mailed it in and decided that they are wiser and are going to usurp the word and will of God and of our Father as passed down to us in the form of canon and in the form of sacraments, and, as I say, sacramental marriage.  Anybody else have a problem with that?  I’ve been toying with the idea here of what a lot of people call the “no fun league” and this, that and the other.  The same league that has no problem with men running around at 25, 30 miles an hour, launching themselves and hurling themselves like missiles into one another with thousands of them losing the capacity to even think at a higher level than other mammal life forms because of the damage done to their brains, now trying to buy their way out of that one.

Now they’re trying to placate their — what this is, folks, this is a sop to those television networks that carry those games.  That’s what this is.  That’s all that this is.  This is the NFL saying to their media buddies: We know where our bread is buttered.  We know where seven of the ten billion dollars in revenue per year comes from.  We are not going to allow these bigot, hick hayseeds in Arizona, we are not going to allow them to get away with this.  If they even try to get away with it, then we’re going to yank the Super Bowl, or threaten to yank the Super Bowl out from under them.  IN order to get a Super Bowl now, you have to play by the political or adhere to the political wishes and beliefs of whoever it is that is running the National Football League.

How many of you can say the words “last straw”?  You know how we talk about, from time to time, about two or three times a day actually, about how government has become the new God?  Government is our God.  Well, it’s not our God.  If you’re listening to me right now, I doubt it’s your God, but it’s many people’s God.  It has all the accoutrements and all the trappings of God.  It has temples.  It has canon.  It has scripture.  It has ministers.  It has defenders.  It has the faithful, tens upon tens, maybe hundreds of millions of faithful.  It asks you to pray to it.  It asks you to believe in it.  It asks you to have faith in it.  It asks you to place your trust and your care that it’s going to care for you and going to spare you from foodborne illnesses and all the other vicissitudes of life.  The only thing it can’t do is grant you eternal life, according to those that promote it, and according to those that live by it, and according to those that want the rest of us to live by it, live under it, pray to it and bow to it.  It’s just like a religion.  At every aspect of its existence, it is a religion.  It’s a cult, which means it has a religious aspect to it.  It’s becoming more religious.

In the same manner, and using the same terminology or the same elements to describe the NFL, you could say that the NFL as well is a religion.  Its ceremonies of worship are actually performed on Sundays.  Its ceremonies of college worship are actually – I know I’m distinguishing now between NFL and its farm league, the NCAA.  Its ceremonies of worship at the college level or at the farm league level are actually performed on the Sabbath day, on Saturday, for the most part.  I know, we throw some in in the middle of the college season on Thursday nights and on Friday nights and what have you.  It has the same temple-like structures that Mordor has.  It has its own set of code, its own rules, its own scripture.  It has its own [mocking] “And we now read from the first gospel according to St. O.J., season three, game number four.  And the Simpson sayeth to you, and the Simpson sayeth to Joe DeLamielleure, ye shall go to the right while the left tackle shall pull to the right.  The right guard shall perform the trap, and the Simpson shall shoot up the middle for an NFL record 272 yards in one game.  Thus sayeth the NFL.”  It has all the trappings, all the elements, just as government does to be a religion.

Now, if the story that I have from the Examiner is true, it’s even acting as though it’s a religion, and it’s a superior one.  It’s not just any tinhorn dictator, not just any fly-by-night “we want to be a religion” religion.  Oh, no, we’ve got tens and tens of millions.  We had 110 million of the faithful of our congregation watch our yearly Christmas.  The yearly NFL Christmas is what?  The Super Bowl with, as usually is the case, a horrific display of our anti-cult called the halftime show.  And yes, 108 million people around the world watched this display.

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The Arizona Super Bowl Host committee released a statement saying it disagreed with the bill and its impact on Arizona’s economy.

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Mike:  So now Arizona is going Super Bowl?  Sticking to our guns and our religious faith and our commandments and the things we have been instructed to do in order to get to heaven?  Super Bowl or faith?  Super Bowl or faith?  You know, Governor Brewer, we hope you choose Super Bowl because we really don’t give a crap about our souls.  Our souls really are basically tied to, as Washington Irving called it, the almighty dollar and to jobs here in Arizona, and especially to the Cardinals winning a Super Bowl.  So we really don’t care one way or the other whether the legislature protects our religious freedom, even if that means we’re actually going to get into the process of locking up ministers and lay ministers and other people that refuse to perform these ceremonies or refuse to perform and engage in these business activities with those whose behavior they do not condone.

By the bye, what is the next level of miscreant behavior that — I only say miscreant inasmuch as if you are an opponent of homosexual marriages, and if you are an opponent of it because you are a defender of sacramental marriage and use of the term marriage in the term sacramental marriage, that would then make you at least somewhat of the opinion that some of the behavior that goes into the non-sacramental, polyamorous, bigamist, homosexual marriage – what’s coming next here?  What did Masha Gessen tell us?  What’s coming next is there won’t be any, and if there are, we can define them as we go along.  I suspect incestuous marriage is right around the corner and all the rest of them.  Of course, they won’t actually be marriages.  As the little Lebowski would say, “Are we gonna split hairs here, dude?”

Now the governor of Arizona is on the hook.  Governor Jan Brewer has the pressure of all of media-dumb.  She has all the pressure of media-dumb bearing down on her.  [mocking] “Don’t you dare go bigot, Jannie, baby.  You need to stand up for what’s right.”

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Well, if the representatives of the people of Arizona, meeting in assembly, in their capital decided that they wished to protect their religious freedom, passed the bill in both houses by enough, substantial majorities, and wish for the governor to execute it, what is the governor to do?  Does it violate the Arizona Constitution?  Not the way I read it.  As a matter of fact, it might actually go a long way towards defending the Arizona Constitution.  So if the NFL and all the rest of them, if they don’t want Governor Brewer to sign the bill, then you ought to see if you can get the legislature of Arizona to pass a bill repealing their religious tolerance act.  That’s what you ought to do.  Why don’t you say what you really mean, you cowards?

But folks, what’s going on here doesn’t even have anything to do with homosexuality.  This has to do with the almighty dollar.  Is Arizona going to choose their own constitution, their own sovereignty, and their right to govern themselves, or are they going to choose media money?  That’s it.  That’s what’s in play here.  Throw the issue out the window, pretend it’s not there, and follow the money.

End Mike Church Show Transcript