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Friday, April 09, 2004
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RELIGIOUS TOLERANCE IS AN IMPORTANT THING FOR THE CHILDREN TO LEARN.
It's always touching when fundamentalist Christians put on a show for the kids to teach about the importance of diversity. And it seems to me that if you're going to put on such a show anywhere, Western Pennsylvania is the place to do it. As it happens the local Assemblies of God decided to put on a show last Saturday so that the children might learn the true meaning of Easter.
I'm sure I don't need to tell any of you that the true meaning of Easter involves repeatedly whipping the Easter Bunny while denying his existence. Which is ironic, because as I remember my bible, that's precisely what the Romans did to Jesus. Jesus is remembered rather fondly as a result.
Children will often tell you that they would prefer not to see the vestiges of their childhood being tortured with bullwhips. This is because children are weak. What better way to toughen them up than to allow them witness The Passion of the Easter Bunny? Patty Bickerton, the youth minister responsible for the show said that the act was meant to be demonstrate "a tone of irreverence." I'm sure that anyone who has watched televangelists (most of whom are Assemblies of God) are familiar with their sense of humor.
Then the children were taught tolerance of other lifestyles as well.
Performers broke eggs meant for an Easter egg hunt and also portrayed a drunken man and a self-mutilating woman, said Jennifer Norelli-Burke, another parent who saw the show in Glassport, a community about 10 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
"It was very disturbing," Norelli-Burke said. "I could not believe what I saw. It wasn't anything I was expecting."
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