A Texas church has come under fire for a Christian-themed — and allegedly unauthorized — rendition of the acclaimed Broadway musical “Hamilton” that appeared to conclude with a sermon by a church pastor comparing being gay to being addicted to alcohol or drugs.
The two-hour performance, which was produced and livestreamed Friday by The Door Christian Fellowship Ministries in McAllen and RGV Productions, included several biblical references not originally included in the Tony Award-winning musical.
The church also decided to add and change text throughout the show. For instance, they added a scene where Hamilton is “saved” right before “It’s Quiet Uptown. At the conclusion of the show, a pastor delivers a sermon that includes anti-LGBTQ messaging.
The pastor states, “Maybe you struggle with alcohol, with drugs, with homosexuality, maybe you struggle with other things in life, your finances, whatever, God can help you tonight. He wants to forgive you for your sins.”
More from The Door McAllen church's illegal Christianized "Hamilton."
The line is supposed to be: "What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you never get to see. I wrote some notes at the beginning of a song someone will sing for me." pic.twitter.com/sTV0fLZjiR
More from The Door McAllen church's Christianized "Hamilton."
The line is *supposed* to be:
I am Hercules Mulligan Up in it, lovin' it, yes I heard ya mother said “Come again?" Lock up ya daughters and horses, of course. It's hard to have intercourse over four sets of corsets. pic.twitter.com/o7uMCoJlMT
The fundamentalist lunatics have the ultimate “get out of jail” card. Their god forgives any abomination, any crime, they commit — as long as they do it in “Jesus’s name.”
Fundamentalist religion (make or model, irrelevant) is the biggest scam in the history of Planet Earth, to date.
Like a pesky legal “Cease and Desist” order is going to stop them from entertaining their congregation, after all this is the new Christofacist Theocracy they’re trying to build.
Afew stories about conservative Christians coming after public libraries:
Voters in Jamestown Township, Michigan chose to defund the library, depriving it of 84% of its 2023 budget. Unless that decision is reversed, the Patmos Library will be forced to shut down sometime next year. The reason the vote failed? Because conservative Christians in the community didn’t like that some of the books featured same-sex couples.
Library Director Amber McLain resigned this spring, telling Bridge she had been harassed online and accused of indoctrinating children. Interim director Matthew Lawrence resigned later.
When the Patmos staff and elected board of directors declined to remove the books from the library’s collection, some upset residents organized an effort to defeat the library’s millage renewal.
One of the people who organized the attack on the library naturally cited her Christian faith:
Amanda Ensing, one of the organizers of the Jamestown Conservatives group, emerged from the library Tuesday wearing an “I voted” sticker. “They are trying to groom our children to believe that it’s OK to have these sinful desires,” Ensing said of library officials. “It’s not a political issue, it’s a Biblical issue.”
The Vinton Public Library in Iowa was forced to close for over a week after its interim director, who’s gay, resigned over the Christian community’s homophobia.
Colton Neely had been hired as the children’s librarian in 2020 and did his job well. But between nasty comments said within earshot, and demands to hide or censor books about LGBTQ people, and objections to a summer reading challenge that “encouraged patrons to read books by people of color and LGBTQ authors,” it was clear the people in this town wanted to make the librarians’ lives miserable. Neely only became the director after his predecessor left town to take over a library in a more welcoming community. Before long, he decided he had to go, too:
“You could tell half the crowd was just like, ‘Ugh, you’re disgusting,’” he said of the June 8 meeting. “That was the board meeting where I was just like, ‘I’ve had it.’”
He penned a resignation letter to the library board on June 27, writing that despite his hard-earned qualifications, he felt reduced to just “the gay man of the library.”
“It hurts and I am disappointed,” he wrote.
One of the board members who created this mess was Jennifer Kreutner who, when accused of promoting only conservative perspectives, responded with, “I represent the entire rural community, but most of them are conservative Christians.” As if that made everything better.
In South Carolina, the Greenville County Schools are forming committees to review any books/materials that are challenged at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. They’re currently looking for people to serve on those boards. Don’t have experience with this sort of thing? IT DOESN’T MATTER. At the high school level, for example, the committees will consist of:
Three parents with children enrolled in Greenville County high schools
Three district high school teachers from different subject areas
One high school media specialist
Two non-employees of the school district
One member of the clergy
What the hell is a clergy member doing on this committee? There’s one at the other levels, too. All of those other members have some kind of connection to the district, and I would hope the “non-employees” have qualifications for assessing instructional materials, but why on earth would they save a seat at the table for someone who has religious training?! (And let’s be honest: They’re only referring to Christians, even if they don’t say that directly.)
They could easily have asked for a psychologist or a social worker or someone who represents a minority group in the community. Nope. They’re going with religious leader, as if a priest should have any say in what children learn in public schools.
All of this is happening while right-wing politicians are banning books left and right if they commit the cardinal sin of exposing children to LGBTQ people/characters or teaching them about our nation’s racist history. Just this week at CPAC, Sen. Rick Scott claimed liberals were a “modern day version of book burners,” all while conservatives work to shut down public libraries and access to materials that may educate students about perspectives they’re not used to hearing.
This entire clip is projection. He is railing against ‘book burners’ and ‘cancel culture’ when he comes from a state where the GOP governor is banning books and firing attorneys who don’t fall into line. https://t.co/c1pZ0wizop
What none of these conservatives admit is that a public library is a place where quality books of all kinds should be available to all people. Furthermore, libraries offer so much more than books. They also offer meeting spaces, internet access, video games, audiobooks, reference materials, etc. They’re one of the only places you can go to these days to browse things you don’t already own with no pressure to spend any money. But the bigots will point to anything as a way to imply these places are liberal sanctuaries that must be stopped, whether it’s literature that shows LGBTQ characters in a positive light, Drag Queen Story Hours (which are not sexual), or the celebration of “banned books.”
There’s a dark joke about how it’s a good thing libraries have been around for centuries because there’s no way in hell Republicans would allow them to be created today. But the flip side of that is that conservative Christians are now painting libraries as enemies of children all because they dare to offer people access to information that others may want to keep from them.
If pastors don’t take a lead in shutting this shit down by calling out their own church members’ participation in these mobs, more libraries (and librarians) will suffer, which will have ripple effects throughout their communities. The same principle applies to public schools, which conservatives are also trying to decimate. They’ve always underpaid teachers, but they’re now micromanaging what they’re allowed to say (and not say) to students and funneling taxpayer dollars to private sectarian schools.
The public institutions that have formed the bedrock of our nation are under attack by Christian nationalists and their allies. They want to keep everyone else in the dark like they do in their churches, and conservative politicians and judges are eager to help them achieve their goal.
We shouldn’t be surprised, though. The people least likely to find value in an infinite supply of books are the people who believe only one book matters.
INTERVIEW: Brian interviews Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, who responds to Republicans voting against veteran healthcare, debunks Republican lies about the new Inflation Reduction Act raising taxes, and reveals whether it’s difficult for him to get booked on Fox News.
Republican lawmakers on Sunday successfully stripped a $35 price cap on the cost of insulin for many patients from the ambitious legislative package Democrats are moving through Congress this weekend, invoking arcane Senate rules to jettison the measure.
The insulin cap is a long-running ambition of Democrats, who want it to apply to patients on Medicare and private insurance.
Republicans left the portion that applies to Medicare patients untouched but stripped the insulin cap for other patients. Bipartisan talks on a broader insulin pricing bill faltered earlier this year.
Republicans singled out the insulin price cap—a vital, life-saving measure for which there is no rational objection—and blocked its inclusion in the bill, expressly to “deny Democrats a victory” at a cost of American lives. The ultimate expression of politics over all else.
Hundreds of die-hard right-wing activists descended on the Hilton Anatole in Dallas for the Conservative Political Action Conference this week. It’s the third CPAC event this year alone, following prior events in Orlando, Florida and Budapest, Hungary. It’s also the third CPAC event in a row which featured explicitly Christian nationalist and fascistic speakers.
Before the speeches kicked off on Thursday, Christian musician Natasha Owens—who wore an American flag dress branded with the logo of a Christian mobile phone company—gave a brief concert.
“You know, President Trump coined the term ‘America First,’” she said. When she attempted to launch into the eponymously named song, the wrong music began playing instead. Incidentally, the term America First was initially popularized by pro-Nazi groups in the United States and was also used by the Ku Klux Klan.
Though only two of the speakers on Thursday were Texas politicians, the introductory session—”Texas: The Start of the Big Red Wave”—placed the state at the center of the American conservative movement.
“There are two big red engines to our politics and economy,” said Matt Schlapp, chairman of CPAC. “As many of you know we had CPAC Florida, and it’s right to be here in Texas.”
“IF YOU WANT TO PITCH IN AND HELP OUT, YOU CAN BUY YOUR OWN BORDER BUS.”—GREG ABBOTT
Governor Greg Abbott was the first guest brought to the stage, where he spoke in front of a more than half-empty room about the border, Elon Musk, California liberals, critical race theory, the ongoing program to bus undocumented immigrants to Washington, D.C., and why he thinks Republicans will win big with Hispanics and Latinos in Texas.
“If you want to pitch in and help out, you can buy your own border bus,” Abbott said to the crowd. “You can help fund sending all these folks to Washington, D.C. and make them deal with the problem.”
Out of all of Abbott’s statements, this one seemed to garner the most excitement from the crowd.
A major theme among speakers at the conference—aside from the officially stated one, “Fire Pelosi: Save America”—was Christian identity and nationalism. In addition to leading the crowd in prayer, Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick took a page right out of the John Birch Society playbook by proclaiming that the Constitution was literally written by God.
“We’re a nation founded upon not the words of our founders, but the words of God because he wrote the Constitution,” Patrick said to the crowd. “We were a Christian state and lost that for many years.”
So much for James Madison. But if Patrick is correct, one has to grapple with the difficult questions of whether God also wrote the Articles of Confederation or perhaps signed off on the deeply racist Three-Fifths Compromise, as well as how this all squares with the notion that God doesn’t make mistakes.
“WE’RE A NATION FOUNDED UPON NOT THE WORDS OF OUR FOUNDERS, BUT THE WORDS OF GOD BECAUSE HE WROTE THE CONSTITUTION.”—DAN PATRICK
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán—who recently gave a speech criticizing “race mixing” which caused a long-time advisor to resign and describe it as a “pure Nazi diatribe”—spoke severely about the ostensible Judeo-Christian roots of his nation and urged Christian nationalists across the world to unite together in a struggle against the so-called “woke globalists.”
Orbán’s language dovetailed with the John Birch Society-tinged talking points around “globalists” and Christian government that have become so common in contemporary politics, and the crowd was so excited by what he had to say that Orbán had to pause for uproarious applause on several occasions. One young man from Oklahoma told me that Orbán was the only speaker he was excited to see, and an elderly couple said they particularly enjoyed Orbán’s speech.
“Globalists go to hell, I have come to Texas,” Orbán bellowed as he concluded his speech.
But not everyone was thrilled with the Hungarian’s presence in Dallas. In the atrium of the hotel, two groups of protesters expressed their displeasure. One group covertly hung a banner and dropped flyers condemning the conference before dashing away. Another group, which included a legendary civil rights activist who worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr., Reverend Peter Johnson, held banners specifically condemning Orbán’s presence before being escorted out by Dallas Police.
“Dr. King told me that as long as I’m alive, I ought to stand up against bigotry, antisemitism, and racism,” Johnson told the Texas Observer. “So I’m standing up.”
Johnson was joined by Mary Ann Thompson-Frenk, a socialite from Dallas, who also spoke out against Orbán. “It’s very important for people to know that Orbán stands for Holocaust denial, antisemitism, racial purity, and is against interracial marriage,” Thompson-Frenk said. “I don’t think a lot of Republican people actually agree with that, but they need to speak out and let their leaders know they don’t endorse that.”
Former Republican Congressman Alan Steelman issued a statement in response to Orbán’s presence as well. “Is this what the party of Lincoln, Eisenhower, Reagan and Bush has come to?” Steelman wrote. “Orbán’s record and spoken word during his 12 years in office are clearly those of a white supremacist, an antisemite, and anti-immigrant leader.”
A sense of subtle antisemitism pervaded a number of comments made by speakers, Orbán included. Orbán claimed that all the worst things in history were orchestrated by people who hate Christianity and juxtaposed these comments by describing George Soros—a Hungarian-Jewish investor and philanthropist who is a common boogeyman among the far right—as his “opponent.”
“Papa John” Schnatter told the crowd there are “five evil entities” that own the processed food and pharmaceuticals industries (suggesting the former make you sick so you take the latter) as well as media and academia. But he was not talking about the recently released conspiracy-theory themed Mike Myers show, The Pentaverate. He claimed this all somehow ties back to the Frankfurt School, a group of primarily Jewish left-wing intellectuals and academics founded during the Weimar Republic in the lead-up to Nazi Germany that has become the villain of the far-right “Cultural Marxism” conspiracy theory, which itself is a rehashing of the Nazi propaganda term “Cultural Bolshevism.”
RAMBO-TRUMP CUTOUTS, BEDAZZLED PURSES IN THE SHAPE OF .45 PISTOLS, AND EVEN A MOCK JAIL CELL COULD BE SEEN ON THE EXHIBITION FLOOR.
Friday and Saturday will feature other guests and speakers that have their own histories of antisemitism, including Jack Posobiec, a fascistic media figure who the Southern Poverty Law Center reports has “collaborated with white nationalists, antigovernment extremists, members of the Proud Boys, and neo-Nazis in his capacity as an operative.”
The speakers are only one part of the CPAC experience. Rambo-Trump cutouts, bedazzled purses in the shape of .45 pistols, and even a mock jail cell could be seen on the exhibition floor. Nearby, our federally indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton—who recently teamed up with other Republican attorneys general to sue the federal government for the right to take lunch money from LGBTQ+ kids—mingled with an AM radio host. Toward the end of the day, Posobiec spoke in front of the Patriot Mobile booth with Leigh Wambsganss, a woman who has played a major role in the PACs that have helped elect far right school board candidates across Texas.
This is all to say that the mask of this movement has slipped, if not fallen off completely. It has revealed its illiberal, anti-democratic, deeply prejudicial tendencies, even if it comes across as completely absurd. The entire scene, a veritable circus of far-right fascistic kitsch, brings to mind what legendary journalist Hunter S. Thompson wrote about Las Vegas: “The Circus-Circus is what the whole hep world would be doing Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. This is the sixth Reich.”
An exaggeration, certainly, but an apt one. But don’t just take it from me. Norm Ornstein, an emeritus scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, described the event as the “Neo-Nazi movement in America.”
This is from a bonus episode of Weekly Skews we do for our Patreon supporters. We covered all the crazy election news from this week (some of which was actually good!). If you’re into that (we do a couple a month), or just like Skews and wanna support the show, go to http://www.Patreon.com/TraeCrowder
Republican lawmakers on Sunday successfully stripped a $35 price cap on the cost of insulin for many patients from the ambitious legislative package Democrats are moving through Congress this weekend, invoking arcane Senate rules to jettison the measure.
The insulin cap is a long-running ambition of Democrats, who want it to apply to patients on Medicare and private insurance.
Republicans left the portion that applies to Medicare patients untouched but stripped the insulin cap for other patients. Bipartisan talks on a broader insulin pricing bill faltered earlier this year.
Republicans singled out the insulin price cap—a vital, life-saving measure for which there is no rational objection—and blocked its inclusion in the bill, expressly to “deny Democrats a victory” at a cost of American lives. The ultimate expression of politics over all else.
There will be little reason for Dem voters to vote for Dems if the message of who did this to them is never mentioned on any campaign trail. And as we’re all painfully aware, Dems do not message or frame anything of value when they’re on the campaign trail.
Scottie's Playtime 