OK, NOW YOU’VE DONE IT…

Now you’ve gone and made me mad.

And embarrassed me. And made me ashamed of my home state…

I could overlook the simple provincialism of trying to legislate against the way teenage boys wear their pants.  I could understand that no one has the backbone to stand up against animal cruelty, (because hey, Billy Bob may need to leave the huntin’ dawg tied up outside for three days running…). I could even understand the pinheaded, petty, Babbitt-minded, thuggish vindictiveness of legislating against that Environmental Law Clinic at Tulane. (Don’t you guys realize how simple-minded and brutish that makes Louisiana sound when they report it on NPR? Do you care?)

But now the House of Representative’s of the Great State of Louisiana has voted 74-18 for a bill by Rep. Henry Burns of Haughton that would allow guns in houses of worship as a way of protecting said worshipers from attack.

Oh God. I mean “oh, God… please forgive them… they’re idiots. In Your image, perhaps, but seemingly drawn with only a 16-box of crayons – missing the Blue and Burnt Sienna and maybe a few other colors. 

When I tell my friends in Washington about Louisiana’s House of Representative’s voting to allow guns in church, they all say the same thing: THAT IS WRONG ON SO MANY LEVELS! So I want to take some time to pull apart some of those levels and try to point out what seems so wrong about guns in church to many in the rest of America.

Let’s start with the “security” level. I understand that this legislation has been pitched as a “security” issue. But security against what? How paranoid, how insecure, how frightened, how scared witless do you have to be to feel that you need armed people – ready for a shoot-out – in your sanctuary?  Well, apparently there ARE people who feel this scared, this terrified, this horribly vulnerable. Listen to Durell Tuberville of the Shreveport Community Church -- "Our babies in the nursery are subject to attack while the mother is in the sanctuary worshiping. We want to protect our people, our sheep."

Is this true? Is Shreveport just like Ciudad Juarez, with bad-ass gangs toting Uzis and “Little Friends” about to storm First Baptist to try to wipe out rival gangs or ransom their precious children? That’s what it sounds like to the rest of America when you say things like that, Durell… They can’t imagine ANY SCENARIO where gunfire would be required during prayer services.  Here in Washington it is beyond our comprehension that the babies in your nursery are subject to attack. Is that really true? How bad is it in Shreveport… my hometown? Should I move my Mom up here to DC? What attacks was Rep. Burns thinking of? Did he ever say? We here in the civilized world have never heard of such a regularity of attacks as to cause us to ruin our houses of prayer…

And while we’re on the “security” level, if the bad guys did attack the nursery, or the deranged person did shoot the minister, wouldn’t all of those types of attack – sudden, unprovoked, maniacal – happen before they could be stopped? So what kind of security are we talking about from armed parishioners – killing maniacs after the fact? Isn’t that what the police and/or our courts are for?

Next let’s consider the morality level of guns in church. And by morality I’ll go with the dictionary meaning: “principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.” My friends up North see this as so wrong because to introduce guns, and people who believe in carrying guns into a church setting, is to mix… well… gunpowder with Jesus. Doesn’t it seem apparent that these two don’t go together? It appears Rep. Burns and all who voted for him got that question wrong on the Abstract Concepts section of their I.Q. test.

Indeed, Rep. Ernest Wooton, a Republican from Belle Chasse clearly got that part wrong. He forthrightly states: “I want to see in the Bible where it says you can’t bring a gun to church.” Now let’s give good Mr. Wooton the benefit of the doubt and assume that he is not merely being facile, glib, disingenuous or stiff-necked. And let’s grant him that the Bible is the ultimate moral authority in these matters – a point that I and many, many others – Christian or otherwise – would not be willing to grant under ordinary circumstances. But doesn’t the fact that guns didn’t exist when the Bible was written make this statement stupid in the extreme? Doesn’t it make his point superfluous and dissembling? Is he a moral moron? Doesn’t his quote qualify as civil and political bad behavior? How come no one down there calls him out on this stuff? And come to think of it, my understanding of The Sermon on the Mount pretty much DOES say don’t bring a gun into church – isn’t there something about “resist not evil” and “turn the other cheek”?

And what about the political level regarding this legislation? How did this bill pass the House? Did small town churches lobby for this? Did big city synagogues demand their members with guns (?) be able to shoot up the Temple? Why did this bill pass?  Was anyone paid to lobby for it? Isn’t this activist Big Government interfering in our lives – they think that’s a bad thing down there, right? Doesn’t anyone see state-sanctioned vigilante-ism IN CHURCH as a bad thing? It sure looks bad from up here. And why did 74 Representatives vote for it? Were they afraid of “the gun lobby” -- but not their Lord? Were they afraid of attack ads come election time? So they are willing to allow shooting melees in their constituent’s churches rather than stand up for safety over “security,” stand up for common sense, stand up for sacredness, stand up for sanctity? Cowards. I’ll say it again. Cowards… Pathetic Cowards…

And finally, (and believe me, I’m trying to hit the rant brakes…) let’s look at the religious level of guns in houses of worship. Granting that out of the tens of thousands of places of worship there have been a handful of violent incidents over the years. Is that slim, earthly, venal fact really a reason to soil the Holy? Because that ultimately is what makes guns in Holy places so hurtful, so egregious, so wrong. Holiness. Sacredness. Sanctity. Transcendence. The Ineffable. The Divine. God. These things are harmed by violence, by the threat of violence, by the presence of weapons. Isn’t that evident? In my heart, I do not believe there is anyone in Louisiana who would argue that guns in a place of worship makes that place more Holy, more Divine. And that is the measure of a house of worship – Holiness. Guns are such an inherent, palpable contradiction to Holiness and spirituality that it just seems mindbogglingly impossible to rationalize their presence in a House of the Lord.

Can anyone explain to me what I’m missing?