There are lots of stupid and disgusting things on the Internet. This is one of the worst ever.

I think it's interesting, though not the least bit unexpected, that it's a big story in Canada but no place to be found in our mainstream press. I doubt you'll see it on Fox "News" either.

So just 3 or 4 weeks ago we had the Republican senator from Nevada, John Ensign, getting caught with his family values pants down. And this week we have the Republican governor of South Carolina, who not only disappeared and lied about where he was, on his earlier trip to Argentina for the ongoing tryst, he violated U.S. government policy by meeting with the head honcho of Argentina.

So, all within the same time period, two fundamentalist Christian Republicans self-destructed.

But, as you would expect from the party that has brought hypocrisy to lofty heights never before attained even by Richard Nixon, they're working on forgiving these two lying cheats. That's right--in the case of the Nevada senator, the Republican lawmakers applauded when he confessed his sins and said he was sorry. And in South Carolina, lots of the fundamentalists are already talking about forgiveness there.

With Christian fundamentalists, and today's Neocon Republicans, it's not what you do that matters, only what you say. You can even commit murder, then become a "born again" Christian and guess what--you will go to heaven, not hell. Cool. What an out. The very first fundamentalist must have been a lawyer.

These people disgust me. Not because they sometimes think with their balls instead of their brains--hell, they're men. Men want sex. Men need sex. They do what they can to get it. Most men, however, are not lying cheats, having affairs while telling their wives they are on hiking trips. ("Brokeback Mountain," anyone?)

No, they disgust me because of their hypocrisy. If a senator or congressman has an affair, I could not care less...provided he doesn't make his mark bashing others who do the same thing, blathering about god and country and faith and family, and bashing gays and hookers and the French. If you're a Republican and you voted for Clinton's impeachment for getting lewinskied while you're doing the same thing yourself, then you deserve the same fate. If you kiss up to the right wing lunatics in the Republican party by promoting hatred of gays, when you hang out in airport men's rooms looking for a quickie, then you too deserve what you get.

It's not the sex--it's the hypocrisy. If a normal person cheats and gets caught, well that's a problem between the cheater and spouse and I don't care if I ever hear about it. In fact, it shouldn't be anybody's business outside the guy's own family. It shouldn't even be news because it's just trash news anyway. But if the guy is one of those disgusting holier-than-thou "family values" bastards, then he should be hung out to dry. Any Republican who says these creeps should be forgiven, that it's not a big deal, that people make mistakes, blahblahblah--they have zero credibility. Remember how they acted about Sarah Palin's teenage daughter's unwed pregnancy? "Oh, well, teenagers, you know, they make mistakes, I"m sure she'll be a fine mother...blahblahblah..."

Can you imagine their feigned limbaughesque outrage had a Democrat's teenage daughter got pregnant?

When will Americans get sick of all this hypocrisy? Probably never, not as long as we've got Fox "News" and not as long as almost 1/3 of them think they're hearing news when they listen to talk radio or watch the talking heads on TV. I'm not kidding--almost 1/3 of Americans say they think those venues are news. That statistic is in a new documentary called "Broadcast Blues." More about that later.

Here's an interesting article that appeared in the Kansas City Star this morning. It's about a support group for people who have come out of the closet.

Not the same closet gays come out of, but one that can be equally destructive to a person's health and well being. Well, not equally destructive because people rarely get beat up or killed for saying they don't believe in the Christian God. Except in the case of the Christian terrorists who have killed doctors and bombed health care clinics.

What I find interesting about this support group is that there is a need for a support group. Only in America, right? Or in a fundamentalist Islamic country. The article said that 16% of Americans say they are not believers in a controlling supernatural force. That's a big increase. However, that's low when compared to European countries. I don't have any statistics at hand but have read in the recent past that even with the stronger influence of the Catholic Church in Europe, fewer people there are believers than here.

Declaring yourself to be a non-Christian can be difficult in the U.S. It can affect your job, and you will get obscene, anonymous phone calls, and depending on where you live, you may experience vandalism on your property. Most younger people who live in more progressive, urban areas of the U.S. probably are not aware of the strength of religious fundamentalism throughout the Bible Belt areas of the country. At the extreme, it can lead to terrorism and murder; on a milder level to social ostracism.

I think there is a human need to belong, and that's why organizations like this support group are in existence. There's even a humanist organization that has Sunday morning meetings in places that seem close to churches but without the dogma or beliefs. It's as if many non-believers are trying to say: Hey, we're just like you, we want a sense of community and we want to do good works...but we can't believe in things that seem weird to us.

There's one religious writer in KC, Vern Barnett, who writes a regular column for the newspaper about religious diversity. He founded the Interfaith Council, which urges respect for all beliefs. Barnett actually wrote a column treating non-belief with the same respect he gives to any set of beliefs. I haven't talked to him in awhile, but I think it's a safe bet he probably got lots of hate mail from the fundamentalists.

What is unfortunate about many brands of Christianity in the U.S. is the evangelical zeal they have. They want everybody to believe as they do. I'm not sure but I'm guessing they justify that by tracing it back to Jesus' time spent wandering around teaching his philosophy and his instructions to his followers to do the same--ie., spread the Word.

However, Buddha lived a longer life than Jesus supposedly lived, and he and his followers wandered around doing the same thing. And today you don't find Buddhists telling you you're going to hell if you don't believe what they believe. They're there and will be happy to tell you what they believe if you want to know. But they don't persecute you if you don't join them. It's a lot easier for me to respect a Buddhist than a fundamentalist Christian. I should add a disclaimer here: I'm talking about fundamentalist Christians, not normal people who try to follow the teachings of Jesus and have respect for all Americans, regardless of race, creed or color. Religion has enabled many people to do good works, but in the wrong hands it has enabled many people to do horrid, evil things. Our society would be better served with more skeptics of all faiths.