Praying Against People With Alzheimer's (Part of the "Christ Weary" Series):
As we get all geared up for the great and mighty Senate debate on stem cell research, over the Arlen Specter-sponsored "Stem Cell Research Enhancement Act of 2005(ish)," a bill already passed by the just-for-a-second sane House of Representatives, a bill that President Bush has vowed through Karl Rove to use his firstest everest veto on, it's always good to think about what God might want. And the Rude Pundit's got a line on that, because, as he's said before, the Rude Pundit's a member, under a nom de rude, of the Family Research Council's Super Duper Prayer Team.

Every week, we members of the Super Duper Prayer Team receive our prayin' orders in our e-mail inboxes, and we are some goddamned prayin' sons of bitches. This past week, glory hallelujah, praise his name in the highest, motherfuckers, our prayers were answered. Who'd of thunk that we'd be implored to "Praise God for good news from New York and Georgia" on gay marriage? Georgia, sure, but New York? Oh, shit, big Motherfucker in the sky moves Hisself in some mysterious motherfuckin' ways. Still, that battle ain't over by a long shot. Says Tony "Watch Me On Fox, Everybody" Perkins, "Wholesale abandonment of Biblical marriage, even by church denominations, is evidence of a dying culture." Now, the Rude Pundit's not sure if the "dying culture" is Christian rock "music" or Thomas Kinkade "paintings," but Perkins not only wants us to keep a-prayin', but to enlist others to the squeezy-handed cause: "Please help us enlist more 'prayer warriors.' We have several thousand praying men and women on the 'prayer team,' but want to see 'the team' grow. God's keys to national healing are our humility, prayer and repentance." Yeah, bitches, be all proud and show off your humility.

Of course, our attention is drawn to Arlen Specter's stem cell research bill, where Perkins asks, nay, yells, "May God intervene to stop passage of Specter's anti-life bill!" Now, it seems like God took his best shot at Arlen Specter, but apparently Satan wanted him alive. Also, we should be focusing our prayer energy on Little Ricky Santorum and Sam "My Last Name Isn't Code For Anal Sex" Brownback's bill on "fetus farming," which, strangely, doesn't involve tilling the earth and jacking off on eggs before covering them with soil. The Rude Pundit's tried it. It doesn't work. And there's no federal subsidy available for it. Instead, the bill just says that you can't make a fetus for the purpose of taking its lungs away later. (That'd be the job of the cigarette manufacturers - where's the rimshot when you need it?)

Perkins always gives the Super Duper Prayer Team Bible passages to guide us in our prayers. In this case, he goes with the obvious commandment quote, "Thou shalt not kill," and then a section of Psalm 18 - verses 25-28, which is some kind of blah, blah, blah bullshit about God smiling at smiling people and frowning at mean meanies. The real money shit is later in the Psalm, starting in verse 36 when David says to God, "Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip. I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed. I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet...Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me. They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the LORD, but he answered them not. Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets."

Aw, shit, yeah, that's where we should be directed to pray. That's a motherfuckin' bill-stoppin' intervention. Do us the Israelite on sinnin' asses. 'Cause if there's one thing the goodly, godly religious right has taught us is that it's okay to for some to die in order to save others, like sacrifices in a war. Of course, that kind of logic is exactly what's being used to try to stop stem cell research. But that'd require rational thought. And who has time for that when there's all this prayin' to get done.