Sodom and Gomorrah Bunk

Much as Pat Robertson and Billy Graham tried to pin 9/11 on gay people and assorted other "sinners", a Philadelphia-based fundie org called Repent America declared that New Orleans is in deep sh** (literally) because it has hosted the gay Southern Decadence festival for 33 years. Why God would get his shorts in a knot on the 34th year, they didn't explain. Repent America also pointed some fingers at Mardi Gras.

Now call me stupid, but is it more likely that:

A. New Orleans was flooded because it was in the path of a hurricane, had inadequate levees, and is located below sea level? Or...

B. New Orleans was flooded because guys in hot pants blow kisses at passersby once a year?

From Repent America: "New Orleans is also known for its Mardi Gras parties where thousands of drunken men revel in the streets to exchange plastic jewelry for drunken women to expose their breasts."

So....breasts helped cause massive flooding in New Orleans? Wow. Didn't know they could do that.

But seriously, New Orleans is (was?) one of the baddest cities in the U.S., no argument. Anyplace that condones, much less encourages, freedom of sexual expression is a modern Sodom and Gomorrah, right?

Wrong. I've read the Old Testament, and trust me: these cities were much worse than party places. We're not talking co-eds flashing their boobies or guys in buttless chaps here! We're talking roving bands of rapists! As soon as fresh meat arrived in town, mobs would knock the door down to get at 'em. Men, women, kids - they didn't care (the mobs were not just gay, as fundies would have you believe).

Do you know any cities like that?

I didn't think so.

That's why these tired Sodom and Gomorrah arguments annoy me. They are so shallow. Come on, if God destroyed corrupt cities, wouldn't D.C. have been blasted off the map already? Would Vegas still be standing? How about Bangkok? Or that island where the Bounty mutineers lived and where everybody has sex with their kids? Or Salt Lake City, founded on religious fraud?

When disasters like Katrina hit, it's time to pull together and help in any way possible, not time to say, "Well they certainly had that coming!". It could be your city next.