Thursday, June 20, 2019

In Nomine Frances McDormand

Well that's just priceless...huh? What's priceless? Well, if you'd clicked the link you'd see a headline that reads: Thousands petition Netflix to cancel Amazon Prime's Good Omens. It's one of those feel-good stories-wait, feel-good isn't the phrase. It's one of those 'feel-better that these idiots' stories about a super-religious group that's upset about the TV adaptation of Good Omens and how satan-y it is. Or at least that's what the Return to Order Campaign is shouting, red-faced and sweating (I presume).
 I love that the headline states only the objective facts and contains not the
slightest hint of sarcasm but still manages to call these people dumbasses.
Pictured: Neil Gaiman and the cast of
Good Omens, seen here being the
source of all moral decay in America.
Who're they? They're a 'Special Campaign of the American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property.' What? You've never heard of the ASTFP? Yeah, me neither. But that's just because you and I aren't the kind of people that go around judging others based on our own personal morality and-ok, fine, I guess we probably all are the kind of people who do that. But we're not dicks about it. These people are. They're a super-conservative Catholic group who bemoan what they see as the moral decay of America. And fine, they're not wrong on that count. We are pretty morally bankrupt.

But where we differ is in what we see as the cause. For most of us it's things like political divisiveness, bigotry and corporate greed. For them it's...well, here, I'll just give you a partial list from their website because goddamn, they hate a lot of things. In fact, I'm leaving out the part that's all about how they oppose all things LGBTQ+. It's like a third of the list.
They must be fun people.
Buckle up, here goes. The American TFP opposes:

It's about time someone called out Jimmy
Carter (seen here volunteering for Habitat
for Humanity). What a monster. Amiright?
"public blasphemy; nudism, socialist childcare, socialist healthcare; socialist allocation of federal waters; death taxes; sell-managing socialism international communism' President Carter's human rights policy; ...détente with communist regimes; progressivism; liberation theology; ...the retroactive lifting of statues of limitations for civil cases involving sexual abuse; pacifism..."

-Things the American Society for 
the Defense of Tradition, Family 
and Property just can't get behind

I mean, this is bananas, right? Public blasphemy? So it's cool if it's at home? And the socialist allocation of federal waters? What even is that? And nudism? What the what? And they're against lifting the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases? Holy shit, is this...is this about priests? And Pacifism? They oppose pacifism.
"Kill'em all, and let me sort it out."
-Jesus, Chapter Wha?
Verse Nope
I mean Satan. Trump is more of a
Viscount of Lies. That's not to say he
isn't constantly lying, he's just bad at it.
Oh, and the Good Omens TV show. They hate that too. Now in the interests of transparency, I should say that I've not yet seen the show, so I can't speak to exactly to what degree it causes moral degradation and promotes the Prince of Lies' infernal agenda but I do remember liking the book so I guess I'm at least a little damned. Hell, giving Jeff 'Taxes Are For Poor' Bezos money is probably in itself a mortal sin. I don't know, I'll have to check with the Return to Order people. They are, evidently, the authority on such things. And all things.

Hey, if they saw Three Billboards, they
might consider centering their religion around
Frances McDormand. Problem: solved.
Like any good moralizing busybodies with nothing better to do than rail about nonsense instead of whatever Jesus told them to go do, they started a petition. It managed to get about twenty thousand signatures before being withdrawn, presumably because it made the petitioners look bad for confusing Netflix with Amazon, but apparently they felt that Good Omens mocked God, promoted Satanism and perhaps most egregiously, cast Francis McDormand (a woman of all things!) as the voice of God. Can you believe it?

Anyway, back to the dumb idiots petitioning Netflix to cancel an Amazon show. As mentioned previously, they are dumb idiots, but I have sort of a bigger issue with whatever it is they believe in. I'm no Churchy McGee, but it seems to me that you shouldn't feel theologically threatened by a TV show. And if you do, maybe watch something else? Or change religions. Whichever doesn't involve bothering other people with your crisis of faith.
"Ow! My worldview!"
-The American Society 
for the Defense of whatever

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