The militant, Christian fundamentalists at the so-called "Parents Television Council" (PTC) are in a tizzy. This time, they are upset that a federal court has struck down an unconstitutional California law banning the sale of violent video games to children. From the PTC's press release:

LOS ANGELES (February 23, 2009) – In response to the Ninth Circuit Federal Court ruling that struck down a California law designed to prevent the sale of adult video games to minors, the Parents Television Council™ has called on its members to voice their support for CA State Sen. Leland Yee’s call for the decision to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Sen. Yee was the author of the legislation, which passed the California State legislature in 2005. This law was later shot down due to the video game industry’s lawyers. CA Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger appealed, and the Ninth Circuit Court issued its ruling, saying that the law violates the rights of minors under the Constitution’s First and 14th amendments.

“Let’s be clear on what – exactly – is going on here: The video game industry has established a policy to ‘protect’ children from a harmful product, yet they file lawsuit after lawsuit to oppose any enforcement of that same policy. And they base their legal argument on a child’s ‘right’ to purchase the very product that they openly admit should not be purchased by a child. This is the most outrageous example of a non sequitur that I’ve ever seen, and the result is a tragic consequence on America’s children,” said PTC President Tim Winter.

It should surprise no one that the Christian Right considers constitutional rights a "non sequitur." The Christian Taliban hates the constitution and everything else America stands for. Nothing less than a totalitarian theocracy will satisfy them.

What is interesting is the contrast between the fundamentalists' objections to violent video games and their fanatical, uncompromising support of a war on Iraq that has resulted in over 1.3 million Iraqis being slaughtered and additional deaths of more than 4000 US troops. It should raise some serious questions.

It is apparent that the Christian Right doesn't object to the video games in question because they are too violent. They object to the games because they don't see them as violent enough. It's not enough for the Christian Taliban to have people pretending to shoot each other.

The Christian extremists aren't satisfied unless people are actually being shot for real, given the conditions that the slaughtered are not Christian and that they have brown skin.

Fundamentalist hypocrisy is an easy target. It's as ubiquitous as ads trying to get you to switch your cable to FIOS or Rupert Murdoch's Direct TV. Equally common is the violent fanaticism of the Christian Right. That subject has been taboo in the corporate media for far too long.