Photo: Paraflyer

Here in the US, our Christian religious extremists are determined to give the Muslim fanatics a run for their money in terms of crazy. From the blog of the Christian Taliban hate group, the "American Family Association":

If the counsel of the Judeo-Christian tradition had been followed, Tillikum would have been put out of everyone's misery back in 1991 and would not have had the opportunity to claim two more human lives.

Says the ancient civil code of Israel, "When an ox gores a man or woman to death, the ox shall be stoned, and its flesh shall not be eaten, but the owner shall not be liable." (Exodus 21:28)

So, your animal kills somebody, your moral responsibility is to put that animal to death. You have no moral culpability in the death, because you didn't know the animal was going to go postal on somebody.

But, the Scripture soberly warns, if one of your animals kills a second time because you didn't kill it after it claimed its first human victim, this time you die right along with your animal. To use the example from Exodus, if your ox kills a second time, "the ox shall be stoned, and its owner also shall be put to death." (Exodus 21:29)

I don't think the AFA nuts are being good enough biblical literalists. Oxen and whales are different kinds of animals, so the Bible passages don't apply. To be frank, I think most people who read about this will think that the Christian Talibanists are stoned, in the more modern sense of the word.

Anyway, these idiots have considerable political power in our society. Is it any wonder that things are so badly messed up when we have a political culture that actually listens to them?