I'd be even more pissed about this if I actually considered Alabama part of the 50 states, but even in spite of my reluctance to do so, boy does this grind my gears something fierce. New Alabama Governor Robert Bentley (I'll let you guess his party affiliation) thinks it's completely normal, standard operating procedure for a governor to tell his state, and the rest of the nation, that he does not consider those who have not accepted Jesus Christ as his "brother or sister".
This is acceptable why?
Look, you can have your own religious beliefs, that's as fundamental a constitutional right as it apparently is to own a semi-automatic assault weapon. That's not the point. The point is such divisive talk has no business coming from a freely elected public official, in Alabama or anywhere else within our borders. Of course, there was a half-assed retraction issued by the governor's office not long after the remarks were made, but you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.
Let's not kid ourselves - this statement was made on purpose, it was by design with the intent of more clearly defining what the right wing likes to call a "culture war" but in reality is just their most basic tool in their tool-shed of electoral dominance. I've said more times that I can count that the only way for the Republicans to survive - let alone thrive - is to convince (cough: white) people to continually vote against their own economic interests.
And really, should we expect anything less on the sensitivity front from a Good Ol' Boy who was attending the University of Alabama in 1963?
Crazy bible thumping white folks eat this shit up like deep fried Twinkies at the Calhoun County Fair. When they're not insinuating that people "like" Barack Obama "share your values" or "aren't really American", they're forging code altogether and bluntly telling you that if you're not a gay-hatin' contraception-bannin' science-denying Christian like themselves, Alabama is not yours, the United States of America is not yours.
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