God and Guns Run Amuck

by Pa Rock
Social Commentator

I've written about Ken Pagano before in the Ramble. He was the Assembly of God pastor at the New Bethel Church in Louisville, KY, who had a "bring your guns to church day" at his little church last summer. I say "was" not because God's enforcer has gone to meet his maker, but rather because he has resigned from the ministry.

Yup, the God-fearing, pistol-packing minister has turned in his collection plate and is in pursuit of greener pastures. Kenny Boy, it seems, has decided to get into the church security business. He has joined forces with a New York rabbi to form a company whose goal is apparently to either provide armed guards to churches or to train church security personnel.

News flash, Ken: Churches have been very safe - at least they were before moronic ministers started encouraging their flocks to come to services armed. In fact, the only church shooting that I can remember in recent years happened in your state, Kentucky, when an armed right wing lunatic named Jim David Adkisson brought a shotgun into the Universalist Unitarian Church in Knoxville and opened fire. He was there, by his own admission, to kill liberals.

Will your new company help to protect churches that cater to liberals, or gay people, or people of color? Will it, Ken?

Ken, why don't you take your avid interest in guns and go into law enforcement. You could be a deputy in some jerkwater town, wear a badge, shoot at an occasional bad guy, and spend hours and hours salivating over your weapon. Could life get any better than that, Ken?

Another Hate Crime

by Pa Rock

A lone gunman walked into the Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville, TN, last Sunday morning and opened fire with a shotgun. He managed to kill one person and critically wound four others before being subdued by church members. The shooting was apparently random, being an attack on the liberal philosophy of the church rather than specific individuals. The shooter, Jim D. “David” Adkisson, was said to hate blacks, gays and anyone different from himself.

I didn’t know much about the Unitarian Universalist Church, but after this tragedy I have begun to educate myself on the group. If it really is the bastion of liberalism that the shooter thought it was, there might be a place on one of the pews for me – and I intend to explore that possibility more fully.

Let us hope (and pray) this act of twisted bigotry can serve as a catalyst to make us all open to the feelings and needs of one another. The act was violence, the reaction needs to be reaching out with love and understanding to make the world a truly inclusive place for all.