The Church of Christ and Rush Limbaugh

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 I've been debating all day about whether to put that hateful man's name on my blog, but since I really first heard of him through the Church of Christ, it seems appropriate to discuss him here. I've never been a fan of talk radio. The idea of starting my day by listening to two drive-time knuckleheads or some shouting shock-jock yammer on and on about something stupid is my idea of hell. Thus, I never listened to his show and wasn't even aware of him until he had been on the air for quite some time already. 

But I knew a LOT of CoC people who were his fans, and boy did they not shut up about it. At one point in the mid-1990s, it seemed like everyone at the church of my childhood was avidly listening to his radio show. I knew a few people in the CoC who were just as turned off by him as I was, but naturally it was his followers who were the loudest and most obnoxious about inflicting their beliefs on everyone else. So it seemed like after every church service the topic of conversation was whatever bile he had spewed on his latest show.

I remember one incident in particular at a church potluck. These two guys standing near me were guffawing and loudly parroting some horrible thing he had said. I pointed out that what he had said was horribly racist and sexist (I do not remember the exact words in question all these decades later, just that they were offensive and inappropriate). They said something rude and dismissive to me, basically implying that I didn't know what I was talking about, and my response was, "I'd rather be dead than a ditto-head," and I walked away, enjoying the angry glares on their face. Honestly, I'm amazed I didn't get kicked out of the church right there and then or burned as a witch. A woman sassing two men?! Burn her!

At the time, I couldn't believe how these pious people, who earnestly believed that they were the only true Christians in the world, could be followers of someone who was so crude and mean-spirited and who took glee in making fun of people who were far less privileged than he was. Whatever happened to love thy neighbor as thyself? Of course, I realize now that they loved him because he reflected back their own cruelty, racism, misogyny, and homophobia. He gave them license to be just as bad as he was unapologetically. I think it's safe to say that he paved the way for the 45th president and his equally crude rhetoric to be acceptable in our public discourse.

Thinking about that incident at that potluck all these years later I once again marvel that I was ever part of such a group of cruelly petty people. I don't know how I ever believed that I could stay in that group. It clearly was never right for me, and if I hadn't been born into it, I never would have chosen it for myself. Leaving was the best decision I ever made, if for no other reason than the fact that I never have to interact with those two jerks again.

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