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Well, the religious right is at it again, crying wolf that the leftists and progressives and godless socialists who run this country are intruding on their beliefs and planning big moves to restrict their religious freedoms. Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal ranted as much the other day, claiming that those god-fearing Americans just won’t take that lightly and will fight back with a rebellion of their own to claim America back in the name of God.
Now God likely has bigger things to worry about than a bunch of Bible-thumpers, what with the universe expanding forever and stretching at the fabric of logic, not to mention more than a few human-based conflicts going on in all corners of this planet. I just have to believe that God has the wherewithal to figure out that New Conservative Neanderthal Party (NCNP) people like Jindal constantly overestimate the threats from a society that generally doesn’t give a hoot what someone else believes. I just like to believe that God or someone like God appreciates a person who lives a good life and does a good turn for others, and doesn’t demand too much out of that person to fess up about his or her religious beliefs and demand allegiance other than to keep being a nice person.
Man, those folks rattle on about their religious freedoms being abridged when that’s just not the case.
If someone wants to believe in God, why would I or anyone else give a hoot? That’s your business, not mine. What do I care if someone goes to church every day of the week?
I remember visiting with a guy at a Tea Party rally a few years back. I wrote about it then as well because the guy was carrying a sign that said keep your hands off my healthcare and my religion, too. Now granted, that Tea Party person was obviously not a fan of ObamaCare, so I could see the logic from that part of his sign. But the religious part had me baffled. I just couldn’t quite figure out when someone was stepping on his toes about his beliefs or whether he liked going to church or praying to God Almighty.
I asked him about that, and he couldn’t give much of an answer other than to say that people were out there sneaking around the country taking away our freedoms, and freedom of religion was one of them.
I asked for a more specific example, of course, and, of course, he gave me another nebulous answer about people who don’t like America and American religion working real hard to stop our way of life.
I was being persistent just for kicks, so I asked him to tell me what our way of life was. He got upset and said if I didn’t know that, then maybe I wasn’t much of an American. I told him I was born here and liked football and baseball but liked to play hockey more than those other sports, so we just left it at that and he probably walked away thinking I was some kind of Canadian.
Anyway, there’s lots of strife going on in this old world, so to fire up the religious freedom debate again just made me think that if God is paying attention to that kind of irony, it must just drive him crazy.
I tell you, I wouldn’t be all that surprised if God was ready to take a vacation from all of the wackiness that we bring his way on a daily basis.
God can take a vacation, has every right to take a vacation.
I happen to know that when that time comes, he just packs his bags and leaves the keys to his good old rootin’ tootin’ buddy Hell Yes to watch over things and keep things spinning and twirling in just the right fashion. Hell Yes is a no-nonsense kind of guy, a straight shooter but a real fun sort. He doesn’t mind a night out drinking and dancing and playing pool. He plays the trumpet with reckless abandon and wears a five-gallon hat. He gets the job done even if he has a hangover, which is probably why old God trusts him to watch over all of us and our crazy ways.
Matter of fact, God kind of leans on Hell Yes just a bit to keep us from getting too big for our britches.
If you look through history, you can kind of map out those times when God threw up his hands and asked his old buddy to stop by and take over for a while.
All I can say is that Hell Yes hasn’t been around here lately, what with all the monkey business that’s going.
Genghis Khan and the Vikings are but a couple of examples of hordes gone mad and rampaging across the countryside for no apparent reason. After a couple of centuries of that, God shook his head and took a break, and Hell Yes stopped by to tell them to settle down, enjoy life a bit, quit the rough stuff, and settle in with your neighbors, which they did rather successfully.
All I can say is that I have a feeling that Hell Yes will be stopping by sometime soon. Then all this whining about religion will come to a halt, and maybe we just might have a few less wars going on and more dancing on a Saturday night in more peaceful but rootin’ tootin’ settings.     

Forrest Johnson has been writing for over 20 years and was editor of the Lake County Chronicle in Two Harbors.