The Robert Pattinson / Pat Robertson Dichotomy

This may surprise some of you, but I am not an overtly "religious" person. I am honestly not even sure what the term "religious" means...except that like most words, it means different things to different people. So for the sake of clarity, let's assume "religious" means regular attendance as well as financial and personal participation in some denomination of worship.

I was raised a Mormon. (This may explain my adoration for Steph Meyer up until I felt Breaking Dawn was a bit too preachy re: virtue/premarital sex/approach to unplanned pregnancy/etc.) Still, even at the tender age of ten or so, I knew in my heart that there was something in the doctrine of this "religion" that I couldn't quite embrace fully. I never attended again after I left for college. Plus, they expect you to tithe 10% of your income and I was a poor, starving college student who worked at McDonald's for my beer money, so it seemed somehow hypocritical to stand/sit/kneel/sing/pretend when I wasn't about to fork over my Happy Hour coinage to the suit with a unibrow carrying the silver collection plate.

"And so the Lion fell in Love with the Lamb." Steph - you totally stole that from the book of Mormon.

I converted to Episcopalian 25 years ago because it seemed harmless enough to follow in my husband's denominational footsteps, plus it turns out that it's a very well-kept secret that the Episcopalians know how to party. I was pleasantly surprised that during one of our first church functions, beer in many varieties was made available right alongside bottled holy water and Diet Coke. The dude with the collar even drank a few and became shamelessly red-cheeked. The gal that played the pipe organ got downright WRECKED and started to play the Peanuts theme in the sanctuary and everybody thought it was hilarious. THIS, I thought, was a "religion" I could dig. Plus, you didn't get the stink-eye for getting a divorce. Always a plus.

Alas, after two decades or so of blissful regular church attendance, during which I ACTUALLY taught Sunday School to little lamb-faced preschoolers, something bad happened. Something that sucked the "religion" right out of me.

The dude with the collar announced he was a gay man.

This declaration shattered the very foundation of the church and cracked the throngs of the faithful in half. For the most part, the younger half thought it was no big deal, and accepted the admission for what it was; a gay man choosing to come out of the closet. I mean, it wasn't like he started skipping around the altar or wearing Village People costumes under his vestments. He was the same collar-wearing, beer drinking dude he'd always been. Commited to the church. Faithful to God. Compassionate and kind. He just made it known that he preferred Nathan Lane to say....Christine Baranski. No big deal, right?

WRONG.

The grey-haired people were appalled. This smiling, quiet man who had gently laid hands on them and served weekly wafers & wine, whispering "The body of Christ, the bread of heaven" was suddenly an abomination against God and a disgrace to the red-doored church. And let's be real. The grey-haired people have the majority of the money. Whole bunches of it. And they aren't beyond using that fact to manipulate people to carry out their agenda. This unholy, twisted, charade of a collar-wearer had to go.

And so did I.

I simply can't live in a world where tolerance and acceptance don't exist.

And so I decided four walls and a pipe organ just aren't my cup of tea.

Do I believe in God?

Of course. I mean, COME ON. There HAS to be a God if THIS:

is a REAL person, right?

This level of beauty is simply not possible without divine intervention of some kind. In fact, I would contend that God was the architect of this flawless face that was meticulously sculpted by angel-artists that were hand-picked by The Almighty One himself.

So when I say my nightly prayers, I give thanks for the gift of this:

to all of womankind (and perhaps certain collar-wearers with a penchant for argyle socks and vacays on Rosie O'Donnell's Cruise Line).

So today, when another grey-haired man-bully who equates money with power & status in the eyes of God, started spouting hate around the globe, I flipped shit. Why? Because his name could confuse dyslexic Twilight fans everywhere. And we just can't have that. I'm here to clear this shit up once and for all.

THIS is Pat Robertson. Today, he told the world that Haiti brought on it's own destruction by making a pact with Satan back in the 1800's.

And he's a crazy, deluded hate-monger.

And THIS, is Robert Pattison.

God's reminder that he exists in this crazy, fucked up world we live in.

Please, don't EVER confuse the two.