On the subway yesterday there was a guy preaching love in the name of Jesus, at the top of his voice. He seemed pretty angry – but he was preaching ‘gods love’ so I guess that was supposed to be OK.
Then he started talking about what should happen if a woman were to lie down with another woman etc. (i.e. encouraging people to murder gays) as it says in the nasty, brutish book that people call the holy bible.
I don’t tolerate this kind of aggressive religious intolerance – so I told him to shut up. This made things very uncomfortable, nearly everyone in the carriage now looked at me as the devil incarnate and rallied in support of the preacher – saying amen after everything he said.
If I mentioned that it was in Harlem and on a Sunday, and that therefore the whitey in a very religious area should probably have kept his mouth shut, does that change anything? It only changes things if you are guilty of the silent, patronizing kind of racism, that the white middle class think is the opposite – and anyway, I was on a pilgrimage to celebrate the Devil’s music itself, Jazz, and its glorious Harlem heritage.
Anyway, note to self – do not tell a preacher to shut up on a crowded carriage, unless you are also dressed as a preacher and carrying a bible – in which case you can be as aggressive as you want and everyone will think you are nice.
Douglas Rushkoff has an excellent post today on why its a dangerous thing to tolerate all religion.