As you may or may not know, there are a lot of religious conservatives in the United States. Granted, there are also a lot of religious conservatives in the Netherlands, but these people aren't allowed to watch tv and therefore also rarely appear on it, so they bother me very little. Also, their hatred for non-Christians of all kind usually also remains limited to their own bible belt.
The United States is a bit different however. There they have men like Pat Robertson (who has claimed that U.S. judges are
more dangerous than Al Qaeda and that Christians and Jews are the only ones
qualified to reign) and Jerry Falwell (who believes gays, lesbians and feminists are responsible for
9/11 and that AIDS is not just punishment for homosexuals but also for a society
that tolerates homosexuals). They are loving people who have spent their entire life preaching the virtues of Christian society and a close family life.
Oh yeah, and they're the
kind of guys that protested during
Matthew Shepards funeral.
One of these wonderful men is Dr. James Dobson.
Dobson believes that children up to 8 should be spanked (but not
too harsh obviously), he believes homosexuality can be cured and (and I believe we can all agree with him on this one) he thinks Spongebob Squarepants is gay which obviously is a great risk to all kids watching.
Brother Dobson and his crew (organized on
Family.org) are so convinced of their crusade (most strongly of course their fight against Spongebob but also abortion and... stuff...) that they are willing to send you loads of books on the subject for free! Well, not intentionally of course; it costs
them money and they strongly urge you to donate but it's not obligatory.
As
The Strangler explains it; you can let Family.org send you books, dvds, cds or any of the other crap they have on their site for free, and you can even make some money by putting it on ebay (although my Friend-From-The-North (ladies, he comes with an accent) did note that that would be furthering their agenda), and let them hurt financially.
Cool :).
If you are considering doing this, may I suggest the following titles?
"Helping People Step Out of Homosexuality"
"Into the Promised Land. Beyond the Lesbian Struggle"
"Out of Egypt. One Women's (
sic) Journey Out of Lesbianism"
"She Calls me Daddy: Seven Things Every Man Needs To Know About Building a Complete Daughter)"
and my personal favorite:
"A Parent's Guide To Preventing Homosexuality"
(and throw in the dvd of The Chronicles of Narnia too if you feel like it).
The instructions below are directly copied from
The Strangler:
"Here's how to do it:
1. Go to www.family.org and you will see their home page.
2. Once you're at the home page, look for the "Resources" link in the blue bar on the left-hand side, right above the "Search" box, and click it.
3. Under the "Resource Category" menu on the left-hand side, you'll notice categories such as "Homosexuality." Go ahead and click that for shits and giggles.
4. It's time to start shopping! Scroll down a little bit and feel the homophobia flow. How about a nice copy of A Parent's Guide to Preventing Homosexuality? Go ahead and click the "Add to Cart" button.
5. Now comes a tough decision: Do you have the book sent to yourself so you can sell it on eBay for cash (my personal favorite) or do you keep it on your mantel as a high-larious conversation piece to point at and laugh when your friends and family come over? Or do you send it to a jerk? I always opt for sending it to myself. Yes, you may end up on the Focus on the Family mailing list (though I've been doing this for some time and have never received anything beyond what I ordered), but reading Focus on the Family's junk mail is a good way to keep tabs on their activities and it will cost them even more money in postage.
Please note: Focus on the Family won't send you more than $100 worth of materials for free in any given shopping trip, so be sure to keep it reasonable and return often.
6. Select "Add New Shipping Address" and click "Proceed to Checkout." Or, hell, continue to shop and pick up a box set of The Chronicles of Narnia on CD.
7. The next screen will ask you to sign up for an account and give your information. Don't worry, they don't ask for your credit-card number. Enter whatever name and address you like, because you won't be paying. You might want to make up a phone number, too.
8. Once you've filled out all the required fields (you can also create a fake e-mail account if you're super paranoid), click "Proceed to Checkout" one more time. You'll now find yourself at the "Here Is Your Cart" field. Annoying thing alert: You may have to reenter your info again after this field to actually set up your account. But just keep going until you get to the "How Much Would You Like to Donate?" page.
9. So, how much would you like to donate? Zero dollars, obviously. Don't be fooled by the field in the lower-right-hand corner that shows you the suggested donation amounts. Simply select "Enter other total amount" and enter 0.00 as the amount you would like to pay. (Don't put in a dollar sign or it will ask you for credit-card information!) Proceed to checkout.
10. You'll now be led to a screen that will try to make you feel guilty about the amount you haven't donated. But don't feel bad! Just proceed to checkout again.
11. Jesus! Here you are on the twelfth step and you still don't have your self-hatred materials! And you thought preventing homosexuality was supposed to be easy! Click "Checkout Now" and you're done.
Congratulations!
You have just removed a few dollars from the coffers of a major anti-gay organization."
I haven't heard back from you on living in a corner of my bedroom so I suppose that's a no. I can dig that, also considering that you have a wife and kids and they wouldn't fit in the corner, and I'd probably get annoyed by them so no prob.
