If we ever run out of reasons to keep the Religious Right out of power (yeah, right!), then this ought to provide some motivation: it really is only a short step from reading the Bible literally to reading The Onion like it's The Washington Post.  If you can believe in a creation that took seven days, you can easily believe that there's a woman  on the editorial staff of The Onion named Caroline Weber who wrote an article called I'm So Psyched About This Abortion! Here's a few lines of the article:

As I pushed my way through the crowd, one of the picketers yelled, "How could you do this? How could you kill a child?" What? It's more like, "How could I wait this long?" It wasn't until now that I was lucky enough to be pregnant with a child I had no means to support. I tell you, for a long time, I thought it would never happen to me!

So, to all of you pro-lifers who are trying to rain on my parade, keep it to yourself, because I don't have the time for that kind of negativity. I've got an abortion to plan, and I just know it's going to be the best non-anesthetized invasive uterine surgery ever!

The funny thing is, I actually have the pro-life movement to thank for this opportunity. If my HMO wouldn't have bowed to their pressure not to cover oral contraceptives, I never would've gotten pregnant in the first place. Then what would I be doing a week from Thursday? I'll tell you what I wouldn't be doing: going to an awesome abortion clinic where I'll be the center of attention from the minute I put my feet up in those stirrups. I wouldn't be looking forward to induced dilation of my cervical opening and suctioning of my uterus, either. And I sure as heck wouldn't get the chance to have a doctor insert a metal instrument into my womb to dislodge tissue from my uterine wall!

Well. As soon as Pete, a pro-life blogger at March Together For Life, read those words, his first thought was that it was high time to use the power of Blogspot to give Ms. Weber a good talking to, so that she might understand the error of her whorish, baby-killin' ways:

Sorry ma'am, if you hadn't had sex you wouldn't have gotten pregnant, it's not the HMO's fault for not supporting your promiscuity while not married….

Miss Weber, you have killed your child, which you admit is a baby/human being, intentionally. That does make you an admitted murderer. I'm not going to "condemn you to hell", I'm going to pray for your forgiveness and for the suffering which you will endure when you realize what you have done. Every baby you see from that moment on is going to wake you up to the realization that you killed your child.

I can't think of what to type here that will sound pithy and intelligent, so I'm going to say the only thing that comes to mind: HUH?!? 

True, I don't give the Fundies much credit for intelligence, or even familiarity with the basic precepts of reality. But no matter how cynical I get, I just can't fucking keep up.  I would at least expect them to know that The Onion is a FUCKING JOKE PAPER.

Of course, Pete doesn't need me to tell him this; as of this writing, 649 people had commented on his post to tell him what an unbelievable jackass he is. His reply is actually the most revealing part of the whole thing, because he remains utterly clueless, even when it's pointed out to him. First, he keeps referring to Caroline Weber as if she's a real writer — all the personas in The Onion are as invented as the articles — and second, the pearl-clutching horror with which he tells us that, parody or not, she is a sterling example of the lib'rul baby-killing mindset, and then proceeds to prove it by creating a simpleminded parody of a liberal pro-choicer. He, however, really does expect us to believe that he met this woman.

I've considered deleting this entry, because frankly, I think this pompous little prick has gotten enough attention; he's turned into an Internet phenomenon overnight, and has even gotten a Wikipedia page out of it (although the page is currently being considered for deletion). In my ideal universe, I want to see him rot in obscurity.

But Pete really shows what I loathe and fear about the fundies: their literalism. People who can't think in metaphor or parody are the ones to keep your eye on because they've already decided what the answers are going to be far in advance of getting the facts. The inability to consider the world in abstract, mutable terms is what breeds fanatics and tyrants; the world consists of only binaries, and the opposing binaries can't be tolerated. In short, what might be the biggest warning sign about the aspirations of the Fundies is their utter lack of a sense of humor.