So, a few months back, the hilarious right-wing pressure group the American Family Association had a poll about boycotting companies which supported gay marriage. I voted in the poll, which turned out to be completely faked -- the numbers didn't change no matter which way you voted. A week later, I discovered that the (multiple, fake) email addresses I had used to register for the poll had been signed up to receive the AFA's weekly newsletter. Since then, it has been a regular source of entertainment to me, as well as an eye-opening look at the crazy workings of the far right.

Today, the organization excelled itself with an article, partially reproduced online, title Hindu to open senate in prayer. Needless to say the AFA, which features that silly Jesus-fish design in its logo, is horrified:

WallBuilders president David Barton is questioning why the U.S. government is seeking the invocation of a non-monotheistic god. Barton points out that since Hindus worship multiple gods, the prayer will be completely outside the American paradigm, flying in the face of the American motto "One Nation Under God."

This bit is rich with irony. So a monotheistic god is okay... wait. A monotheistic God? Doesn't the use of the indefinite article there imply the existence of multiple monotheistic gods? In fact, isn't the article's implicit acknowledgment that the Hindus have "many, many, many, many, many gods" (that's verbatim) itself a statement of polytheism? But they move quickly from these shallow waters of grammatical inconsistency to the deep ocean of crazy (emphasis mine):

Barton says given the fact that Hindus are a tiny constituency of the American public, he questions the motivation of Senate leaders. This is not a religion that has produced great things in the world, he observes. You look at India, you look at Nepal -- there's persecution going in both of those countries that is gendered by the religious belief that is present there, and Hindu dominates in both of those countries.

Wow. Did the AFA just write off the entire history and achievements of the world's oldest and third-largest religion in a single sentence? It seems like they did. I'm no fan of religions, but if they can claim to achieve anything positive, then Hinduism has at least as good a claim on that as any Christian sect.

The nutjobs at the AFA are also viciously anti-gay, but I'll save that post for the next time they come up with something truly wacky.