Blasphemy Day is nearly over, and I barely have the heart for a good bit of sacrilege. In fact, I’ve barely had the heart for some time. What price the good old sky-fairy faiths these days? They’re hardly worth blaspheming any more. There’s a new kid on the block, a New Religious Movement masquerading as a secular striving for social justice, and it sucks up all the energy around it like a black hole hoovering space. Yep, you don’t need a supernatural being to have a religion—you just need an ideology that “others” the unconverted, and away you go.
And where there is an ideology, there is potential for blasphemy. So perhaps I can work up the heart after all. Here are fourteen random 21st-century blasphemies, suitable for getting me burned at the stake, or at least mildly scorched.
- We do not live in a patriarchy.
- We do not live in a rape culture.
- Women in the western democracies are not oppressed.
- The wage gap is a myth.
- Trump may be a disaster, but he is not the devil incarnate.
- Women are welcome in STEM.
- “Privilege” is conferred by socioeconomic status, not skin colour.
- Europeans did not invent slavery.
- Racism does not equal prejudice plus power.
- Trump supporters are not automatically misogynists, homophobes, transphobes, and/or white supremacists.
- It was not Hillary’s turn.
- Critical Race Theory is profoundly racist.
- Safe spaces are the new apartheid.
- Men are generally pretty decent. Even white ones.
And a happy Blasphemy Day to you all.
