Larry Mendte of WXMI-TV in Michigan thinks religion is under attack.

His evidence? There are people who follow a newfangled religion called “pasta-fairy-ans”…

He gets that it’s a joke, but he somehow sees a bigger problem with Aaron Williams recently trying to get his driver’s license picture with a strainer on his head as Pastafarianism commands. (And we know it’s a bigger problem because the camera zooms in waaaaay too close on his face.)

The problem is that these atheists are mocking Christianity! How dare we mock his faith?! Don’t we all know how fragile Christianity is? It’s, like, three jokes away from going extinct.

I don’t mock atheists, so don’t mock my religion! Faith in something greater than ourselves is an important underpinning of a civilized society.*

*Citation needed.

He’s right, though. Christians don’t really mock atheists. They just spread nasty stereotypes about us, bully students who are atheists, and refuse to vote for atheists for higher office… you get the idea.

But, again, how *dare* we make fun of Christian privilege?!

Then, just when you thought Mendte had spent all of his paranoia dollars, he explained the very definition of “slippery slope”:

Throughout history, when religions are mocked, attacked, oppressed, or even banned, societies crumble… And yet we see all the signs in this country, in our society, in the government, in our schools, and in the media. In America, a country born of religious freedom. And that’s why I don’t think the pasta heads or their spaghetti god are funny. They are just symptoms of something far more destructive.

I had no idea Pastafarians were really part of an elaborate scheme to ban all religion from this country… I mean, religion has always been a force for good in the world. Right…?

He’s lucky all we’re doing is mocking faith. No atheist group is out there trying to oppress Christians. We fight for equality, not special treatment, no matter how pastors and pundits try to spin it the other way.

What Mendte doesn’t get is that religious freedom means you are free to believe whatever you want. It doesn’t mean you’re automatically immune from criticism or mockery — especially when your religion requires belief in things like resurrection, miracles, prayer, sin resulting from the eating of an apple, people who live for hundreds of years, and a virgin birth.

Talk about someone who doesn’t get the joke. Let’s hope Mendte never comes across The Onion or he’s going to go completely apeshit.



