by Marcus Bales
Fundamentalist:
I am the very model of a Christian fundamentalist
And by a strange coincidence a solid occidentalist.
I cherry-pick the Bible for the verses close or distantly
Amenable to straight white males, however inconsistently,
Unless those verses might apply a little inconveniently
In which case I interpret them a good deal more than leniently.
We want to do just what we please however strange or horrible
And still regard ourselves as wholly moral and adorable.
Congregation:
We want to do just what we please however strange or horrible
And still regard ourselves as wholly moral and adorable.
And still regard ourselves as wholly moral and adorable.
Fundamentalist:
I call myself a Christian but it's really Paulist cultery
Since Christ himself has said that my divorces were adultery.
But I from man to man enjoy convexness and concavity
And call whatever others do immoral and depravity.
Congregation:
But we from man to man enjoy convexness and concavity
And call whatever others do immoral and depravity.
Fundamentalist:
I do not want to hear about the quantum or molecular
Or how the Founding Fathers made our institutions secular
I say the nation's Christian under Biblical authorities
Rejecting what the Constitution says about majorities.
The workings of the government may worry and perplex you all
I say we're equal under God -- unless you're homosexual --
Or black or brown or female or some kind of evolutionist
For all attempts at reasoning are really persecutionist.
Congregation:
Or black or brown or female or some kind of evolutionist
For all attempts at reasoning are really persecutionist.
Fundamentalist:
My freedom of religion trumps your Constitutionality
Because the Constitution says it does with firm legality.
I claim my rights from God or man, whichever's more commodious
For what I want to do however evil, vile, or odious.
Congregation:
I claim my rights from God or man, whichever's more commodious
For what I want to do however evil, vile, or odious.
Fundamentalist:
When I can issue licenses or not because I feel like it
The public's just my piggy and the public can just squeal like it.
I'll happily apply whichever law is most agreeable
To what I want to do since what I want is unforseeable:
The conscience of the person must control the way they view their job
And not demands that public servants ought to serve and do their job.
The Constitution's man-made law and God is not endorsing it;
The SCOTUS made their law, and now good luck to them enforcing it.
Congregation:
The Constitution's man-made law and God is not endorsing it;
The SCOTUS made their law, and now good luck to them enforcing it.
Fundamentalist:
There's nothing in my creed that advocates for love officially
Except some quotes that God and Jesus handed down judicially --
I don't see why I must obey the acts of which God sent a list
And yet I am the model of a Christian fundamentalist.
Congregation:
We don't see why we must obey the acts of which God sent a list
And yet we are the models of a Christian fundamentalist.
Not much is known about Marcus Bales, except that he lives in Cleveland, Ohio, and his poems have not been published in The New Yorker or Poetry.