Another Way to Deal With Those Christians.

I have been pondering in my heart what to do about Evangelical Christians and practising Catholics, now that they have emerged from their sanctuaries to threaten the public good by running for parliament. Recently, after the Globe & Mail made me aware of the threat, I recommended banning them for reasons of public safety, but now I'm not so sure that would work.

I mean, there seem to be rather a lot of them. Oh, I know the mainstream media is fond of saying that the churches are empty these days. No doubt this is true of those churches frequented by main stream Christian media types where vestal virgins dressed as Gaia are prancing to The Sound of Music played on didgeridoos, around altars shaped as pyramids, with scantily lads clad dancing the part of Molloch. You get the drift.

On the other hand, in those churches where people actually believe in something, as opposed to everything and anything, there is not a lot of room for additional derrieres in the pews, at least without stacking folks two deep, or adding additional services to the already crowded liturgical schedule.

So just banning Evangelicals and practising Catholics presents us with a logistical problem of considerable magnitude. We'd have to establish huge camps on Anticosti Island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence to house them all, and housing is not a federal responsibility under the Canadian Constitution.

I'm beginning to thing we need to think outside the box. Let me think like a real progressive for a change. I know. How about if we make them all register with the federal government? We could expand the gun registry program to include registration of Christians. Hell, we've already paid enough for the program to register the entire population of the Milky Way galaxy three times over. Surely we can reprogram the software to add a few million Christians to the lists. The fact that the computer program is not suitable for the task ought not to deter us. It isn't suitable for registering guns either.

We could force Christians to get permits and make them store their bibles in steel cupboards with thick chains wrapped around them for extra security. Rumours have it that Catholics already do that. Think how much more comfortable police will feel if they have to respond to a domestic recitation of the rosary if they know in advance that the scripture is locked away beyond the reach of proselytising laymen.

Mind you this will be of limited utility in the case of Evangelicals, because they have memorized the key passages and will be able to preach without scriptural texts at hand. But, to quote the motto of the Liberal gun registry, "No regulatory system is completely perfect."

Infants undergoing baptism will be forced to wear government approved life preservers and there would have to be a government certified baptismal lifeguard present. No one would be allowed to light votive candles without having taken and passed a fire safety course put on by the Boy Scouts.

I'm sure we can trust our federal bureaucrats with devising excruciating additional administrative burdens to discourage church membership and participation in Christian congregations. Did I mention charging a substantial amount for the permits? Make the user pay I say. It's all non-tax revenue, after all.