Republicans Can't Even Handle a Punny Joke During a Prayer

It's Obama's tan suit all over again.

• Republicans who can’t take a dad joke are fuming after Rep. Emanuel Cleaver ended his daily congressional prayer with the words, “Amen and a-woman,” a corny but cute nod to the record number of women who have just been elected to Congress. (To be clear, there shouldn’t be a congressional prayer at all. That’s a separate issue.)

  Kyle Morris @RealKyleMorris

  .@DonaldJTrumpJr: “Amen and awomen... It tells you everything you need to know about the Democrat Party... these people are freaking morons."

  

  While Republicans are acting like Cleaver is an idiot for thinking “amen” is a gendered term — he knows it’s not — they’re the real idiots for not understanding a pun. A pun with a history of its own, at that.

  Peter Manseau @plmanseau

  Verily verily I say to you: Americans have been using “amen and awomen” for more than a century. Here’s an example from 1915.

  

• The Greek Orthodox church can’t seem to comprehend that COVID doesn’t abide by the same superstitious beliefs they do. While the rest of Greece has tightened restrictions on businesses and other places for public gatherings (churches included) in anticipation of schools reopening, the Orthodox Church has notified their priests to ignore the closure order— citing their obedience to protocols over the holiday as having already done their part.

• They won't change the election results. But they're making a damn fine case for atheism.

  Jack Jenkins @jackmjenkins

  I wandered down to the Supreme Court, where folks participating in the “Jericho March” are scheduled to pray for SCOTUS/Congress to oppose the 2020 election results. Also here: folks wearing albs and blowing…smoke out of shofars. The, uh, nature of the smoke is…unclear.

  

• Today was the final day in office for Nebraska State Senator Ernie Chambers, a longtime advocate for state/church separation and just a one-of-a-kind legend. If you’re not familiar with him, read this:

  Omaha World-Herald @OWHnews

  "The fact that the whole state was willing to change their constitution to get rid of me (via term limits) so they didn’t have to listen to what I said is the highest compliment that could be paid to any human being." Read more from @PaulHammelOWH:

  

  omaha.comErnie Chambers’ tenure in the Legislature is ending (again), but his devotion to his causes remainsTake a look at the top photos from 2020 as captured by the photojournalist of the Omaha World-Herald

• GENESIS Community Church near Boston played COVID Roulette by holding in-person Christmas services and lost big, with at least 57 people now testing positive for the virus.

• Fans of The Bachelor should check out Kate Kaput’s excellent article about how the show's default Christianity is becoming increasingly frustrating.

  It's not just about Matt James's prayer. It's about the toxicity of Luke Parker's beliefs about purity. It's about Madison Prewett's evangelical family. It's about Cassie Randolph's evangelical family. It's about the cross tattoo on Becca Kufrin's finger. It's about Tayshia telling Ivan she wouldn't marry someone who identifies as agnostic. It's about Hannah Brown's famous line, "I've had sex, & Jesus still loves me." It's even about Sean Lowe's re-virginization (?) based on his born-again Christian beliefs, & Ben Higgins's repeated discussion of what Jesus means to him, even though, in their days, the show was much, much less aggressive in their on-screen depictions of leads' faith beliefs.

• American Atheists has released its third “State of the Secular States” report, which contains a score card for each state and how they fare on church/state issues. You can check your own state here.

  

• It’s probably not a good time to make this pro-Trump tweet as the Georgia Senate results are coming in…

  Pastor Greg Locke @pastorlocke

  God is about to dethrone some wicked people that have been in power. Very soon Twitter will be trending the unthinkable. Remember this Tweet. God will not be mocked.

• I take credit for this. Somehow.

• Finally, every time I see Roger Stone I get excited thinking I’m watching a trailer for a Who Framed Roger Rabbit sequel. But then I remember Trump pardoned an actual villain… who apparently can’t count to three.

  Aaron Rupar @atrupar

  incredible