Preachable Moment

Whenever Ann Coulter ventures out in public, the only question of interest is what sort of stain she’ll leave behind. She is, after all, simply Andrew Dice Clay with slightly better legs, and a shtick that’s even more predictable. We all know the drill: Go on the air, engage in verbal voiding at some random left-wing or Democratic target, then strut off while the Ann-fans (AnnDroids?) rub their knees together and chortle about how that straight-talkin’ gal just drives those liberals plumb crazy.

So how curious to realize that the latest emission from Coulter’s oral sphincter can aid our understanding of democracy and life in America. I have no idea if she’s a sincere and practicing Christian — I find the idea a bit of a stretch, quite frankly — but when she told CNBC host Donnie Deutsch that Jews need to be “perfected” into Christians, Coulter was simply articulating a genuine religious viewpoint. I even believe she intended no offense to Deutsch, just as I believe born-again cartoonist Johnny “No Relation” Hart intended no offense when he showed a menorah morphing into a cross in this notoriously cloddish B.C. comic strip he drew for Easter 2001. When he was accused of anti-Semitism for promoting “replacement theology” — the notion that Jews are pre-Christians waiting to be brought all the way over — Hart denied any Jew-hating tendencies. No doubt he meant every word.

Sorry folks, but not only is “replacement theology” the message underlying that B.C. strip and the walking cartoon character known as Ann Coulter, it’s also the motivating force behind a lot of Christianist support for Israel — they see the return of Jews to their homeland as a necessary step to bringing on the end times. I leave it to you eager readers to delve into Christianist notions about what happens after the Rapture whisks all the faithful out of their Buster Browns and up to heaven, but I’ll give you a hint: things don’t turn out very happily for Jews who refuse to get with the program and start kickin’ it J.C. style.

Coulter’s witticism has been getting a lot of attention, and it wouldn’t surprise me if this marked the first time one of her remarks actually had career repercussions. It would certainly be a savory irony if the statement that finally got her knocked off mainstream media outlets was also one of the few times she came within even shouting distance of the truth.

The foundation of any religion is the belief that a significant percentage of the world’s population is damned to eternal torment because they don’t follow your deity’s program. It’s motivated everything from the Spanish Inquisition to the destruction of the World Trade Center. The idea of an ecumenical “community of faith” is a polite fiction that makes civilized life possible. That’s what this whole “separation of church and state” business is all about. It allows a civil society to function. With all the Bible-bangers and Jesus whoopers swarming on the media and the halls of government, it’s hard for too many people to remember that basic truth, and by casually stepping in it on CNBC, Ann Coulter has reminded us of why religion cannot be allowed to dominate the public square.

So thank you, Ann Coulter, for reminding everyone of this truth, even if you only did it by accident. I still wouldn’t want to touch you with a leper’s claw, but now you can say your vacuous, hate-spewing career served at least one legitimate purpose.