Birmingham Blues

A couple of weeks ago, I reported that Birmingham Mayor Larry Langford had decided to lead Bible study in the City Council chambers. He’s decided to make it a weekly event, and John Archibald caught last Friday’s performance.

Before [Langford] really started Friday he bristled against those who might look askew at his mayor-go-to-prayer meetings.

“Some people — all they live for is to create troubles in your life,” he said. “I got a call last week and I was told it was a violation of church and state to teach a Bible study here in City Hall.

“If ever there was a place that needed prayer, it’s City Hall. Isn’t it amazing that someone took the time to want to quote the Constitution?”

His minions said Amen.

Yeah, how dare anyone mention that pesky Constitution? Larry sounds more like George W. Bush every day.

He spouted his usual exhortations for parents to spank their children, and then he put the blame for all the problems squarely on the women.

“The troubles you’re suffering from are of your own doing,” he said. “And God forbid, ladies, I hold you all responsible for 90 percent of it. If you quit dating men prettier than you and act responsible, we’d be solving this. He’s got better-looking earrings than you have.”

Good God, what a sexist creep. Women have been hearing this shit from preachers — and unfortunately falling for it — for millenia. It would be nice to think that the mayor of a major city in 2008 would be beyond such petty manipulation. Oh, who am I kidding? This is Larry Langford. He paid for positive media coverage (and attacks on his detractors) during his campaign, he’s raised sales taxes on “the least of these”, and now he’s denigrating women during Bible “study” — all in the name of his interesting interpretation of Christianity. And actually in aid of keeping himself in the spotlight.

Sad thing is, his followers were likely smiling and nodding all the way through this exercise in ego. Just as they did when he ran for mayor without actually moving into the city, when he used fuzzy math to promise all kinds of great projects for the city, when he put Frank Matthews in charge of handling citizens’ assistance, and when he bought off most of the City Council with million dollar slush funds. John nails it, as usual:

“Hypocrisy here is unbelievable,” [Langford] said.

I have to agree.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 9:43 pm and is filed under Local Issues. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.