you know,…. I hate to say it, but that was a prity good essay.

dj

He’s talking a lot about reflecting on things for the first time, which is nice. But it’s about time he find a surface that can reflect the image of his haircut.

And at least he’s stopped swallowing talking points. I hear that’s more fattening than swallowing your creepy evangelical uncle’s semen.

“prity good essay” Don’t essays usually have e some type of coherent summations?

He’s sixteen, he’s walking away from the unholy alliance of evangelicism and Republican activism, and he’s got, as he acknowledges on his blog, a bad haircut. You might want to reread what he wrote AFTER “when the homosexuals stop marrying each other” because it was a rhetorical device to make his point. Not a good target, reload, try again.

Yeah, any effort at self-examination should be encouraged rather than squelched. Great irony: the fact that right below the column is an ad for his book, written when he “wrote whatever was on his mind.” Ugh.

By 12, I pretty much had it down as far as what it takes to be a good Christian Republican in our protected subculture

I think that pretty much says it all about that particular philosophy…

Well, but he pairs homosexuals not marrying each other with goals like ending government corruption and stopping terrorist attacks. If he’s not saying it’s a sin, what is he saying?

I’m proud of Kyle. He’s come a long way. *sniff*

Now, to watch him get peed on by the Wingnuts That Be…

I realized that swallowing talking points is no way to live.

Give the kid some credit–if he’s realized this, he’s head and shoulders above John Tierney, among others.

After a few years away from his folks, he could turn out okay.

(It’s a pity you can’t say the same about Shapiro, who just gets uglier and more effed-up with time.)

This is the normal self-examinings of a bright high school kid realizing that beliefs are malleable.

I have no idea why they would give him a column of his own except if they were desperate for content, or thought he would be a good gimmick.

He looks like a good kid – but he WILL be a drag queen before its all over. That I promise.

I thought the piece was pretty thoughtful.
It seems to me an honest look at the state of Right Wing Christianity by a person of faith.
And there is a conclusion, contrary to what was cited above: his point is that no matter what these Republican Evangelicals achieve on earth, it all counts for nothing in relation to Christ’s teachings about eternity.
I am not a Christian, but the kid gives a damn good critique of where these folks have gone wrong.

I’ve never been comfortable with the way this blog attacks a child for speaking his mind. He may not be David Corn, or even Thomas Sowell, but that might be because he’s SIXTEEN. I won’t subject you to the ramblings I was putting in the school paper when I was that age, but I assure you it was all more vacuous and incoherent than anything Williams is writing now.

The list of Evangelical concerns was particularly interesting. Note the absence of concern about poverty. Maybe that’s something the wingnuts will start to think about after they’ve completed the crucial project of taking over Hollywood.

There also seems to be a tone of resignation in this piece. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reflect the mind of someone who’s starting to see that the world is more complicated than he had imagined. Rather, it seems that he’s realizing that Dobson and company are sending their flocks on a fool’s errand, and that homosexuality and abortion will be with us as long as there is sex and pregnancy. Faced with the prospect of banging his head against the hard wall of reality for the rest of his life, he chooses instead to disengage, turn inward, and contemplate the mysteries of Ecclesiastes.

I agree with gordo. Plus, it appears that the kid’s got a better grasp of the nature of evangelical christianity than a lot of these right-wing whackjobs do– I mean, he comes right out and says that the business of evangelicals isn’t supposed to be setting a worldly agenda. It’s supposed to be spreading the Word.

I’ve never been comfortable with the way this blog attacks a child for speaking his mind.

Kyle is a World Net Daily columnist, and ‘speaking his mind’ in this context means writing an opinion column read by several literate adults, in addition to World Net Daily’s regular readership.

He’s a fair target, to be sure- though I have to question the level of wingnuttery the kid espouses- all and all, he’s pretty reasonable and seems to be moving in the right direction (which is to say, left), at least compared to the other WND child stars.

He *is* a fair target. Anyone who puts his or her writing out on the internets for public consumption is.

I can underrstand how people might be uncomfortable with personal attacks on a 16-year-old, but until I see something that even comes close to the abuse heaped on 12-year-old Chelsea Clinton, I can’t work up too much sympathy for the young wingnuts who are (unlike Chelsea) actually seeking public attention.

until I see something that even comes close to the abuse heaped on 12-year-old Chelsea ClintonOr 10-year-old Amy Carter.