Trading Spouses

OK, I'm a sucker for embarrassing television. And who could resist the previews of last night's Trading Spouses on Fox?! The yelling, shrieking, cursing Marguerite Perrin was enough to draw me to the tube...

Except it was part one of two. I guess next week is the second part. [Let's take a moment to vilify network television executives who sucker us in with two-parters without indicating this in the previews! Hardly anything previewed even showed up in last night's episode! I will not be fooled again!]

But Marguerite Perrin wasn't the embarrassing part of last night's show. It was her bigoted, rude friends.

Marguerite Perrin traded houses with Jeanne D'Amico-Flisher. Marguerite is a devout Christian, Jeanne D'Amico-Flisher is a hypnotherapist. [I'm not sure why hypnotherapy is a "dark" thing as Marguerite kept implying.]

Jeanne was introduced to Marguerite's friends at a little party attending by Marguerite's daughters and friends.

And the friends were amazing bitches! One friend interrogated Jeanne about her "faith," asking what her family's beliefs were, and insinuating that Jeanne was "New Age" which was made to sound like something right up there with baby sacrifice.

It embarrasses me that these people advertise themselves as Christians. I think God and Jesus were overwhelmingly embarrassed that these are the people on TV representing them.

I was brought up to believe that the Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have done unto you.) was the basis for life. Even in my Catholic school, this was the underlying message. We were certainly never taught that if you are a Christian you get to be rude to strangers in the name of your religion.

When asked what she believed in, Jeanne said something like "that we are all equal." And the blonde woman replied, "We're all equal...terrorists...rapists...and us?" This was sneered and snarled, suggesting that Jeanne was a complete and utter moron for even consider people equal.

I hope I am not her "equal" because she should have been bitch slapped.

I guess the bottom line is I don't understand how some "Christian" people use their religion as a weapon. Do they truly believe that God and Jesus are in Heaven giving each other a high five and yelling, "Alright! She was rude to someone else! Gold star for her today!" Or my favorite, "Alright, they are discriminating against entire groups of my people! Of course they are better than everyone else! More gold stars!"

Or is God slowly shaking his head in disbelief that this is what it has been reduced to? Call yourself a Christian, make some pithy comments about God and grace and you have carte blanche to treat people like dirt?

Personally, the people I know who identify themselves as pagan or believing in a higher power, certainly have a better grasp of the Golden Rule than these so-called Christians.

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Surely someone will read this and be offended because I used the term "Christian" and they are a Christian who doesn't behave this way. I am a Christian who doesn't behave this way. I'm not implying that all Christians are mean, rude, and bigoted. But everyone will recognize someone like this...and it's usually the person telling you all the time how religious they are.