10/31/05 The Death Of Halloween

It kind of sucked that Halloween fell on a Monday this year. For me, it kind of wrecks the festivities a little. A lot of people did stuff on the weekend, but for me it's the day of or no dice. To me Halloween is not just a reason to get dressed up in a costume and get hammered. (Although that part is fun too…)

For me Halloween is a celebration of our more basic fears. It's a wonderful time to drag out all the things that go bump in the night. What better way to face your fears than to dress like the very thing that puts a lump in your throat? It's the celebration of that suspicious shadow, or creaking noise. It's a time to embrace and embody the things that scare the shit out of you the most. Bring on the Zombies, Vampires, Witches and fucked up Clowns.

Halloween gets a bit of a raw deal these days. People have gotten so worked up over urban legends about razor blades and syringes that fun has been completely beaten out of it. (According to Cecil Adams from The Straight Dope, there has never been an actual recorded case of harmful devices in Halloween candy… Not a single one… But once again paranoia prevails…)

But there is something lurking in the shadows that is even more destructive to Halloween. Those nutty Fundamentalist Christians have branded Halloween as a satanic ritual, and vehemently suggest that celebrating it should be seen as a sinful and immoral act. (Never mind that a lot of Christian ritual came from pagan belief systems… or that the very next day in the calendar is called “All Saints Day” Geesh… You'd figure they get enough celebrations that they much just want to fuck off on this one.)

Worse still they have taken the concept of Horror (and or Haunted…) Houses and turned them into something truly hateful. The Christian Horror House, or more correctly Hell House, uses prejudice and mistruths to create fear. This list shows the common elements of Hell Houses.

This is the most common component by far, an over the top reenactment of the murder of Cassie Bernall, a teenage victim from Columbine High School. As the urban legend goes, she was asked whether she believed in God, answered yes, and was murdered for it. (For the record, this is completely fabricated. Cassie was killed there, but according to eyewitnesses, she didn't say anything nor was asked anything. Nope… Not a peep in fact. Not only does it dishonor the people who died and suffered at Columbine, but it's also really tasteless…)

Another biggie in the Hell House is satanic human sacrifice. (Hmmm that happens all the time. I can't go anywhere without the fear of being kidnapped and offered up to old Scratch and his minions… Bloody Satanists… Seriously… It must be like once a week at least… Gotta beat them back with a stick… I mean really…)

Next in the tour… The abortion clinic. This one comes complete with screaming, and lots and lots of blood. (Again with the tacky…) I'm not going to get into detail with this one. Let's just say it's barely a step above having a guy in a back alley with a coat hanger. (Propping up ones beliefs is one thing… Turning into the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is quite another…)

But lets not forget Gays and Lesbians. They usually get roasted in hell. Or there's a coffin that has AIDS written on it while demons dance around it… or some other such nonsense. (It's like theatre for literal thinkers… How sad…) they make sure to use lots and lots of taunting demons add that little extra so as to really drive the point home. (Ever read one of those Jack Chick bible tract comic thingies? Same shit… only live action… Fuck you Spidey.)

But straight people get a good whacking too. Enter the personal tragedies of pre marital sex; add some clumsy adulterous seduction scene… oh and add the evils of other religions too… oooh and the occult... (like worshipping someone who rose from the dead, and stis at the right hand of his invisible father... I'm not trying to be hateful here, nor am I dismissing faith...I just wanna point out some similarities...)

Oh the humanity… I just love the irony of condemning a sinful practice by using another. Bigotry. How sad we've become. Instead of turning the other cheek, or just plain letting go of our hatred, we focus it like a laser on others. If we can't understand, we destroy it. We always fear the things we don't understand.

Hence the destruction of Halloween, and for what it's worth, I think that fundamentalists need Halloween more than the rest of us do. I reccomend that next year, you crazy fundies dress up for Halloween like a Satanic Lesbian on her way to an abortion clinic. Maybe you'll finally get it.

Trick or Treat…


p.s. Just for fun, if you click on the title of this post, it will take to you to a great spoof page about Hell Houses.