You know, I was reading an opinion piece by a Catholic apologist the other day. He wanted people to understand that the Catholic Church, despite some people's resistance to its sexist and homophobic teachings, is important because of how much work it does for the poor and sick.

But that simply isn't true.

If you take a close look at Catholic Charities, an umbrella organization in the United States, you'll see that the vast majority of its funding comes from government sources. Very, very little of it comes from donations by Catholic Church congregants. Almost all of the money congregates contribute to the Church goes to pay the salaries and housing of the clergy, to maintain church buildings, and ... wait for it ... pay for the Church's political lobbying.

That lobbying includes working hard to outlaw abortion and to stymie queer equality. In one of the most heinous of Catholic political moves, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops lobbied for Congress not to pass the recent suicide prevention act, because it established a hotline that would include special services for suicidal queer people.

The Catholic Church lobbied hard so that we wouldn't receive those services when we're in mental health crises.

So much for charity, eh?

Catholic Charities are infamous for running foster care and adoptive services using government money, and then refusing to serve queer people.

It's not even their own money! It's taxpayer money!

And our Supreme Court told them they get to discriminate against us as they spend our money. (My own tax money goes to fund discrimination against me!)

In Colorado, Catholic Charities leaders are having a hissy fit because the State of Colorado is funding universal preschool while requiring preschools receiving Colorado taxpayer money to promise not to discriminate against certain groups, including us queer people.

Catholic Charities are suing. Because they're furious they can't exclude 4-year-old children with queer parents!.

That's charity? Seriously?

Evangelical Protestant churches are no better here. It's extraordinarily rare to find any denomination or even a congregation that spends a significant amount of their own money on actual charity.

Instead, they apply for government, taxpayer-sourced money, then lose their shit when contracts require them not to discriminate.

And what happens when they have a change of heart?

One of the largest private adoption agencies in the United States is based here in Michigan where I live. They're traditionally a Protestant Christian organization, and a couple years ago they announced that they could no longer in good conscience exclude queer parents from their services.

They announced that the teachings of Jesus preclude that.

The Christian world here in the United States had an absolute shit fit. Most of the agency's operating funds come from government contracts, but Christian churches all over urged their congregations to stop donating to the agency.

This is despite the fact that there's a crisis of availability for adoptions across the nation. Children languish in institutions and foster care because not enough people are willing to care for them.

So what do Evangelical Protestant Christians do in response to this crisis? They try to strangle funding for the largest private agency in the country.

Once upon a time, Catholic and Protestant Christians really did significantly contribute to charitable efforts.

Those days are long gone.

Almost one in five hospital beds in the United States is controlled by the Catholic Church. Yet the Catholic Church contributes almost no money to those hospitals.

Catholic hospitals are funded like any other hospitals: by private insurance companies and government entitlements like Medicare, Medicaid, and Veterans Administration payments.

So, sure people are fleeing the pews.

Evangelical Protestant churches want 10% of a congregant's income. They get pretty uptight about it.

But they're NOT spending it on charity. They're spending it on themselves, and they're spending it on political efforts to hurt people like me and those I love.

Most decent people recognize them as disgusting pieces of shit. And they don't want to be part of a shitpile like that.

I'm cheering on the emptying out of the pews and wishing for the more rapid destruction of Christianity. Because it's become so evil.

I do recognize and appreciate the tiny handful of progressive Christians who exist in my country. I applaud them for working so hard to change traditional Christianity's cruel theologies.

But whether they succeed in reconstructing the religion or not, the time has long since past for traditional Christianity to be relegated to the trash pile where it belongs.

Because traditional Christians are such evil, disgusting, vicious people. Their traditional religion is cruel and disgusting, just like they are.