Moral crusaders, why stop at Hooters?

Moral

crusaders, why stop at Hooters?

In their long

crusade against trite villains everywhere, religious

extremists have now turned on the Hooters Restaurant and

its plan to open up shop right here in Fayette County.

Holding a 30-minute prayer vigil outside of a recent city

council meeting, churchgoers prayed against the moral

tyrant of attractive women, orange shorts, and hot wings.

Perhaps the question isn't

why the moral crusaders have aimed their dogmatic barrels

at Hooters, but why they have stopped there.

Why not hold a prayer vigil

outside of Barnes and Noble, where one can buy anything

from Anton LeVay's "Satanic Verses" to the

latest CD promoting themes such as genocide to rape? Or

perhaps we ought to ban Blockbuster Video. After all,

they rent homicidal games such as Perfect Dark and

Resident Evil. Well, these extremists just may if they

have their way.

You won't find prayer

vigils outside of any bookstore, video store, movie

theater, or anywhere but a meeting concerning a new

Hooters. Why? Because we all know that in the world of

catch-phrase dogma, satanic texts and homicidal fun-time

don't hold a proverbial candle to the godless idea of

short shorts.

Like a bad sequel to

Footloose, these crusaders without a cause have let go of

their modern villains like Teletubbies and Harry Potter

to burn Hooters at the stake. In the Falwellian tradition

of ignoring real world problems, like poverty, hunger,

and other Christ-like agendas, the religious right seems

to be stubbornly committed to creating friendly, kinder

villains. Yet the scary truth in all of this isn't the

extremity of these modern crusaders' villains, but the

deep-seeded agenda it reveals.

Hooters is simply a

continuation of religious extremists' long battle to take

choice away from Fayette residents. What they call

"protecting Fayette's morality" is in reality

promoting their morality upon Fayette. To say that a

Hooters restaurant in Fayette County would pave the way

for strip bars and pornography is a gross overreaction.

This campaign isn't about

protecting you, it's about taking away your choice.

They've already taken away your choice to order a certain

types of alcohol at your favorite restaurant, and now

they want to take away your choice to eat at Hooters. If

they had their way, we would all live in a theocratic

community where you wouldn't have to choose much at all.

Fayette County residents do

not need a parental watchdog protecting them from the

"evils" of attractive women and orange shorts.

We do not need a reactionary minority dictating what

businesses can and cannot enter the community. We do not

need an extremist few to give a bad name to the local

church community (many of which actually address

real-world problems and solutions).

Yet frighteningly, this may

prove to be a stepping-stone in an agenda of social and

moral dictation which will span far beyond shorts and hot

wings.

Chris Armstrong

Peachtree City

Fayetteville