The Almighty Church of Fuck Y'all

My buddy Virgil is starting a new religion and it only costs five bucks

Everybody here knows that one thing I truly love is assembling Frankenstein-like creations of dead animals I’ve found and dead animals I’ve killed. It’s my one true passion. If you’ve ever seen one of my ramunkasuses, you’ll know what I’m talking about. (If you haven’t seen one, this is a raccoon with the tiny head of a chipmunk and wings.)

Now I’m no taxidermist so I have my local guy, Virgil, do the work. It’s very difficult to get the head placement to look natural given the large variation in size between a chipmunk and a raccoon. Virgil, you might say, is a true artist. Well, now the Supreme Court has ruled that Virgil is within his rights to refuse me service based on his religious beliefs. Frankly, that had me a little worried.

I’ll be honest: until yesterday, I didn’t know Virgil’s godly inclinations. It’s not a subject we’ve discussed in the past although I have heard him utter such theistic incantations as “God DAMN it!” when messing up a delicate procedure in his work, such as putting a left paw where a right one ought to be. Not a common error for a man of Virgil’s skill but Virgil is also a drunk so these problems do occasionally pop up.

Just to be on the safe side, I thought I’d visit Virgil’s little taxidermy outpost and ask him if we were going to have any future problems on account of my Judaism and general propensity for anti-papist tendencies.

No, he said. He didn’t have any beef with the Jews or the gays or the anti-papists or anything of the sort. But Virgil said he didn’t truck with these Christian extremists who would set our nation back a century or two. I said that was more of a philosophical beef than one formed from any religious text of which I was aware; the Supreme Court was crystal clear that his right to discriminate was to be based solely on sincerely held religious beliefs.

Some of Virgil’s more traditional creations

Old Virgil told me he was deadly sincere. So sincere, in fact, that he was in the midst of creating his own religion called The Almighty Church Of Fuck Y’all whose only rules for entering Everlasting Paradise (Rated R) were “Don’t be a dick” and “Stay ye the fuck outta other people’s bedrooms!”

I told him those sounded like pretty good rules to me but I wasn’t sure if it qualified as an actual religion.

“Why the hell not?” he said. What’s the difference rules and religion?

“God?” I said, but it was more of a question than a statement because when I thought about his question, I wasn’t exactly sure.

“Mine’s got a god. A good one, too. My god gives out free concert tickets if you wish on ‘em hard enough.”

“Does your god have a name yet?”

“Still working on it,” he told me, “But I’m thinking something like ‘Divine Mischief.’”

“Sounds like a drag name.”

“Well good because my god is a drag queen. The One and Eternal Drag Queen. They swing pretty hard both directions, too.”

“Your god is a ‘they’”?

“Course They are. Whoever heard of a god with a cock or a puss? Doesn’t make no sense.”

I had to hand it to Virgil. The Almighty Church of Fuck Y’all held a lot of appeal for a fellow like me: not a lot to read, free concert tickets, an afterlife where people party, and a god with sass. I told him to sign me up. He said he’d be happy to and put out his hand. “Five dollars, please.”

“Your church makes money?”

“Every religion makes money,” he said. “It’s the greatest business Divine Mischief ever invented.”

Couldn’t really argue with that, could I? I handed him a fiver.

“You said that you don’t truck with Christian extremists. Does that mean you won’t do business with them?”

“No I will not. And thanks to the Supreme Court of these here United States I no longer have to.”

“I suppose they can just go to another taxidermist,” I said.

“No other taxidermist around,” he replied, “Unless you count Leroy over on Chestnut as a taxidermist, which I do not. He is a hobbyist at best and his work is slipshod.”

Now I like Leroy but Virgil was right. The man could whistle a pretty tune but his stuffing skills are substandard and his mounting skills no better.

“Well, how’re you gonna know who’s a regular Christian and who’s one of those extremist types?”

“That’s a problem,” he admitted, “Divine Mischief is a good god, but They can be mighty vengeful and I don’t want to get on Their south side, if you know what I mean. So what I’ve decided is, I’m going to take a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach to the whole affair. If you walk into my little taxidermy shoppe (he pronounced it shop-ee) wearing a cross around your neck or if you’ve got one of those fishes on the back of your car or if your sweater is a little too modest around the neckline, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

“Sounds pretty harsh,” I said.

“Well I’m not taking any chances with my eternal soul,” which ended our conversation on the matter.

Most people would dismiss Virgil as a kook, but I’m not one of those people. He’s a charismatic gentleman with a lot of friends and if I knew Virgil he wasn’t going to stop with his one little shoppe. Chances were pretty good he was going to pay a trip to The Cake-n-Bake, the haircutter Brittany Shears, and as many “expressive” businesses as he could find to encourage them to do the same as him. Maybe some would, maybe some would not, but like I said he’s got a lot of friends and a way of spreading his gospel. Most of those folks would probably wind up handing over their five bucks just the same way as I did. Virgil would get himself a tax-exempt status and set up church right there in the back of Virgil’s Stuffed Crust Taxidermological Emporium.

There was going to be a new church in town and if you were one of those folks breaking one of Their commandments, you were going to have a problem.