December 18, 2006

Top Ten Signs that Your Gay-Hating Has Gone Too Far

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Number 4 (leaving the top three spots for violent crimes): You join a church under the leadership of a Nigerian man who believes gays shouldn’t be allowed to meet in public and should face jail time for their private encounters.

That is what two Virginia Anglican congregations did this weekend when they seceded from the Episcopal Church, establishing themselves as a jerry-rigged Virginia branch of the African Anglican Communion under the leadership of Archbishop Peter Akinola. The churches’ votes were a reaction to Episcopalians’ growing acceptance of homosexuality, which culminated in the 2003 election of an openly gay man, Gene Robinson, as bishop. (Check out what Diane wrote yesterday for more details.)

Did I mention that the two historic Virginia churches are heavily attended by the D.C. elite? True patriots, the lot of them. Perhaps they could catch a ship in their local Dubai-owned port and head for Nigeria.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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