It seems some days as if there is a secret, Rat Race-style contest in Congress to see who can be the biggest idiot of all elected representatives.
On Sunday, Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri gave his colleagues a run for their money when he concluded the first daily congressional prayer of the new session with the words “amen and awoman.”
“May the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us and give us peace,” said the congressman during his two-minute invocation, “peace in our families, peace across this land, and dare I ask, oh Lord, peace even in this chamber.”
Cleaver added, “We ask it in the name of the monotheistic God, Brahma, and ‘God’ known by many names by many different faiths. Amen and awoman.”
Help, I have rolled my eyes so hard I am now blind.
The Cleaver incident comes not long after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi introduced a new rules package that includes a proposal to “honor all gender identities” by eliminating gender-specific references, including father, mother, son, daughter, brother, sister, uncle, aunt, first cousin, nephew, niece, husband, wife, seaman, and chairman. The new rules also include a proposal to establish an Office of Diversity and Inclusion for Congress’s lower chamber.
“I was honored to deliver the opening prayer for the 117th Congress,” Cleaver said this weekend following his prayer theatrics. “May God bless each and every representative with the courage and wisdom to defend our democracy and the liberties we all hold so dearly.”
The problem with the congressman’s invocation, aside from it being actually as patronizing of women as Democrats wrongly alleged of Sen. Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential election, is that it is just so damn ignorant.
For starters, the word “amen,” which originated in the Hebrew Scriptures and means “so be it,” is not gendered. It needs no gender-specific amending.
Second, putting aside the idiocy of gendering a nongendered word, Cleaver should have said “awomen,” not “awoman.” He should have made his take on “amen” plural to keep in line with his too-cute spin on the original word, but he didn’t because the only thought he likely put into any of his stunt was whether it would please “woke” sensibilities.
The icing on this stupid story is that Cleaver, of all people, should know better than to think the word “amen” is gendered. He is, after all, an ordained United Methodist pastor. Man, we really aren’t sending our best to Congress, are we?
Anyway, you may laugh at the congressman’s insipidness, but mark my words: In a few years, you’ll see “awoman” listed as an entry in the same dictionaries that have played along these past few years with the “Latinx” silliness.
