Not long ago, Hannah Gastonguay and her husband Sean concluded, for no rational reason, that the government was interfering too much in their religious life.

They didn’t want to pay “taxes that pay for abortions we don’t agree with”… which doesn’t actually happen, unless you’re deluded enough to think that contraception amounts to infanticide.

They also didn’t believe in “homosexuality… in the state-controlled church,” a statement that makes no sense no matter how you slice it, since homosexuals exist whether you want them to or not, and no church in the country has been forced to welcome them or honor their relationships. Also: state-controlled church? Who knew.

So, a few months ago, the Gastonguays decided to make a break for it. They scooped up their kids, Rahab and Ardith, along with Sean’s father, and they set sail — literally — from San Diego to go to the island of Kiribati:

Hannah [said] that she and her husband “decided to take a leap of faith and see where God led us”…

Oh, this should be good…

… just weeks into their journey, the Gastonguays hit a series of storms that damaged their small boat, leaving them adrift for weeks, unable to make progress…

Psst… I think God’s sending you a sign!

It took 91 days before they hit land again.

The good news is that the kids appear to be safe. The family says they will now return to Arizona to “come up with a new plan.”

*sigh*

I hope it involves a moratorium on watching FOX News and getting a real education about the intersection of church and state in our country.

If anything, the government is too cozy with churches, giving them tax breaks without requiring accountability, bending over backwards to accommodate their beliefs when it comes to policy decisions, and having an official Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships. But, you know, silly me pointing to facts, right?

Here’s the kicker: The place where the Gastonguays were trying to go to, Kiribati, is a country where the President wants residents to leave because climate change will soon make the island uninhabitable:

[President] Anote Tong was reelected comfortably in 2007 and the next year began to write off his country’s future because of the effects of a warming global climate on sea levels. He began pushing a policy of mass migration from Kiribati and called for other nations to open their borders to people fleeing the country…

No word on whether the Gastonguays accept climate change or if they believe global warming is “just God hugging us closer.”

(Thanks to Lauren for the link)



