Photos by discarted

Why is that when people believe in such things as ghosts, UFOs, chemtrails, or question what we’ve been told about 9/11 those people are labeled kooks, nut jobs, or worse — conspiracy theorists?

However, all of the Jesus believers preaching on street corners, television shows, and radio programs who believe that there’s a gaunt, bearded man up in the sky who rose from the dead, walked on water, fed thousands with five loaves of bread, and is now looking down on us, JUDGING us … get a free ride. And more importantly, these views are shared and accepted by billions.

They can go on and on and on, proselytizing their beliefs but are rarely questioned or ridiculed for espousing such an imaginative idea, which nonetheless, cannot be substantiated at all. They can even get out of paying taxes for organizing this radical concept into a structured religion. It boggles the mind to know that a government system would not only grant this exemption but promote it. Does this mean I can round up a bunch of Big Foot believers, call ourselves the Fundamentalist Church of the Northern Sasquatch and be granted tax exemption status? Thus, finally being recognized, via the symbolic message of tax exemption, as an acceptable way of thinking. Probably not.

Moreover, as soon as someone gets on the airwaves with less than mainstream beliefs, such as radio host Art Bell, they are relegated to the wee hours of the morning and questioned, ridiculed and dismissed by society. And this is the same society and government that grants religious status to Scientology — which is based on aliens mind you, as if that premise isn’t ludicrous or out of the mainstream. 

In the end, I understand we all will have opposing viewpoints and beliefs or follow some sort of faith or moral compass that some find objectionable. And that is why the First Amendment exists: to protect our right to free speech and for us photographers the right to bare cameras in public and to take pictures of Jesus Freaks.

All I know though is that my main man Hay-Zeus, be it on a street corner, the radio, or television, is being shoved down my throat more often than food these days. And I shouldn’t be made to feel bad, or be told, “That’s sad”, by someone because I “don’t fuck with the Jesus.”