Hurricane Gustav: Is "God" punishing Southern Decadence or the Republican National Convention?

Watching the Republicans scramble over the weekend to figure out how to handle Hurricane Gustav's Louisiana landfall (which canceled New Orlean's Southern Decadence party) was certainly ironic, no? (With some Republican operatives actually viewing this disaster as an "opportunity" for John McCain, who reportedly considered delivering his acceptance speech from the disaster area. Classy....) After all, it was just last week on James Dobson's Focus on the Family website that one of his minions posted a video urging all "Christians" to pray for a biblical deluge to drench Obama's acceptance speech in Denver last week.

This is hardly a first for these "Christians" of course. It was McCain supporter John Hagee who said Katrina was "the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans," which was way too tolerant of us 'mos. And we all remember how, according to Jerry Falwell, God lifted his veil of protection over the United States during 9/11 because of "the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays." And Pat Robertson once warned Orlando would suffer "earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor" because the city allowed a few gay-pride flags to fly.

Oy double vey, right? So while I would never take joy in a national disaster or believe it was sent by God to punish anyone (or view it as photo op for my campaign), I certainly hope the irony of Gustav washing out Day 1 of the Republican's convention (not to mention dredging up memories of George Bush's disastrous handling of Katrina) will cause a few of those attending McCain's annointment to actually stop and think about the horribly offensive and outrageous things some of their brethren say about their fellow human beings.

After all, if God really is sending a message via the weather it certainly doesn't seem to be intended for Obama.