Let’s All Boycott Cafepress

You know, coming on the 46th anniversary of the murder of an American president, John F. Kennedy, I find it particularly disturbing that I read today that a new rightwing witticism has made an appearance on the streets of America. A witticism that is being hawked at Cafepress no less.

Someone on the right, someone who peruses his or her Holy Bible, has come up with a new bumper sticker. Or at Cafépress you can get the message on a T-shirt or a coffee mug. 197 products in all. The witticism reads:

So all you have to do is go and look at the psalm in question and read it:

“May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership”

Now taken by itself it is a fairly non-threatening passage. Even the American Civil Liberties Union has not labeled this as hate speech.

From ABC News:

“Still, that doesn't push the Psalms citation into the realm of hate speech, says Chris Hansen, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The use of Psalm 109:8 is ambiguous as to whether its users are calling for the president to serve ‘only one term, or less than one term,’ he says.”

But that is simply because Hansen fails to read on. What starts as a fervent hope for a Republican victory in 2012 quickly turns more sinister and some would say treasonous:

Psalm 109:9-10

May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow.
May his children be wandering beggars; may they be driven from their ruined homes.

Not so funny now, is it? Now we know what is meant by his days being few, don’t we?

And Cafepress is making money promoting this, although I now see that someone has apparently hacked the page and has injected an anti-hate message, to wit:

“No real Christian, certainly no real American would ever pray for the First Lady to become a widow or her children to be left fatherless. Stop the hate.”

Nevertheless, Cafepress needs to know that its business decision to include rightwing hate speech on its website is a poor one.

Let’s all boycott Cafepress.