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Last Christmas. Hate it so much.

Also Independence Day by Martina McBride, but my reason for hating it is silly.

Honestly the song, about a woman escaping domestic violence, is fine. But there is a line that frustrates me.

The chorus goes like this:

“Let freedom ring
Let the white doves sing
Let the whole world know that today is a day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong
Let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay,
It’s Independence Day!”

This got used by Rush Limbaugh for his awful radio show. And that penultimate line infuriates me, because it illustrates how evangelicals do not understand their own religion, which has led to them embracing vengeance, power, and fascism. (Not that the song led them to that, it’s a symptom.)

The stone rolling away, referring to Jesus’s resurrection, is very clearly described in the Bible as the sign that sins are forgiven. That’s the whole point of the religion, that everyone is a sinner and in need of a savior. The stone rolling away means the guilty don’t pay.

But evangelicals have twisted their religion so much they think the important part is about punishing those who don’t follow their rules. It’s about worshipping power. So the stone rolling away means Jesus is about to kick some guilty ass or some nonsense.

Additionally, because irony is dead, I wouldn’t be surprised at all to find domestic abusers belting that refrain at the top of their lungs, not knowing what the song is about, because of Rush fucking Limbaugh.