The Church of Euthanasia

Heaven's Gate Sermon

The following sermon was given during a ceremony in honor of Heaven's Gate. At the conclusion of the ceremony, 39 worms were released from film containers, and 16 grapes were crushed and eaten--two apiece for the eight male members who castrated themselves. Like the Heaven's Gate members, worms are asexual, and the reference to "shedding their containers" is obvious, but the deeper significance is that humans are no more--and probably less--important than worms in the planetary ecosystem.

We're gathered here today to honor the 39 members of Heaven's Gate who killed themselves. But before we can do that, we have to know why we're honoring them, and before we can know that, we need to see their actions from the correct perspective.

What is a Euthanasian perspective, anyway? What is the Church of Euthanasia all about? The Church of Euthanasia is about restoring balance, between humans--of which there are more and more--and the remaining species--of which there are less and less. Every day, a quarter of million more humans. Every hour, one less species. Every eight minutes, an acre less trees in the United States.

How are we going to restore balance? Through voluntary population reduction. That's why the Church of Euthanasia's one and only commandment is (all together now) thou shalt not procreate. That's why every one of our members takes a lifetime vow to not procreate. It's the most important decision you can make, because it affects the future. You can't control how many children your children will have, or how many resources they'll consume.

What else do we stand for? The Four Pillars (let's hear them): Suicide, Abortion, Cannibalism, and Sodomy. Suicide is clearly the most relevant pillar today.

If nothing else, the Church of Euthanasia absolutely stands for the right of every individual to choose the time and place of their death. Euthanasia literally means good death in ancient Greek, and the Hippocratic oath binds all doctors to provide good death, just as much as good life. How many doctors today will even admit this, let alone provide it? That's why Dr. Kevorkian's portrait is hanging here today: to remind us of his monumental bravery.

The Church of Euthanasia is not pro-choice, we're pro-abortion. There's a big difference. It's every woman's sacred right. The question isn't why isn't it legal, the question is why isn't it free, in every state, in every nation, on every planet.

Humans have already wiped out more than a third of the species on Earth, and more than a third of the human population goes to bed hungry every night. If you're still eating flesh, it had better be human flesh.

Sodomy is also very relevant today. What is sodomy, anyway? Anal sex? Wrong! Sodomy is a legal term for unnatural sex. How can sex be unnatural? It's unnatural if it's not intended for procreation. In many states you can still be arrested for oral sodomy. Bestiality is a form of sodomy. Even masturbation could be considered sodomy, because sodomy is all about eugenics. The founding fathers' primary concern was expanding the white race, so they could kill more Indians. If men were spilling their seed instead of impregnating women, that was bad. If women were having sex with each other, or with animals (same thing), the white race wasn't expanding and that was very bad.

The Church of Euthanasia stands for the exact opposite: sex is good. Sex for pleasure. Recreation not procreation. Spill that seed. Aim for the chin. Teach masturbation.

Now let's take a look at what Heaven's Gate stood for. I didn't know any Heaven's Gate members personally, but I've read their material, and in my opinion Heaven's Gate mostly stood for escapism. Mr. Applegate surrounded himself with people who didn't like life very much. They couldn't articulate it, but they wanted out, and he gave them an out. He said don't worry about being unhappy and unfulfilled in this life, because if you follow me, the next one's going to be better. That should sound familiar, because that's Christian ideology. He taught them to suppress their desires, and that's very Christian too: denial of the body. The body smells and gets hungry and pees and poops and has sexual urges. Eventually it gets old and dies. Bad, bad, bad.

What did these people do with their lives? They prepared for death. They hid in their giant house, controlling their computers, controlling their animal natures. Eight of the men castrated themselves, not because they wanted to avoid procreation, but so they wouldn't be tempted to have sex. These people were afraid to live, and afraid to die, and in the end they died believing they were going to wake up on an alien spaceship. They could have been saints, all 39 of them, if they'd just left a note mentioning the Church of Euthanasia. Hell, we probably would have settled for a link to our web site, but no, they had to hog all the media glory for themselves. What a waste of good death!

So why are we honoring them? What are we doing here? We're honoring Heaven's Gate because they stood up for the right to choose the time and place of your death, even though they did it for the wrong reasons. We're honoring them because they stood up for the right to not procreate, even though they did it the hard way, and for the wrong reasons.

Everyone's been criticizing Heaven's Gate, especially in the media. It's about time someone gave them some credit for doing the right thing, even if they were wackos, because they not only stood up for non-procreation and the right to die, they also took their Christian-inspired anti-pleasure ideology with them, and we should be thankful for that too. So with all that in mind, with gratitude, and a sense of honor, let us pray.

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