Katy Perry hasn’t always been the girl-and-vintage-loving vixen we’ve come to know.  At one time, this over-exposed (admit it, she’s everywhere) poptart went around calling herself Katy Hudson and singing Ani DiFranco-ish songs about God and religion.

When the God Rocker thing didn’t work out, Katy decided to go in a completely different direction.  Her pseudo-lesbian song, combined with lots of boob shots, has put Katy Perry on the cover of Blender magazine as well as on the pages of gossip blogs everywhere.

So what are we to learn from this transformation?  Boobs trump God?  Image is everything?  A catchy beat can make you a star?

One thing we do know is that no matter how much Perry wears them, high waisted booty shorts are never finding a place in our wardrobe.

After growing up in a world where sins absolutely meant Hell and Jesus absolutely meant Heaven, I never want to use the word absolute again. Except to say that I was absolutely mistaken.

I was raised to believe that there was a god, one god, and that Jesus Christ was his son. I accepted him into my ‘heart’ and was baptized at an early age. Then I was taught that anyone who didn’t move forward with those two procedures was going to go to Hell; even if they were a good person. Oh, Hell. The fiery pit where bad people burn with the devil.

I once believed this place was real and I could quote scriptures from The Bible as my own little way of reassuring myself that I wasn’t gonna be one of those bad people going to that bad place. I prayed when things weren’t going my way and I prayed when things were going my way. Come to think of it, I spent more time chatting it up with God when I was young than I did my friends.

I knew nothing about earning money, but I knew you were a selfish person if you didn’t give at least 10% of your income to God and your church. I knew that Halloween was for Satan and witches, that Jewish people believed in the same God that I did but were still going to Hell, and that Pulp Fiction was a very, VERY demonic movie that I was never allowed to see.

When I entered adolescence, I started to embrace my Christianity in new ways. I listened to rock bands who screamed lyrics you couldn’t understand…but they were Christian, so it was okay. I wore punky clothes and was straight edge. A straight edge jerk, judging everyone I knew who did drugs or drank or — god forbid — had sex. Read More »