By Mike Appleton, Weekend Contributor
“All governments are theocracies. We now live in a secular humanist theocracy. I want to change that to a government with God at its head.”
-Gary DeMar (quoted in John Sugg, “A Nation Under God,” Mother Jones (December, 2005)
When I started first grade in 1951, each school day began with the Pledge of Allegiance. We recited “one nation, indivisible,” because people understood that fidelity to one’s country is not a religious virtue. The National Prayer Breakfast was not on anyone’s calendar because it didn’t exist. Politicians felt no compulsion to invoke God’s blessings on the United States at the conclusion of every speech. Protestants opposed every effort to secure public funding of Catholic parochial schools in order to preserve the “wall of separation” between church and state. The corner grocer didn’t care whether a customer was gay or had been born again. Textbooks were not reviewed by religious committees for conformity with the King James Version. No serious person had yet suggested that insentient, artificial commercial entities could magically channel the religious beliefs of their shareholders. And no one complained that a war was being waged against religion.
But following some of the events at this year’s Values Voter Summit, I have become nostalgic for 1951.
The Summit is the premiere annual political event for conservative Christian evangelicals, and making an appearance has become almost a required pilgrimage for Republican presidential candidates who desire the support of the religious right base of the party. Those in attendance this year heard many of the usual rants against same-sex marriage, abortion and the contraception mandate in the Affordable Care Act. However, those concerns did not top the priority list. Instead, a 39% plurality of those polled at the conference believe that the most important issue facing the country today is religious liberty.
So how is this possible? The past 30 years have seen an explosion in government support of religion. Millions of dollars in public funds are provided to a variety of so-called “faith-based” programs. Taxpayers support charter schools with decidedly sectarian curricula all across the country. A number of states provide tax credits to enable parents to send their children to religious schools. Religious institutions and, after Hobby Lobby, for-profit businesses as well, have been granted exemptions from compliance with portions of the ACA. This is in addition to the exemptions from anti-discrimination legislation which religious institutions already enjoy in their hiring and firing practices. Religious groups distribute bibles in public schools and operate after-school programs on school property to proselytize grammar school children. The Town of Greece decision now permits governments to schedule ceremonial prayer in accordance with local majoritarian religious preferences. Most rational people would agree that freedom of religion and religious expression are hardly at risk.
The comments of several of the event speakers may furnish us a clue. Kelly Shackelford of the Liberty Institute repeated the false story of the child disciplined for saying grace before eating her lunch. Michele Bachmann reminded the audience that the battle against Islamic terrorism is “spiritual warfare.” Gary Bauer accused President Obama of protecting Muslims while ignoring the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. Jason and David Benham, whose proposed television program on HGTV was cancelled after revelations of their virulently anti-gay activities, compared themselves to victims of ISIS, silenced for their Christian beliefs. And Sen. Ted Cruz, who for the second year in a row won the presidential straw poll, intoned “We need a president who will speak out for people of faith, for prisoners of conscience.” So for the attendees at the Values Voter Summit, there is indeed a war on Christianity. It is being waged by Muslims and by those who object to intolerance.
But the whole story is really darker. When members of the Christian right speak of freedom of religion, what they mean is freedom for a particular brand of conservative Christianity. Tony Perkins is the president of the Family Research Council, the principal sponsor of the annual Summit. He is neither a legal scholar nor a theologian, but that does not matter. In Mr. Perkins’ view, religious freedom does not apply to Islam. It also does not apply to Christians who support gay rights. In fact, religious liberty is reserved solely for those holding “orthodox religious viewpoints. It has to have a track record, it has to come forth from religious orthodoxy.” Mr. Perkins’ First Amendment does not compel government neutrality toward religion; it requires preferential treatment for those Christian sects whose doctrines adhere to Mr, Perkins’ notion of orthodoxy. He is a theocratic dominionist in religious liberty’s clothing.
And that, in a nutshell, is what the war on religion in America is all about. It is a war declared by Christian fundamentalists on all religious traditions deemed non-conforming. The goal is a society in which separation of church and state is eliminated and religious pluralism rejected as unbiblical. Ted Cruz is merely the latest last hope for the hapless.
Squeekers, yeah something smells fetish…or is that fetid?
@Annie
Before the days of “OCD”, they just called people who watched dirty movies all the time dirty old men. Plus, I think somebody is maybe confusing a fetish/i> with OCD.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
The Squeekster: “Before the days of “OCD”, they just called people who watched dirty movies all the time dirty old men.”
Because, as “everyone” knew back then, sex was dirty (and, apparently, still continues to be) and no self-respecting Christian/Jew/Muslim/Mormon would engage in it, much less watch it in a theater, on a screen at home with their ubiquitous 8mm projectors, or on home video.
What is the size of the porn industry anyway. I would guess when you consider all outlets it is one of the largest entertainment sources in this country if not the entire world.
It sure is weird the way people denigrate a wide spread community standard.
Unlike religion which many pay only lip service to, with porn people actually go out an put down their own hard earned money to enjoy it. And unlike many activities, people actually spend time doing it – in contrast to all those cameras, camping gear, fishing gear, chess sets that sit unused in the closet.
If there were not so much social opprobrium about sex in general, porn would probably be the single subject that unites us all, democrats and republicans, Christians, Jews and Muslims.
Isn’t is funny, the thing that unites us all is the thing that most will not dare mention.
bigfatmike asked: “What is the size of the porn industry anyway. I would guess when you consider all outlets it is one of the largest entertainment sources in this country if not the entire world.”
Last time I checked, which was before the recession, the gross receipts of the adult entertainment industry surpassed those of the NFL, major league baseball and the music industry combined. Sadly, it’s only a fraction of that now, what with piracy and free sites, and of course, “gross receipts” are a far cry from the net income the production companies receive from their products.
“Isn’t is funny, the thing that unites us all is the thing that most will not dare mention.”
As the intro to my forthcoming book will note, isn’t it amazing that the only reason human beings are on this planet is because of sex, and yet it’s one of the most repressed and defamed acts in American (if not world) culture today.
The REAL expert on the porn industry…. oh I am so chuckling, ‘schools’ the ‘porney’ among us …..hehe…chuckle.
Nick: The point of pointing out that “porn addiction” is actually OCD is so that anti-porn activists (who are often anti-sex as well) can’t use it as an excuse to attempt to outlaw porn from the stream of commerce, which they are hard at work attempting to do, claiming all sorts of “medical reasons” why it’s bad for you.
I always wanted to use Dirk Diggler as an alias when I was working undercover.
DBQ, Boogie Nights is in my top 50 favorite movies. Some GREAT performances. A courageous performance by Phillip Seymour Hoffmann. He was a fearless actor.
Mark, Obviously you have a problem w/ the stigma of the word “addiction” related to your livelihood. I agree it is mostly OCD related, as are many “addictions.” So, you have someone w/ OCD, who self medicates w/ opiates, cocaine, alcohol, and “addict.” OCD manifest itself in many ways, drugs, alcohol, hoarding, sex, counting, kleptomania, etc. They are all “addictions” in a person’s striving to cope w/ the anxiety of OCD. So, some of the addictions have specific names like hoarding, kleptomania, alcoholism etc. Others don’t so we call it sex addiction, drug addiction. Now, some drug addicts are not OCD. I’m certain there are sex addicts w/o OCD. But, what you and your industry need to do is come up w/ a word that supplants “sex addiction” Otherwise you are on a quixotic mission to explain the difference every time someone uses the term. I think “sex addiction” is so ingrained in the vernacular, you are SOL. Maybe you can get the PC Police on it. They work tirelessly trying to change what we say.
@Mark Kernes
Well, if you engage in excessive porn watching, it is probably a good thing if you also engage in excessive hand washing. But for those who may have a porn addiction, down there in their sunless little basements, here’s an Irish Poem!
Out Of Whack???
An Irish Poem by Squeeky Fromm
Oh, I’m not a porn addict, oh no!
I just can’t stop watching it though.
And MILF Fest 18
Is the best that I’ve seen. . .
Hey, what day is it??? Anyone know???
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
“Nowadays, only employees of Hobby Lobby and various religious institutions have to worry about that.”
Geez. This is such BS. People can buy birth control any time they want. It is cheap and available to anyone. Walmart sells it for less than a 12 pack of beer. If you want it for free or insist that other people have to pay for it, then get a different job. Stop whining and more importantly stop lying.
As to porn. I don’t care as long as all of the participants in the manufacture of the product are willing to perform. Adults. Not children. Not including unwilling animals. And everyone in full agreement to do whatever.
I’m no prude by any means. I’ve seen porn. Sometimes I am just jaw dropped amazed that somethings could even be considered physically possible much less pleasurable. But mostly I found the porn films basically stupid, really retarded and often times laugh out loud funny. Yes. I laughed out loud and really p.o.ed my ex husband. Really???? You think THIS is titillating or sexy. It was on the level of the three stooges get schtupped by roller girl from Boogie Nights (a very good film that I recommend watching). Or retarded sexy dental assistants in lust with random guys and including interesting chairs that can assume many positions. LOL and yawn.
Whatever floats your boat.
DBQ wrote: “People can buy birth control any time they want. It is cheap and available to anyone. Walmart sells it for less than a 12 pack of beer.”
Allow me to congratulate you for not being in a position where you have to choose between buying a month’s worth of birth control pills (which, if you don’t have insurance, costs far more than a 12-pack) and, for instance, eating dinner that night. And you may not have noticed that jobs that pay a living wage are not easy to get, so leaving one’s current job to search for one is ill-advised in the current economic climate.
And of course, you’re welcome to your own tastes (if any) in porn, but “Boogie Nights (a very good film that I recommend watching)” shouldn’t be one of them, at least not if you want to learn anything about the porn industry. It’s full of misinformation about porn, even in those outlaw days.
Oooooo, gotta run, 19 Kids and Counting is starting! Think they depended on porn to spice things up?
Annie wrote: “Oooooo, gotta run, 19 Kids and Counting is starting! Think they depended on porn to spice things up?”
My money’d be on lack of birth control, or possibly simple avoidance thereof, probably because of religious beliefs… which of course got me remembering Back In The Day when whether a kid resulted from all the sex a couple was having was almost completely dependent on chance. Nowadays, only employees of Hobby Lobby and various religious institutions have to worry about that.
MarkK, I’m agnostic about porn. 😉
Annie wrote: “MarkK, I’m agnostic about porn. ;)”
NOT GOOD ENOUGH, Annie! You’ve got to be a BELIEVER!!!
Squeekers,
It’s not YOU who has the “problem”.
Squeeky, Semantics. You have a problem w/ porn and cannabis and you use neither. You have eloquently and poetically expressed your problems w/ it. You are in the vast majority of women. I understand it. The movie Don Jon does make an interesting connection between men addicted to porn, and women addicted to vapid romantic comedies. The movie is uncomfortable, but so is the subject matter for most people.
Nick: Um, you DO know there’s no such thing as “porn addiction,” right? There IS such a thing as obsessive/compulsive disorder (OCD) that may manifest itself in excessive porn watching—or excessive hand-washing or excessive praying or excessive crack-avoidance-on-the-sidewalk, but the point is, it isn’t the *manifestation* of the obsession that’s the problem, it’s the underlying condition.
LOL. When I went to Colombia in 1987 to adopt our son I was solo and couldn’t afford to get sick. So, if I got a bottle of soda I would use a straw. Do you remember paper straws? Well in 1987 it was still paper straws in Colombia. Useless after one sip.
@NickS
I don’t have a problem with porn because I don’t watch the stuff. That’s like saying somebody who doesn’t snort coke, has a coke problem.
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Nick:
It’s not that I’m a paragon of virtue, but in that town, I don’t even want my beer opened before it’s served.
It’s not a movie most people “like” but it does speak to your problem w/ porn.
Squeeky, You might find the movie, Don Jon, to your liking.
MikeA, You’re one of a handful of guys I know who could say that and I believe him.
Squeeky, I got a call one time from a woman who wanted me to try and find her husband’s porn stash. This was before the internet. I turned her down and told her to assume he has one and that it’s quite normal. That’s not what she wanted to hear. But, at that point in my career I didn’t do domestic work, I hated it. These poor folks needed to spend their $’s on a counselor, not a PI trying to catch their husband/wife w/ porn or a mistress/stud.
Nick: Indeed; more people should just relax to the fact that one or the other partner may watch porn, and I know several couples who watched together and it gave them some ideas to try in bed that they hadn’t thought of before. That said, however, one shouldn’t EXPECT that one’s partner will be good with trying some of the stuff they do on camera, and indeed, some videos begin with a title card that says something like, “The sex acts in this movie were performed by professionals; don’t try them at home.” But people with REAL sexual problems in their relationship should consult a counselor, and I know several good ones here in California. In the meantime, maybe I’ll rent Don Jon from Netflix just to see what all the fuss was about.