THE LAST REMAINING SIN
More dirt on the religious right...
As the "religious right" rolls over the Constitution, powered by the Neo-Conservative movement, the anomalies are startling. While their rampaging campaigns for prayer in the public schools and a Ten Commandments monument on every lawn are in high gear, one cannot help noticing how little attention is being paid to abiding by most of them.
While those of us who are not in the movement would heartily approve that signs saying, "Thou shalt not steal" should be hung in every board room and in the offices of every public official and we heartily approve of "Thou shalt not bear false witness" in the Presidential and campaign speeches, these are not the Commandments which they choose to stress. "Thou shalt not covet" appears to have become irrelevant to modern "Christians" as they amass power and wealth. "Honor thy father and mother" only applies if your parents are evangelical and their politics lean to the Republican side. And, "Thou shalt not kill", appears to depend on who is doing the killing and who the target is.
No, there is only one sin that is the target of their fire. When you dig through the commandments to find just one that makes the super-Christiuans wax eloquent, there is one that really trips their trigger, "Thou shalt not commit adultery". This one, too, is rather subjective, applying to some but not to others. However, it certainly receives more attention than the rest. Perhaps it is because the very mention of the subject makes the sheeple gasp in horror but it is not a forbidden topic of conversation. As a matter of fact, the drool absolutely drips from the President's fangs as he tosses in references to Saddam's "rape rooms" at every opportunity.
The salacious story of the behavior of Bill Clinton and "that woman" kept the right-wing so tittilated that it was rigged out like a steam engine to power the cultural revolution of the religious right. Soon it was proliferated to include abortion as a sin that we are told is running rampant in our nation despite the fact that statistics prove that teen-age pregnancy actually decreased during the 'nineties. Venereal disease was resurrected as a bogey man at the same time there was a campain launched to prevent young people from information about the prophylactic advantages of condoms. "Abstinence-only sex education" was promoted as a panacea for our social ills, though it soon became apparent that sexually-transmitted diseases were being transferred by mouth as our youngsters found other means to satisfy their growing sexual urges.
While the Republicans were holding prayer meetings and marching in the streets in opposition to the very idea that gays and lesbians would want to marry and form stable family unions, somebody noticed the "journalist" who always sat in on the White House press conferences and began to question his identity. Now, this man kept asking softball questions which demonstrated his own biases in favor of the administration and it was more than a little embarassing when he was exposed as a man who had advertised his "wares" on the internet, soliciting gay sex. Didn't mean a thing. Move on. The news media is chock full of terrible stories of rape, murder, and extra-marital sex to be lamented and derogated by the religious right while the corruption in government and major corporations is swept under the rug.
As for Saddam's "rape rooms", it is a bit embarassing to learn that the same thing is happening in the same prisons now, except the raping is being done by the flowers of American manhood. However, in this case it is merely "an aberration by a few minor players who will be punished". Not a problem. We're pure and the others are the bad guys. God is on our side and we will prevail!
While the right wing activists are touting the benefits of hauling huge pieces of carved stone into every public arena in the country to declare their Christian faith to all, it might just be a good idea if they would stop to read it and, in the process, to use it to measure their own behavior. They may be shocked to find that it includes other, and possibly more important, though less exciting, sins than the sex lives of other people.
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Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan who is self-employed and active in the political arena. Her concerns are her four-generation family and the continuance of the United States as a democracy with a government "of the people, by the people, and for the people". Comments and criticism may be addressed to mpitt@cox.net.
