The Tactful Christian Response to Homosexuality, Part II

I’ve said it before, it’s amusing when Christians try to use a reasonable explanation for designating homosexuality a sin.  Some are apparently not content with a simple “because the Bible says so.”  No, they try to use reason to justify their position – or perhaps justify God’s position and say, “See, He was right to proclaim homosexuality a sin!”

I recently read a blog that attempted to be more specific with the supposed causality links between homosexuality and social ills such as higher disease rates, more drug use, more domestic violence, etc.  Number one is the sodomy.  Anal sex puts the participants at a higher risk for infection than vaginal penetration, so this was cited as a reason for why homosexuality is immoral behavior.

Look at the argument this way: Anal sex is immoral because it’s high-risk.  Okay, fine.  But in this case, the immorality disappears if you eliminate (or at least significantly marginalize) the risk.  If the risk of disease is the problem, just get rid of that, and no more sin, right?

Good news for lesbians, then.  All you gay women out there – you’re okay in God’s book!  The same goes for gay men who prescreen each other for diseases before engaging in anal sex.  They’ve taken the risk out of the equation, haven’t they?  Wait a minute, this would also mean that the stars of gay male pornography aren’t sinning!  After all, they have rigorous health codes and check-ups for sexually transmitted diseases.

Additionally, there are plenty of staunchly straight women, even married moms, who engage in anal sex.  Even if the number of heterosexual women who have experimented with sodomy is as low as 5% (for example), we’re still talking about a few million women.  So the tally is this:  Studiously careful gay men, gay male pron stars, and lesbians are not sinning – but soccer moms who engage in anal sex with their husbands are.

As much fun as I’m having with this concept, I have to say that it’s beside the point.  Since when did risky personal behavior become a sin?  Is the amount of risk involved how God determines whether an act is a sin or not?  You know what’s really, reallyrisky?  Eating saturated fat.  Not exercising three times a week.  Driving while below the age of twenty-five.  Speeding.  Smoking.  These are all activities that put you at a huge amount of risk.  Certainly far more people die because of heart disease and auto crashes than because of STDs (contracted from anal sex or not).

So by this rationale – the same rationale that designates sodomy a sin – having butter with your dinner every evening should be a sin.  So should not doing twenty minutes of cardio, or applying for a driving license when you’re sixteen.  Have Christians now placed God in Big Brother’s shoes?  Is there a diet and workout plan hidden somewhere in biblical verse?

Excuse me if I chuckle at the idea of a God telling us that something is a sin because it might possibly be a little more risky than average, if you’re not careful.  God – and his followers – should stick to acts of victimization and stop nitpicking what people do with their private lives.

Obama and his Fear of Oil

Surprise, surprise: Obama is speaking against drilling for oil in the Gulf.  In typical Democrat fashion, he claims that it’s all a “scheme” by the oil companies.  They already have sixty million acres in which to drill, he says, and this is just their way of trying to get more land.  Never mind that the experts say there’s oil there – Obama says it’s an oil company “scheme,” so that’s that.  Maybe he should let us all in on the exact nature of this “scheme” and provide some proof for it, hmm?

Obama is trumpeting the groundless liberal cliche that corporations (especially Big Oil) are screwing Americans over just because they’re trying to make a profit, but the sad fact is that he’s playing off voters’ fears about it.  Obama says the Republicans try to get votes by scaring Americans with terrorism.  Well, the Democrats do the same thing, only they use irrational fears like big corporations and class warfare.  At least the Republican “fear” is reality.

Obama says off-shore drilling won’t solve the problem of high gas prices.  No argument there.  But no one’s claiming it will.  There’s no quick fix, but the fact that Obama and his intellectual peers seem to be forgetting is that off-shore drilling will make the problem better.  Increasing supply will bring the price down, period.  If Obama can’t understand that most basic of economic principles, what is he doing?  Even if drilling only helps a little bit, isn’t it worth it?  Isn’t it better than doing nothing at all?

And then we have the utterly fatuous argument that every Democrat (not just Obama) whips out these days: “Even if we start drilling today, we won’t see results for five to seven years.”

In what warped version of logic is that regarded as a rational point?  If it truly will take that long (and that’s debatable), then it’s an even better reason to start drilling right now!  If it’s going to take years, then why keep putting it off?  Honestly, where do the Democrats think the price of oil will be in five to seven years, if we follow their plan and do nothing to raise supply?  We’re in this mess now precisely because we folded to people like them five to seven years ago!

And besides, even if we allow that drilling won’t produce results for half a decade, what exactly is Obama’s plan to get quicker results?  Alternate energy?  Is he going to completely rebuild this country’s energy infrastructure and wean us off oil in less than five years?  Get real.

Alternate energy is great.  It’s the future.  It’s absolutely a worthy and important goal.  But since it’s not going to happen overnight, why don’t we focus on both alternate energy and oil?  Why not keep oil prices manageable while we make the transition to nuclear, solar, and wind?  We’re Americans – we’re quite capable of multitasking, Senator Obama.

What’s Wrong With the Culture, Part II

Lately I’ve been stuck on the idea that social conservatism is dying.  As someone who is very progressive socially, I think this is a good thing – at least as far as the issues are concerned.  For example, I think that in fifty years, almost all of us are going to look back and say, “What the hell was wrong with us, to think that we had a right to tell gay people they couldn’t get married?  How could we have been so stupid?”  (I’d like to think that we’ll say the same about the War on Drugs and turning women into criminals for prostitution, but I’m not holding my breath.)

I started my last post on this because Katy Perry’s song “I Kissed a Girl” was the number-one song in the country, and Bill O’Reilly did a segment about the permissiveness building in the culture.  Apparently “permissiveness” equals “immoral” to some conservatives.  Maybe I’m making too far a leap and sounding like a hippie here, but what exactly is so wrong about expressing one’s sexuality?  Social conservatives constantly demonize sex and sexuality except when it’s between a traditional heterosexual married couple.  I have no problem with the traditional heterosexual married couple, but it’s simply a fact that not everyone wants that.  And it’s also simply a fact that deviation from that conservative “norm” does not automatically infer immorality.

An extremely liberal guy like Obama is probably going to be the next president.  It would have been safer to bet on the proverbial snowball in Hell than on someone like Romni or Huckabee being elected.  Gay marriage is legal in Massachusetts and now in California.  San Francisco is possibly going to legalize prostitution.  Sex inundates the culture from top to bottom.  It’s no longer socially taboo to admit pornography and masturbation habits, or to smoke weed.  And as for Katy Perry’s song … young women today use their bisexual dalliances as a selling point to men.  On a dating show, I once heard a young woman’s mother bragging to her daughter’s potential boyfriend about her good qualities.  Guess what one of those good qualities was?  “You should pick my daughter because she’s made out with a girl before.”

Social conservatism is dying.  You don’t have to listen to me: You can hear it directly from the mouths of the social conservatives themselves.  I once even heard Bill O’Reilly compare America’s decadence to that of ancient Rome – and we all know what happened to Rome when it got too fat on itself.

But I don’t see the end of social conservatism as the end of – or even a weakening of – America.  I don’t necessarily view a pursuit of personal happiness, even if it’s hedonistic in nature, a bad thing for society.  If people are doing something that makes them happy and not harming anyone, how is it bad?  The only other requirement for a healthy society is that they are productive.  If college girls want to kiss their girlfriends for Joe Francis or Kallissa Miller, who cares?  They’re not being transformed into crack-addicted welfare-queens; they’re still going to school and getting degrees and contributing to society.  If men want to visit a brothel or spend two hours a day masturbating to Internet porn, so what?  As long as they’re otherwise being productive, why should it matter to the rest of us?

No one should be crying for social conservatism.  Here’s the crux:  It can’t seem to compete in the free market of ideas.  It has only itself to blame.  It pits itself against personal gratification, so it’s no surprise that it’s dying.  I’m not saying it’s a good thing to focus solely on personal gratification, but any ideology that’s consistently against it is doomed to wither.

Why the World Needs Ann Coulter

It’s not only annoying when people are hampered by political correctness; it’s downright dangerous.  By “hampered” I mean afraid to speak up and criticize bad behavior because it might get them labeled a bigot.  The prime example of this nowadays is the rank cowardice of people who won’t criticize fundamentalist Islam for fear of being called “intolerant” or “anti-Muslim.”

You can hardly blame them, I suppose.  Every time such a point is made – every time someone says that traditional Islam is oppressive to women, that thousands of so-called moderate Muslims cheered in the streets on 9/11, that anti-Semitic hatred and extremism is being preached in mosques, that we should favor scrutiny of people of Middle-Eastern descent over scrutiny of elderly Caucasian ladies at the airport – the PC Police cry foul and say “you’re unfairly labeling all Muslims, you big meanie!”

Never mind that no one said the first thing about “all” Muslims.  Look at what happened to Salman Rushdie.  Look at what happens when an elderly British teacher names a teddy bear after the prophet.  Look at what happens when a Danizh cartoon lampoons the prophet.  Look what happens when Ayaan Hirsi Ali says that by current laws, the prophet would be a child molester. (What is untrue about that, considering that he took a wife whose age was a single digit?)

Just because someone is criticizing the bad aspects of Islam doesn’t mean they’re criticizing all Islam, and it doesn’t mean they’re criticizing only Islam.  No reasonable person thinks that all Muslims are terrorists, or that the overall message of Islam is violent jihad.  I like to think that the civilized world is beyond such simple-minded stereotyping.  But to say that we don’t have a right to criticize terrorist murderers sworn to destroy us because they happen to be Muslims is absurd.

This problem isn’t solely limited to challenges of fundamentalist Islam.  If you censor Barack Obama, you become a racist.  Challenge Hillary Clinton, and you’re sexist.  Ask tough questions about God or faith, and you’re being disrespectful of people’s beliefs.  This is nothing but a way of slinking away from our responsibility to deal with the tough issues.  It’s intellectual laziness, it’s moral cowardice, and worst of all, it damages our ability to use reason.  How can we have an honest discussion about anything if we’re forced at every turn to worry about hurting someone’s feelings?

Recently I even saw a man on TV claiming that the term “black hole” is racist against blacks.  Words fail me.

It is to this end that I say the world needs more people like Ann Coulter.  Not because I agree with her, not because I think she’s always fair, not because I think people should mimic her viewpoints.  I wouldn’t repeat some of the things she’s said.  Hell, almost everyone I know calls her a heartless bitch for what she said about those 9/11 widows – and I’m talking about convicted felons here!

The point is that she’s not afraid to be despised by the PC Police.  She doesn’t care if they point that finger at her.  She won’t be guilt-tripped into silence by dingbats who whine about feelings getting hurt at the expense of critical inquiry.  If for no other reason, that makes her voice an important one.  If you can’t stand her, then let everyone know the reasons why.  Argue with her.  If she’s as horrible as you say she is, shouldn’t it be simple to expose her?  Wouldn’t it be more constructive to try to prove her wrong instead of trying to shut her down with shackles of political correctness?

Secular Humanist Martyrs?

“Secular humanism is an insufficient rallying cry.”  So says Mark Steyn in his excellent book America Alone.  The sentence was addressed to critics of Islam like Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Irshad Manji, and Salman Rushdie who had called for Islamic states to turn away from fundamentalism and recognize inalienable secular human rights.

Mr. Steyn’s point bugs me not because I think it’s necessarily false, but because I’m a secular humanist and I don’t think he’s giving us our due.  In pointing out that secular humanism doesn’t insure happiness, he cited a study that found many Europeans weren’t hopeful about the future.  Steyn credited this to the high instances of atheism and secular humanism in European countries.  But really, might the cause of such gloom be because of the sluggish economies, the coddling of their nanny states, and the dim economic future of paying for so many entitlements?  Since Mr. Steyn spent much of the book speaking about how excessive entitlements sap the will of a nation’s citizens, you’d think this would be foremost in his mind.

Indeed, his point was that Americans scored much higher on the “hopeful about the future” scale.  It would be interesting to survey American atheists and secular humanists and see where they stand.  I’ll go out on a limb and say that Americans will score much higher than the Europeans, if for no other reason than America’s economic future is not as grim.

I find the notion of an existential universe comforting.  To think that my destiny is in my own hands, to think that the meaning of my life is whatever I choose to make it, to think that my value is not a rationed peice of something greater from a father-figure deity – these are inspiring ideas.  Clearly, however, as Mr. Steyn noted, they are not to everyone.  Whatever its value, secular humanism can’t inspire the type of certitude and fervor that comes with “knowing” you’ll be in heaven one day.  It certainly can’t match an Islamic militant who’s happy to die (and slaughter kids) for his faith.  How can we compete with that?  Is there a single secularist humanist who is willing to die for the cause with a smile on his or her face?

Secular humanism should inspire this sort of devotion, I think.  We stand for ultimate freedom and individual responsibility.  We stand for truth.  We stand for a rational approach to evidence rather than a flimsy concept like faith (which is nothing but “opinion” with sugar on top).  We stand for the method of reason rather than the pompous surety of arbitrarily revealed knowledge.

Most of all, we doubt the “morality” found in religious texts.  We know better than to worship a deity who mas murders and legitimizes rape and slavery, who demands sacrifice, who holds us hostage with guilt, who damns us as sinners before we even have a choice to sin.  We know that such things are wrong, even from a deity.  We know that there are things God could never make moral, no matter how hard He might try.  We know that might doesn’t make right.

Personally, I’ll hold my belief in that value against any threat or promise Abraham’s God can throw against me.  I think He’s probably not real – but if He is and the mythologies of mankind turn out to be true, I still wouldn’t be intimidated by His spankings or lured by His gifts.  An Islamic militant blows himself up . . . so what?  He gets paradise and virgins.  For my belief, I’d defy my Creator and resign myself to an eternal lake of fire.

Prosecuting Falwell’s God

I have a question for all the Christians out there who possess any of those charming ideas that Jerry Falwell popularized years ago.  Namely, that AIDS and even 9/11 was God’s punishment for homosexuals.  If you really believe that, why would you continue to worship such a god?

Honestly, what kind of deity is that?  How is this supposed to be a moral decree?  For the “crime” of having sex with a person of the same gender, you get a fatal, incurable disease.  For the crime of child rape and child murder, you get nothing.  Why doesn’t God give all kiddie rapists and murderers a terminal disease?  In what warped version of justice do Christians consider it okay to give people AIDS (and later throw them in a lake of fire, of course), but do absolutely nothing to guys who rape a little girl, slit her throat, and bury her in a trash bag?  Isn’t such a person deserving of at least a bad case of the flu?

And 9/11.  God is upset with gays, feminists, pornography, etc., so His punishment is to kill thousands of people on planes and going to work that day.  Am I missing something?  Were all the women who died on 9/11 feminists?  Were all of the men gay?  Did every single one of them, male or female, own prodigious porn collections?  Or is God’s aim just lousy?  On 9/11, how many child rapist-murderers walked around free, alive and healthy?

I’ve heard Christians give the following answer: “God will punish child molesters one day.”

It completely misses the issue.  Why are homosexuals being punished now?  And even if God will punish child molesters one day, can’t He at least do something to stop them from hurting more kids right away?  Yet this pathetic non sequitur is the best Christians can come up with/  It’s like saying, “God has a plan for them; we just can’t understand it.”  In other words, they believe in something that’s impossible to prove right or wrong.  How is this different from believing in nothing at all?

It’s amazing how these types of fundamentalists explain morality.  If anyone else did the things God did in the Old Testament, or stood by and allowed child molesters to wreak their havoc, they’d be called the most evil of human beings.  Completely and utterly immoral.  But when God does it, they say it’s somehow moral, just, and loving.  In the mind of a fundamentalist, no divine atrocity is capable of undermining God’s morality.

Me, I’d spit in the face of Falwell’s God.  I’d spit in the face of a gay-bashing god.  Whether He’s omnipotent or not is beside the point.  Omnipotence does not equal goodness.  Might does not make right.  Call me arrogant or ridiculously presumptive, call me a hypocrite, but I will comfortably claim to be more moral than a god like that.  Shame on any Christians who lack the guts to stand up to such a loathsome creature and say the same.

The Tactful Christian Response to Homosexuality

I don’t think disagreement with homosexuality is necessarily bigotry, but it’s always amusing to hear Christians give a “reasonable” justification for labeling it a sin.  It breaks down like this (taken from a blog I read): “Homosexuality is associated with higher levels of disease, shorter life spans, more substance abuse, more domestic violence, lower levels of monogamy, and an obvious impossibility of biological reproduction.  These things are bad for health, safety, good social structure, and the continuation of humanity.  Therefore, we rightly label homosexuality as a sin.”

Even assuming it’s true that the gay community contributes to those social ills more than the general population, the Christians often seem to forget the difference between causation and correlation.  Just because low stress is associated with a lower risk of cancer doesn’t mean that cutting your stress will cure cancer.  Likewise, even if we find that gay people are more prone to domestic violence, it doesn’t mean that being gay causes you to smack your partner around.  If you do that, it’s because you’re a violent bully and a general piece of shit.  Not because you’re gay.

Higher Levels of Disease: I will assume we mean STDs here.  This is absurd.  The cause of contracting an STD is unsafe sex with an infected person.  The gender of the infected person is irrelevant.  If this is a statement about anal sex being high-risk, then clarify it.  Because then it wouldn’t apply to gay women, but it would to straight women who engage in anal sex.

Shorter Life Spans:  Where is the line of causation?  Why does being gay shorten your life?  And even if it does, so what?  Soldiers and Alaskan crab fisherman are much more likely to die young than the general population.  Should it be a sin to pursue a dangerous career?

More Substance Abuse:  Rock stars are more likely to be substance abusers than average.  Should joining a Seattle grunge band be a sin?

Lower Levels of Monogamy: Causation, please.  How does who you’re attracted to affect your inclination to be monogamous?  And I find it ironic that Christians who decry a lack of monogamy among homosexuals also want to stop them from getting married!

Impossibility of Biological Reproduction:  This has to be a joke.  Now it’s a sin not to pass on your genes?  What about couples who decide not to have children?  What about nuns?  Is it a sin if I decide to marry a woman who can’t have kids, thus ensuring that I’ll never produce a biological child?

Again, I’m not calling Christians bigots.  But the argument “Homosexuality leads to immorality” is weak and arbitrary.  The line of causation is unclear or even ridiculous, if only because there are so many factors contributing to the social ills we’re talking about.  If simple correlation with immorality is sufficient to earn the “sin” designation, then Christians are going to have to vastly expand what behavior constitutes sin.

Why Faith is Just an Opinion II

I don’t understand why anyone who’s critical of faith is automatically seen as some rude, crude asshole who’s attacking the sacred beliefs of others and being heedless of their feelings.  I don’t want to insult anyone; I want to have an honest discussion about the difference between opinion and reality.  So often I talk to faithful people who want to state, “You have your belief and I have mine,” and leave it at that.

No, I’m sorry.  If you have a position, defend it.  Don’t ask the rest of us to turn off the rules of logic for your special belief simply because it’s sacred to you.  I don’t consider it disrespectful to ask tough questions of someone who’s making an assertion without any evidence.  Disrespectful would be ad hominem attacks, nasty attitudes, and hurled insults.  Disrespectful would be casual disdain or intellectual arrogance.  I’ve come to the conclusion that when people say “You’re being disrespectful my faith,” what they really mean is, “You’re asking tough, direct questions about my faith.”

Some people have faith that God is real.  Others have faith that He is not.  Some people have faith that cutting off a little girl’s clitoris pleases God.  Others have faith that it doesn’t.  Some people have faith that homosexuality is a sin.  Others have faith that it is not.

All of these people can’t be right, because there are contradictions there.  So obviously, reality is not determined by someone’s faith.  Either God exists or He doesn’t.  Your faithe in the matter doesn’t change this.  No matter how strongly you feel about God’s presence, you’re not going to alter objective reality.  If it is a fact that your child committed a horrible crime, then no matter howmuch you love them, no matter how much you want to believe them, no matter how much you just know with all your heart that they’re innocent – it’s not going to change anything, is it?

This is why evidence works.  This is why the method of reason is the best one we have for arriving at the truth.  Faith is manifestly and demonstrably useless for discovering the truth.  Faith is a subjective opinion that doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with the objective truth.

Then, of course, there are people who say, “Well, maybe everything is subjective.  How do you know that using reason is a way to the truth?  It’s just one version of the truth, and my faith gives me another.  Truth is dependent on how each person sess it.”

When people say things like that, I refer them to Ayn Rand: “Those who tell you that a man is unable to perceive a reality undistorted by his senses, mean that they are unwilling to perceive a reality undistorted by their feelings.”

Again, feelings do not change reality.  Just because you click your heels and hope with all your heart that your opinion is the truth does not make it so.  Personally, I find the idea of an existential universe inspiring – but that’s simply my opinion.  My yearning for such a universe says absolutely nothing about whether it is truly that way or not.

So, how do we know that using reason is a way to the truth?  If you can’t answer that, then try stating a contradiction such as “My empty bank account actually contains a million dollars” and attempt to spend it.  Try saying, “I don’t exist” without admitting that you do simply because you used that personal pronoun.  Try believing that gravity is just the subjective opinion of some scientists, and jump off a building.  Try doing anything without using the method of reason and see how far you get out of bed in the morning.

On Being Pro-Divorce

I think it’s safe to say that many people would be better off if they had never gotten married to begin with.  I wish it were possible to talk some sense into the legions of kids who tie the knot then regret it later on.  The biggest issue is that instead of owning up to the problem and dealing with it in a rational manner (like divorce), they drag it out and inundate themselves in a routine or a fantasy world, making it worse for everyone involved.  They believe that it’s either their lot in life to suffer or that the relationship will eventually get better.

Sorry to be a spoilsport, but it’s only your lot in life if you allow it to be, and the relationship is never going to get better unless you make it better.

The near-ubiquitous solution – cheating – defeats both purposes.  If you screw someone on the side because your spouse is boring or neglecting you or being a jerk, you’re finding an acceptable way to deal with your otherwise unacceptable lot in life.  You’re allowing the tedium and suffering to grow even worse and continue even longer.  Conversely, if you screw someone else because you think it’s going to somehow make things better between you and your spouse, you’re just an idiot.

I have a suggestion.  It’s pretty “out there,” so bear with me: If your spouse is neglecting you or doing something else you can’t abide, how about sitting down and having a talk with them?  Doesn’t communication sound reasonable?  Go to counseling.  Stop being afraid of confrontation.  Be straightforward.  Present an ultimatum.  If the relationship is over, then scrap it and stop the torment.  If it’s not, fix it and stop the whining and passive-aggressiveness.

And by the way, anyone who justifies an affair by saying that divorce is just not feasible “because of the kids” is deluding him-or-herself.  A divorce can screw up a family, but at least it’s an honest solution to repair a mistake or solve a problem.  As lessons for the kids go, I think it’s much preferable to “Deal with your marital problems by fucking someone else.”  Speaking as someone who – as a kid – saw a parental figure cheat, trust me on this.

Maybe I’m simplifying a complex issue.  Maybe I’m too much of an idealist.  Maybe I’m living in a fantasy world by thinking that it’s unacceptable to cheat on someone you care about, and by believing that it’s reasonable to expect the same.  Considering the cavalier attitude so many people today seem to have toward cheating, perhaps fidelity is just a silly dream.

Regardless, even more pathetic than those who are cavalier about it are those who make excuses for it.  Perhaps they need a lesson in basic human interaction: Don’t hurt someone you care about.  Or better yet, don’t trick someone into thinking you care about them, then later present the truth to them by cheating.

What’s Wrong With the Culture?

On The O’Reilly Factor the other night, one of his segments was about Katy Perry’s song, “I Kissed a Girl,” which was the number one song in the country.  The point, of course, was the ubiquitous one from a conservative like O’Reilly: American culture is sliding further away from traditional values.  He asked, “What would Elvis think?”  It’s funny that he would mention Elvis, who fifty years ago was just as controversial as O’Reilly believes Katy Perry’s song to be today.  How many conservatives back then railed about rock ‘n roll and Elvis?

I don’t think anyone, including O’Reilly, takes this song very seriously or considers it a huge threat.  However, it is a fact that conservatives continuously claim that the culture is going downhill.  Whether it’s the permissiveness, the gay issues on prime time TV, the nudity on the Internet, the way schoolkids dress, the breakdown of the traditional family – we hear this all the time.

My question is this:  What is it about conservatism that’s so unappealing?  Why do so many people toss it out?  Why do millions of Americans love the idea of a song that tantalizes with the image of a girl-on-girl kiss?  Why does it seem to be the norm of human culture to move further from conservative values and toward secularism and permissiveness?  I’m sure many Christians have an easy answer for that: Mankind is weak and consumed by selfishness and a lust for sin, easily fooled and tempted.  This rather insulting view of their fellow human beings is inconsequential, I think, because the numbers don’t support it.  America is by far the most religious nation in the Western world.  Something like seventy percent of Americans still identify themselves as Christians, however loosely.  Today Christians are even supporting gay rights and ordaining gay ministers!

I’m not making a statement about whether secularism or traditional Christian values are right or wrong; I just think this is an intersting question about humanity.  Why is conservatism dying?  If it’s the right way to live, if it gets you to heaven, it it’s best for society, why is it so unattractive?  Why can’t it compete in the market of free ideas?  And shouldn’t it have to? 

Perhaps the answer is a simple as all human beings are hedonists at heart, that given half a chance, we run off to seek self-gratification and little else.  We want pleasure.  And why not?  Pleasure equals happiness.  Happiness equals a productive, healthy society.

Of course plenty of conservative have healthy, happy lives, but obviously, by their own admission, many more people seek happiness elsewhere.  Do conservatives really want to pit themselves against happiness?  Do they really want to say, you must be responsible and moral and follow these guidelines – even if it means you have to give up what makes you happy?  No wonder they’re doing so poorly in the free market.