As I staggered blindly through the smouldering ashes of my country following November 2nd's aftermath, I was blinking stupidly at the sound of pundits blathering on and on about the election results turning on one sector of the electorate's preoccupation with "moral values."
MORAL VALUES?!?!?
No, the more I consider it, the more I believe that a more accurate description of the phenomenon is the Religious Right's preoccupation with S-E-X.
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It wasn't much, as epiphanies go. This one hit me as I was driving to yet another soccer practice, wondering what in God's name had been wrought in this election. Surely we couldn't have just elected that knucklehead, Bush, because of, of, fears about GAY MARRIAGE and ABORTION?
But that's what my fundamentalist, wingnut Dad told me were the top two issues this election cycle, for him and others who believed as he did. Opposition to gay marriage was a "moral value," apparently.
But why gay marriage? There are lots of other marriages that should send a Christian fundamentalist positively around the bend. Surely there is a fundie political campaign against re-marriage, against marriage outside of one's faith, against marrying somebody for money, etc., right?
Nope.
The major difference with gay marriage from the other aformentioned supposedly "ungodly" unions is that to acknowledge gay marriage is to acknowledge that people of the same gender must be having S-E-X with each other--and it definitely wouldn't be for procreation. By sanctioning marriage, we would be saying that such S-E-X was okay! The horror!
Of course, the religious fundamentalists would never be able to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay S-E-X. So, instead, they try for the next best thing by banning gay marriage. (That's right, fundies, if we simply don't allow "them" to get married, we can continue to pretend "they" don't have icky S-E-X with each other.)
Let's talk about the other big "moral values" issue, abortion. This isn't about the S-E-X thing, right? It's all about human life and murder, right?
Nope. S-E-X again.
See, if the real big issue were actually the whole supposed "right-to-life" argument, then wouldn't the fundamentalists be supporting EVERYTHING IN THEIR POWER to PREVENT unintended pregnancies in the first place? After all, no pregnancy, no abortion, no "abortion-is-murder" issue, right? Wouldn't it be principled and pro-life to support free contraception, detailed human sexuality education, all of those measures that would minimize the number of unwanted pregnancies in the first place, therefore minimizing the number of abortions?
As we know, the aforementioned logical preventative measures aren't practices that the fundies are supporting. See, according to the fundamentalist argument, if we talk about S-E-X and provide contraception for S-E-X, then we will once again be acknowledging that S-E-X exists outside the bonds of holy matrimony and expressly not for procreation. Perhaps if we teach the kids to "Just Say No," S-E-X will go away! Yay! (Until later, when you're married to a person not of your gender, of course, when you can appropriately use S-E-X to "be fruitful and multiply.")
Listen, I went to church at least twice a week for 18+ years. I know my Bible pretty doggoned well. I know the Old Testament GOD and the New Testament Jesus. They had a lot of advice for us. They had an awful lot of moral values expressed in their Book. AND MOST OF IT DID NOT HAVE JACK TO DO WITH S-E-X.
How can we explode this ridiculous meme that the extremist fundies are all about "moral values," for f*ck's sake? Can we re-frame this supposed "moral values" nonsense for what it really is--an obsession with the government attempting to control people's behavior in the privacy of their bedrooms?