Happy Families

Okay, Hotmail recently put some really old messages in my inbox. That's odd.

Anyway, bethje recently drew my attention to this article, and said I could rant about it, so I will. {g} The gist of it is that Gerald Allen, a member of the Alabama state legislature who has met with President Bush several times, wants to stop state funds from going toward drama that depicts homosexuality in a positive light. Allen, like others of his kind, refers to "[t]raditional family values," without actually saying what those are. Personally, I'm not sure they really exist. I believe in families, and I believe in values, but I don't believe there's any real connection between the two. The "family values" crowd will often say that their values are based on the Bible, the book that also says, "For every one that curseth his father or his mother shall be surely put to death" (Leviticus 20:9). If we followed that, I don't know that there would be any teenagers left alive. For that matter, it's also the book where Jesus says, "If any man come unto me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple" (Luke 14:26). Those sound like some good "family values" right there. Of course, some people will say these parts of the Bible aren't meant to be taken literally (I remember the host of a religious call-in show saying this about Deuteronomy 23:2-3, insisting that these verses weren't talking about LITERAL bastards, Ammonites, and Moabites), which may be the case. If that's so, though, why must the prohibitions on homosexuality be taken literally? That strikes me as some rather subjective reading right there. I'm kind of getting off the track here, but the point is that the Bible isn't always the best moral compass as far as "family values" are concerned. (Never mind that it's clearly unconstitutional to base public policy on the Bible.)

I also find it interesting that Allen defines "Hollywood" and "the music industry" as the enemy (as well as "liberal librarians and trendy teachers," because intellectuals are just generally amoral and anti-family, but I won't get into that right now). Considering that these two institutions are largely run by mammonites who are afraid of change, you'd think right-wingers like Allen would love them. I guess I'm mixing up two different components of the Far Right, though. Sure, there's some overlap between the money-hungry, power-hungry elitist fat cats and the Religious Right (like, say, the President of the United States). The money-and-power types also tend to shamelessly pander to the Religious Right, as was the case with the Bill O'Reilly "Judeo-Christian values" thing I mentioned a few days ago. But I'm not sure the poorer fundamentalists WANT to be screwed over by huge corporations so much as they think it's not as much of an issue as whether men are having sex with other men.

Along these lines, I remember seeing something recently where a guy on a Religious Right website was talking about how evil MTV is. That got me thinking how MTV is something that can be equally despised by BOTH sides of the political spectrum. The conservatives rail against its radical, pro-sex nature, while I would imagine most liberals aren't too fond of its rampant sexism, classism, and promotion of image over substance. I think there was a general impression that the whole "rock the vote" thing was pro-Democrat, and such might be the case. But not all Democrats are truly liberal, and I'd say MTV's strong adherence to the status quo and the bottom line makes them quite conservative. Much the same could be said for organizations like the RIAA and MPAA. It's just not the same KIND of conservativism that the Religious Right favors.

I really got off the subject here, didn't I? I guess there are only so many times and ways you can say "censorship is bad," though.