To Read the Orange Signs

AN OPEN MEMO

FROM: Thers, On Behalf of All Us liberal Bloggers Who Live on Snark

TO: Michael Gerson

Dear Mr. Gerson:

In reference to your latest post, especially lines like the following:

Recent books and studies seem to indicate disturbing sexual trends among evangelical Christians. And this time we're not talking about their pastors or political leaders. The new attention is on evangelical teenagers, who reportedly start sex earlier than their mainline Protestant peers.

One gleeful headline on an Internet site recently read: "Evangelical Girls Are Easy." That is not the way I remember it.

It is you, sir, yourself, who make it too easy.

Love (and a Moste Chaste Kiss),

Thers.

(More seriously, Gerson argues that according to the "sniggering" MSM, Evangelical Christian Teens seem to fuck at least as often as all other teens; he concedes that this is true, but he stresses also that if you only count the small percentage of the wealthier ones who are totally zealous Evangelicals, then their Abstinence Batting Average improves greatly. Also, he says if our society were totally different then different things would exist in our society. He's fucking brilliant, that man. Why, I think he is almost bright enough to write for Townhall.

Also, dig this:

Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized.

Yes, I know.

I thank Gerson for providing an elegant nutshell explanation of exactly why I am a liberal in the first place.)

Comments

[Brad R.]

Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized.

Weren't conservatives sposed to be in favor of individual liberty and stuff? Or is that individual liberty reserved for the business owner who wants to, say, shaft his employees out of overtime?

[bebe rebozo]

I wash my gerbils in the blood of Christ before allowing them to enter my rectum. Bob says I am a little too "southern" for his taste. He's a Kansaas boy and just uses corn syrup.

[bebe rebozo]

-Liddy Dole

[NTodd]

I think all wrong thinking people are right.

[mdhåtter]

No wonder they hate on the Unitarians, whose only dogma is that people are generally good and should be treated with dignity

[Diane(Desi)]

"That is not the way I remember it."

He couldn't get none, so clearly no one else could either, say the voices in his head...

[mds]

Heck, I consider myself fairly liberal, and I believe that individuals aren't inherently good, and that we need some sort of a social contract for a functioning civilization. But I'm not the one running with the pack proclaiming that being "saved" or "elect" means you don't have to actually do good or obey laws ever again.

So when he acknowledges that Tom DeLay is not exactly like some 1st Century Christian martyr; when he admits that his old Presidential boss, to whom many of his ilk are practically praying, is a sociopathic liar no matter how much he babbles about his "higher father"; when he demands that Senator Vitter be fully prosecuted for his illegal acts, instead of getting away with squealing "Jeebus is Lord!" over and over; then... Well, I still won't take his opinions seriously, but I might point and laugh slightly less. And that's without considering his own rhetorical contributions to lying the nation into an immoral war.

[Molly Ivors]

This doesn't surprise me at all. Think of Jesus Camp, and then picture these kids 3 or 4 years older. Kids who spend a lot of time in mixed company away from their parents, for whatever reason, have lots of sex when they're away from home.

Just an observation.

[Mr.Murder]

Hard evangelicals or easy ones?

Both.

See also Rev.Ted Haggard.

[jri]

"Conservatism teaches.." ? what the hell does that mean? Phrased like that, it sounds like a non-controversial system of beliefs assumed to be absolute truths. Not the amorphous (and fluid) political ideology that it is.

=

[Wapiti]

Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized.

I think he got authoritarianism and conservatism mixed up in his head. But I think a lot of the "conservatists" in the US have the same problem.

[MikeJ]

Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized.

Rodgers and Hammerstein also believed that you've got to be carefully taught to be a republican, but they weren't too happy about it.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!

[Chuck Smith]

It is the belief that individuals are not inherently good that allows religious fundamentalist leaders to rationalize using their religions as a form of social control. Without a god for the masses to worship and to threaten the masses with eternal damnation, Gerson believes it would be impossible to keep the rable in line. And these people decry liberals as elitist.

[gmoke]

Gerson spoke at Harvard's Shorenstein Center a few months ago. He was sorta kinda chaperoned by Mark McKinnon, which struck me as a little odd.

Everything he talked about he couched within the terms of his religious belief. He appears to be a born-again, break-away Episcopalian, one of those who have abandoned the mainline American Episcopal Church because of their ordination of a gay bishop.

I asked him about why he grounded his politics so firmly in religion and he got a little fierce talking about abortion. He seemed to take it personally that a pregnant woman would abort a fetus rather than bear it to term, "kill a baby" I think would be how he's thinking of it.

[Captain Goto]

he stresses also that if you only count the small percentage of the wealthier ones who are totally zealous Evangelicals, then their Abstinence Batting Average improves greatly.

Erm...could it be that the richer fundies are more willing to, y'know, *lie about it*, when asked about who they boff and when?

(Yes, yes: anti-rich-phony-Christian prejudice could be on display here, but that's just me.)

[tasteless]

Thanks Mr. Gerson. I will totally have to revise my target list in my quest for meaningless sex. I had no idea that evangelical chicks were such a bunch of hos.

[biggerbox]

Do I detect Gerson volunteering to be among the ones who do the "careful civilizing" of his inferiors?

That, as the expression used to have it, is "mighty white" of him.

[Rash Nussell]

I was raised in an evangelical millieu and I remember the annual summer church camp was always a meat market. Kids were sneaking off to make out etc. Switching partners constantly "trading up" etc. Then the Friday night church service was a huge orgy of self-recrimination and repentance - very emotional. I think the whole evangelical system where you are supposed to "make a connection" with someone and manipulate them to accept your religious beliefs is a foundation of social skills that can be used for seduction. Plus the strict prohibitions on drugs and alcohol leave "the natural highs" of sex and religious ectasy as the only remaining options. I haven't been back as an adult, but I suspect that much of that behavior persists. Remember the scene in Jesus Camp where Ted Haggard looks into the camera and says "I know what you did last night and I'm gonna tell your wife." Huge laugh from the audience (in the film). Totally creepy.

[Snow]

Nominal evangelical seems very judgy to me. But maybe that is just me. Is Gershon saying that they aren't really evangelicals so they can't be counted as evangelicals?

[Rich]

... the small percentage of the wealthier ones who are totally zealous Evangelicals

Hmm, I haff der suspicion zat zeess ardent evangalicals are cheating with porno, just as people back during the Clinton fooferaw said "Why no, I don't have sex." Turns out they meant they were only doing oral sex or using the other entrance.

[Tyler]

Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good...

but corporations and markets which are made up of the same individuals ARE inherently good and thus need no regulating.

[cavjam]

I had a dog once which had to be carefully civilized not to pee in the house. Took about two days. I am conservatism.

[Sarah]

Here's the line that slayed me:
Wilcox notes that American liberal elites often "talk left and walk right, living disciplined lives and expecting their children to do the same, even when they hold liberal social views."

Cause, you know, liberals aren't supposed to have disciplined lives -- we're all supposed to be dirty effing hippies, living in communes and have sex with multiple partners in public places. Unless we're the elites, in which case, we're really conservatives. Or something like that.

[Uncle Smokes]

I don't suppose this is the time to launch into a lusty rendition of Frank Zappa's "Catholic Girls."

[myiq2xu]

Ah, yes! This story brings back fond memories of the time the preacher's daughter took me out back of the church and showed me the gates of heaven!

[Robert Dsquared]

Conservatism = Calvinism, according to Mr Gerson. Not too far off the mark I'd say. This conflict (people inherently good vs. inherently bad) for centuries and the inherently bad folks are ALWAYS on the wrong side of history. (Well, on the wrong side for those who don't like burnings at the stake with crowns of thorns and sulfur. Does referencing Calvin's burning of heretics invoke Goodwin's Law at some level?)

[Michael Scott]

You read my mind, Sarah: I was coming over here to comment on that exact quote!

"Leading disciplined lives" gets you to college; college opens up your mind, and makes you a liberal.

Where's the inherent contradiction? I mean, apart from just between Wilcox's ears?

[Michael Scott]

You read my mind, Sarah: I was coming over here to comment on that exact quote!

"Leading disciplined lives" gets you to college; college opens up your mind, and makes you a liberal.

Where's the inherent contradiction? I mean, apart from just between Wilcox's ears?

[W. Kiernan]

The existence of what Americans light-heartedly call "conservatism" teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized.

And by "civilized" I mean, in slightly updated lyrics to an old American imperialist ditty:

Damn, damn, damn the Republcano
Civilize him with a Krag

[Trailer Park Liberal]

Filthy, right trash.

[Mooser]

Gerson is so full of it, everybody knows that Mormon girls are the biggest sluts, followed, but only at a distance by bored, oversexed Catholic schoolgirls.
It's true.

[Peter Principle]

"Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized."

His former boss being a prize example of what happens when they aren't.

[Brighid]

Dear Mr. Gerson:

Regarding teen sexual behavior in your recent column you concluded that "Moral men and women need moral communities" to help teens avoid risky behavior like premarital sex and drugs. In other words, to reference one prescient presidential candidate, "It takes a village."

[psyberdawg]

I had a girlfriend once who was an evangelical. How do I know this? Every time we'd have sex, she'd scream, "Oh God! Oh God! Jesus! Oh Jesus! God! Jesus! God! God! Goooooood!"

Also, she liked to carefully civilize me, with handcuffs and a leather strap.

[BC]

Depending on the definition of 'peers' and whether that means all teenagers or just christian teenagers. If 'peers' is open, it actually strongly implies that conservatism/christian doctrine doesn't actually work.

'Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized.'

This is attributing a virtue which is not inherent in most definitions of conservatism. Also, both definitions of good and civilised are relative. One could easily argue that Bush, a conservative, is not good , nor civilised choosing war over dialogue in dealings with Iraq etc.

=my2c
BC

[Max Renn]

Conservatism teaches that individuals are not inherently good and so must be carefully civilized.

As do the French, who see their children as little beasts. Wonder what Gerson thinks of that?

And remember, kids,

The only boy
Who could ever reach me
Was the son of a preacher man

[George]

Back when I was in University (late 60's), (what were then refered to as) 'holly roller' church youth meetings were a good place to go to achieve the sought after, but rarely achieved, one nighter.