Yesterday's pop media was abuzz with the story (on the story), and left-wing sports jocks around the country screamed at callers that the very belief that homosexuality is a sin is bigotry.  The talk-radio scenario, repeated all day, got especially dicey when African-American men called in, self-identified as Christian, and denounced the coming-out celebration and its supposed connection to Jackie Robinson.

Naturally, daytime's Peter Pan Ellen DeGeneres was thrilled at the news, applauding Collins for being a "very brave man."  Then she said something particularly interesting: "Because of you, there's a little boy playing basketball right now who knows he can be who he is and still play the sport he loves."

What exactly is her point?  Collins, as mentioned, is not a flouncing fairy.  So he can't be a "role model" for little boys who want to act like little girls while at the same time (incongruously) dreaming of playing pro-basketball.  I'm not sure what age range qualifies in Miss DeGeneres's reckoning as "little boy," but it isn't unreasonable to hope that a "little boy" would not be thinking about the mechanics of gay sex or even some more vague sense of being attracted to other little boys, considering that normal "little boys" are not sexually attracted to little girls.

But getting children to think about gay sex is exactly the result of this propaganda push, and those children will "be what they are" (boys and girls) unless preyed upon by these degenerates who crave acceptance and affirmation at all costs.

Reading that pooh-pooh reminded me of a key passage from Sam Francis's "Neoconservatism and the Managerial Revolution" (collected in his indispensable book Beautiful Losers):

"Neoconservatism rejected all forms of extremism and all suggestions of a need for far-reaching change. . . . Moderation, gradualism, empiricism, pragmatism, centrism became the watchwords of neoconservatism, whereby confrontation with the fundamental mechanisms and tendencies of the managerial system and fundamental changes suggested by either the Right or the Left were avoided.  In the neoconservative view of America, there was nothing seriously wrong with the society and government that had developed between the New Deal and the Great Society, and it was the goal of neoconservatives to communicate the soundness of the managerial system to the adversary intellectuals of the Left and to co-opt the militant activists of the New Right."

No, I’m not talking about poor Governor Rod, whose peers sent him up the river, or poor Governor Ryan, who is still up spit creek and being denied parole.  I’m talking about love.

We don’t live in a theocracy, mister.  This ain’t the Dark Ages.  You should be free to love whomever you want to love.  America is about equality.  They used to lynch black people at picnics.

As reported in these pages last month, thanks to the Illinois Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act, a man can union a man, a woman can union a woman, and, just to be fair, a woman can union a man.  (The “religious freedom” part means churches, synagogues, mosques, and Indians are free to choose whether or not to solemnize such unions.  Illinois is very tolerant.)  No, it’s not same-sex “marriage,” according to the state’s Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, for that would be “contrary to the public policy of this State.”  You may not use the m-word.

But the fact is, the bill Governor Quinn signed (with the exquisite short title CIV PRO-DEATH OF PARTY) provides that, for all Land of Lincoln purposes, a civil union means “the obligations, responsibilities, protections, and benefits afforded or recognized by the law of Illinois to spouses.”  Furthermore, when it comes to dissolving one of them, CIV PRO-DEATH simply refers the reader or lawyer to the Marriage and Dissolution of Marriage Act, “Sections 401 through 413.”

So close it is in substance to the m-word that CIV PRO-DEATH’s indefatigable author and sponsor, State Rep. Greg “Crocodile Rock” Harris (D-Chicago), says he doesn’t have plans to pursue further “marriage equality” legislation.  Bo and Roscoe can union each other, pass on the General Lee or Flash one to the other without a will upon a partner’s death, and visit each other in the Hazzard Co. Hospital, no matter what Uncle Jesse or Boss Hogg says.

But folks, the discrimination has not ended.  Because the fact remains that Bo and Luke cannot be together—not the way two of Cupid’s victims of the same or opposite sex can, who don’t suffer from the new Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name.  I refer, of course, to cousin incest.

But wait, you say!  That’s disgusting.  Well, may I remind you that homosexuality was once thought unspeakable?  That the day-before-yesterday’s taboos are yesterday’s hot topics on The View and today’s subjects for public-school kindergartners?

Indeed, why do you find it disgusting?  Because that’s not your preference?  Do you think that, given our puritanical society’s history of discrimination, lynching, and homocide, two male cousins would just choose to be attracted sexually to each other?  Are you really going to say to another free, consenting adult that he could just as easily find another member of his own sex who is not a relative to love?  Or send him to some brainwashing camp, Ted Haggard style, so they can suppress his natural desire and turn him into a suicidal alcoholic?

It’s shocking, but there it is, in black and white, in this so-called victory legislation for “marriage equality,” under Section 25.  “The following civil unions are prohibited: [A] civil union between first cousins.”

So, Bo and Daisy, too.

In fact, for a certain courageous, persecuted minority, this bill is a step backward.  Why?  Because it’s even more stringent than Illinois law governing . . . marriage!  After all, the current m-word statute provides that, while your average first cousins may not marry, they may tie the knot when they turn 50, or if either Bo or Daisy provides “a certificate signed by a licensed physician” confirming that one of them “is permanently and irreversibly sterile.”

But when it comes to civil unions, which give couples the benefits “afforded spouses,” there is no provision, no exception whatsoever, for first cousins—of the same or opposite sex.

Now, the puritans will argue that the marriage law makes sense: We don’t want to burden the state with the mutant offspring of Bo and Daisy.  Fine.  (Though even that should be enough to tweak the tentacles of a Planned Parenthood apologist, as it ever so subtly suggests that the purpose of marriage, at least before menopause, is the bearing of children.)

But what about Bo and Luke?

I mean, let’s face it, you don’t have to be Richard Dawkins to know that neither of those fruits, er, neither of those trees will bear fruit.  So what does it hurt anybody?

That’s just not what a civil union is, you say.  That is unnatural.  Everyone knows that’s wrong.

Well, may I remind you that Bo and Luke don’t think it’s wrong, nor countless other same-sex cousins who are trembling in their closets, afraid of the lynch mob.  And if you say homosexual-cousin incest is unnatural, then what is your standard for “natural”?  Reason?  Sociology?  Yesterday’s consensus on what a “family” should look like?  What gives you the right to define marriage, or virtual marriage, as something that excludes first cousins?  Tradition?  Your claim that truth is objective?  Your narrow-minded, historical Christianity?

—Aaron D. Wolf

This article was first published in the September 2011 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

Costas, the “voice of the Olympics,” is known for his melodramatic life-lessons commentaries following major sporting events.  But this time Costas, behind the mike for a special halftime commentary, established his bona fides by disparaging those who revel in cliché—“Something like ‘this really puts it all in perspective.’  Well, if so, that sort of perspective has a very short shelf-life, since we will inevitably hear about the perspective we have supposedly again regained the next time ugly reality intrudes upon our games.”

Here’s the ugly reality: Illegitimacy is rampant among NFL players, professional athletes in general, and the American public as a whole.  The same goes for cohabitation (shackin’ up).  Illegal in all states in 1970, cohabitation is now practiced by well over 60 percent of the U.S. population, at some point in their lives.  Indeed, says the journal Vital Health Statistics, “cohabitation is increasingly becoming the first coresidential union formed among young adults.”

What’s the big deal, you ask?  Just this: If you are a woman who is shacking up with your man (instead of tying the knot), you are twice as likely to be physically abused by him.  Or, as the Family Violence Research Program at the University of New Hampshire puts it, “the overall rate of violence for cohabiting couples is twice as high as for married couples.”  Conversely, as the Journal of Family Violence reports, “The lowest rate [of domestic violence] was found among married couples (19 percent).”

And it gets worse, because, the Family Violence Research Program adds, when it comes to cohabiting couples, “the overall rate for ‘severe’ violence is nearly five times as high.”  They are also far more likely to struggle with alcohol and drug addictions.

As if we needed more, researcher Brad Wilcox tells the New York Times, the data “suggests that cohabitation about doubles a child’s risk of negative outcomes like poor school performance, psychological problems, and delinquency/drug use.”

Friends say that, in addition to the trauma of multiple concussions, Jovan Belcher was addicted to narcotics and booze.  Bel­cher and Perkins had been living together (cohabiting), conceived a child, broke up, then reunited, residing in Belcher’s upscale house on Crysler Avenue along with Belcher’s mother.

On their last night on earth, the couple had been apart: He, partying in the Power and Light district in KC; she, attending a Trey Songz concert, reportedly her “first night out after having her baby,” enjoying such hits as “Say Aah” and “Panty Wetter.”  Police say that their three-month-old was apparently in the care of Belcher’s mother.

Police reports also indicate that Belcher slept at a(nother) “girlfriend’s” apartment, a fact they can testify to, since they found him drunk in his Bentley outside the building at 2:30 a.m. and told him to go inside.  Returning home at 6:30 a.m., Belcher accused Perkins of cheating on him with Trey Songz.  The couple argued, and, according to Belcher’s mother, the last words she heard her son say to the mother of his child were “You can’t talk to me like that!”  He emptied his entire clip into her.

Within the hour, a visibly remorseful Belcher would end his life in front of his coach, as police approached.

Those studies about cohabitation are not disputed: Dozens more, from a variety of university and domestic-violence researchers, concur.  Nonetheless, it takes real courage to call a spade a spade, to take a stand on national television and, in the wake of such a horribly violent crime, denounce the culture of cohabitation.  At the very least it would mean risking one’s street cred with NFL athletes, who might not be so eager to do the next exclusive sit-down with NBC’s premier sports-talker.

So instead Bob Costas mounted the pulpit and preached on “handgun violence.”  In so doing, he sanctimoniously cited at length an article by FOX Sports analyst Jason Whitlock, who has since distinguished himself by referring to the NRA as the KKK.

“How many lives have to be ruined before we realize the right to bear arms doesn’t protect us from a government equipped with stealth bombers, predator drones, tanks and nuclear weapons?” asks an incredulous Whitlock and a righteous Costas.  “Our current gun culture simply ensures that more and more domestic disputes will end in the ultimate tragedy.”

Unfortunately, it’s the cohabitation culture that translates into tragedy.  Don’t hold your breath waiting for Bob Costas or NBC to take that up.

—Aaron D. Wolf

This article was first published in the January 2013 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.

The scrap contains the phrase "Jesus said to them, 'My wife . . . '" before ending unceremoniously with a fibrous tear.  And somehow, if the NYT and Harvard are to be believed, this changes everything.  And it does—if by everything we mean nothing at all.

The occasion of this revelation by the NYT's Laurie Goodstein is the fragment's coming-out party on Tuesday at the International Congress of Coptic Studies in Rome, in the form of a paper by Harvard Divinity School's Karen L. King. It should come as no surprise that Prof. King is one of those gynder-studies gals and that "the discovery could reignite the debate over whether Jesus was married, whether Mary Magdalene was his wife and whether he had a female disciple."  Miz Goodstein informs us that "These debates date to the early centuries of Christianity, scholars say."  Oh, "but they are relevant today, when global Christianity is roiling over the place of women in ministry and the boundaries of marriage."

See? A little fragment from some heretical sect scribbled 300 years or so after Jesus lived can validate Chick Priests and Gay Marriage, right? And this is just the latest, SCHOLARS SAY, in a series of Big Finds by Scholars, that indicate a Raging Debate that has Raged and Roiled for centuries, right?

Take a quick gander at Professor King's paper. Page one will suffice to show you the way this deceitful language finds its way into the left-wing depository that is Academia.

It’s a phrase that glimmers with righteous indignation.  You think of that masked molester with a gun shimmying through your daughter’s bedroom window, and you want to go blow his brains out.  Who tolerates evil?

“We have a choice to make today,” added Beck.

Over the course of his 6,000-word altar call, he clarified what he meant.  As Americans, we must choose to exercise “faith, hope, and love.”  We must “pick up our stick” as Moses did, and stand for freedom.  We must not fall asleep like the disciples of Jesus at Gethsemane.  We must tithe at a church, synagogue, or mosque.  We must “pledge our lives and fortunes” to eliminating our national debt.  We must study the “sacred scriptures of our country”—the Constitution, the Gettysburg Address, “I Have a Dream.”  “This isn’t about one church or one faith over another; it is about the eternal principles of God.”

That last is an interesting contrast.  In another time, “denominational differences,” as Charlie Brown told Linus, tended to separate.  And there were even bigger heretics to fry when it came to the differences between “faiths” such as Christianity and Islam.  Or Christianity and Mormonism.

But Glenn Beck is a Mormon, and these “eternal principles of God” he espouses reflect that fact.  And for conservatives standing at the anxious bench on the Washington Mall, Beck was the one mediator between Mormon ideologue Cleon Skousen and man.

Like Beck’s, Skousen’s Mormonism is not the sort that publicly preaches that Jesus and Lucifer are brethren or that Elohim was once a mere mortal.  In The 5,000 Year Leap: Twenty-Eight Great Ideas That Are Changing the World (Glenn Beck’s favorite book) Skou­sen elaborates on a list of principles that, he claims, were cemented into the foundation of the United States.  They include “The United States of America shall be a republic” (no. 12) and “The unalienable rights of the people are most likely to be preserved if the principles of government are set forth in a written constitution” (no. 18).

The trouble is, Skousen claims that these ideas were derived by the Founding Fathers from the Bible, and modus ponens, the United States is God’s country.  “The United States has a manifest destiny to be an example and a blessing to the entire human race” (no. 28).

What’s so Mormon about all of this?  The above could have been said by any number of Christians who paint the Founding Fathers not as the wise, classically trained deists they were but as devout Bibliophiles.

And yet everything about this America-is-God’s-country ideology is Mormon to the core.  It serves as the false foundation of a religion that finds the center of human history not in the Incarnation, Cross, and Resurrection of Christ but in “another revelation of Jesus Christ” in the terrestrial “promised land” on which we stand.  It is Manichaean, declaring our external enemies evil and ourselves good, locating wickedness not in the hearts of sinful men but in the foes of a human government that will wither as the grass.  It is the religion of America—not the real, historical America, but the America of myth and fantasy.

“If we do these things,” Beck preached, “we will heal our nation.”  The phrase is reminiscent of 2 Chronicles 7:14, so often cited at rallies on the National Day of Prayer.  If my people, which are called by my name, shall . . . return to limited government (no. 19)?  Operate according to the will of the majority (no. 20)?  Be debt-free (no. 27)?  The assumption here is that Americans, like the Israelites of old, are uniquely “my [God’s] people.”  And that it is not “I the Lord” but “We the gods” who can “heal their land.”

Observers of American Christianity have noticed that, by and large, evangelicals no longer place much emphasis on America’s divine mission to protect and defend Israel.  Attendance at Christians-for-Israel conferences is down.  John Hagee and the Left Behind movies now evoke embarrassment.  The Bush Years are over.  America has “outgrown” dispensationalism.

All true, but there has also been a transference.  America’s divine mission is no longer the protection of Israel but the preservation of “freedom” here and abroad.  Muslims are no longer the enemy of Jews but the enemy of “our way of life.”  And conservative American Christians—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox—are joining evangelicals in this new dispensationalism, as they did at the Restoring Honor rally (alongside “240 men and women from all faiths represent[ing] thousands of clergy”).  There they applauded a man who denies that Jesus is the eternal Son of God, as he invited them to “find out who God truly is.”

Read "Mormon Apocalypse, Part 1" here.

This article first appeared in the November 2010 issue of Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture.  To subscribe (12 issues for $19.99), click here.

Several have already pointed out the fact that, should Romney-Ryan win in November, we'll have us the first dynamic White House duo in which neither is Protestant.  Yes, of course, none of us Prots should want to claim the Current Occupant, and it becomes a fun game if you go backwards down the list of PsOTUS with the Nicene Creed in your other hand and compare/contrast.  What I'm getting at is the symbolism.

To the point: There is not one single WASP scheduled to deliver a prayer at the 2012 Republican National Convention.  Forget the Anglo-Saxon part of the acronym: There's not one white Protestant scheduled to talk to God on behalf of the Republicans.  In fact, the only "P" on the list is the Rev. Sammy Rodriguez, "President of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference," a slicked-back Pentecostal holy roller who Tweets about what a bigot Sheriff Joe Arpaio is.  (Fun fact: Sammy's wife, "the Rev. Eva Rodriguez," offered the Benediction on Wednesday of 2008's Republican National Carnival.)

Tuesday kicks off with Rabbi Meir Soloveichik of New York City.  Wednesday opens with Ishwar Singh, a Sikh, and closes with His Eminence Methodios, Metropolitan of Boston.  And Thursday's opening bell comes from Ken and Priscilla Hutchins, Mitt Romney's friends who have likely received the Second Token of the Melchizedek Priesthood.  The affair will be brought to a close by His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan.

Now I'm not trying to open a can of syncretistic worms, nor seeking a debate over prayers to the Triune God in a diverse room.  I'm just wondering: They couldn't find one Southern Baptist whose face they wanted on the jumbotron? Or some pastor from an Evangelical Free Church, or a Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Episcopalian, Willow Creeker, Fundamental Baptist, etc., etc.?

You know, all those folks who represent the base?

This is what we've been reduced to, here in the land of dead factories and record unemployment: We rejoice that the re-Islamicizer of Turkey deigns to step foot in our airport.  The granddaddy of the Arab Spring, who serves as a model for incremental Islamic revolution, is way-cool, just because he was nice to us while his jet was refueled.  What's more, "'They've asked us to extend an invitation to our mayor to perhaps visit Turkey with a trade delgation from here,' says Dunn."

I don't reckon the good folks of Turkey are interested in buying Cheap Trick CDs, sock monkeys, public-school discrimination memorabilia, or Chronicles: A Magazine of American Culture, so I doubt the deal will get done.  Truth is, if we really did make what we used to make, which made Rockford the manufacturing capitol of the Midwest, I doubt we'd be so enamored of flying Islamicists.