You have to look at the psychology rather than the theology. The reason the Christian Right gets so upset about things like this is that their morality has come to focus almost entirely on sex. Look at their obsessions — abortion, homosexuality, Plan B, promiscuity, Clinton/Lewinsky, immodest clothing — practically everything the Christian Right really gets worked up about these days is rooted in the basic ethos of “sexuality is bad (outside certain very narrow parameters) and should be hidden away, or punished if it is expressed”. Of course any suggestion that Jesus himself had sex is going to set them off. To a religion which has always incorporated a strong streak of sexual abstinence as part of its concept of purity, it’s anathema.

In reality, it’s rather like getting all worked up over the question of whether or not Superman had sex with Lois Lane. We’re talking about what was almost certainly a fictional character. But wars have been fought over less.

Infidel–I think you make a valid point. When I’ve talked to people outside our country and culture, the difference in sexual paradigm is astounding. It amazes me how deeply ingrained this distrust of the acts of flesh is embedded into our collective unconscious. Quite disturbing indeed.

Everyone’s tax dollars go to support some activities of which he disapproves. I disapprove of welfare, farm subsidies, and Bush’s “faith-based initiatives”, but my taxes go to those things nevertheless. There’s no reason why abortion should be in a special category — unless you have an obsession about sexual purity which leads you to put sexual matters in a class of their own. I used to be an abortion-clinic defense volunteer, and I can assure you that the yelling-and-screaming religious nutcases I was face-to-face with there did not care (or probably know) whether any of the abortions there were tax-funded. They were control freaks, period.

I’m not homosexual, but I’ve known a number of homosexuals. Not one of them was at all interested in shoving it in anyone’s face or pestering young people about it. They just wanted to be left alone. Every one of them had suffered things like beatings, harassment, or discrimination at the hands of the “righteous”. Homosexual activity among consenting adults in private was illegal in a dozen heavily-Christian states until the Supreme Court’s Lawrence decision lifted the boot of religious bigotry off the necks of the innocent.

Sometimes promiscuity has “deleterious effects” on people, sometimes it doesn’t. I depends on the person and the circumstances. People do all kinds of things that have “deleterious effects” on themselves. Adults have the legal and moral right to make such decisions. You don’t see preachers railing against most such activities, unless sex is involved.

If Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky had been the worst thing he ever did, his administration would have been the most virtuous in American history. Every President has done dishonest or immoral things more serious than that. The Christian Right obsesses about Clinton/Lewinsky because it was sexual.

“Scumbag”? I love it when attractive women dress to show themselves off. It makes the world a prettier and more stimulating place. People who call them names for doing it are a drag.

I’m not a liberal (or conservative), but most people I know are self-identified liberals. None of them even faintly resemble the ridiculous caricatures which are attached to that word all over the right-wing internet. I know that I, for one, am not obsessed about sex. I would probably never write about any of these issues if I didn’t live in a culture infested with religious nuts who are obsessed with trying to regulate other people’s sexuality (trying to pass laws against abortion, limit access to birth control, etc.).

I’m pretty confident that if you polled a representative sample of Christians, about 95% of them would say that Jesus could not have been married because he was God incarnated (or some trivial variant of that reason). So you seem to be saying that most Christians are “deluded”. Still, scholars (and entertainers and nuts) propose unorthodox ideas about Jesus all the time. They don’t provoke a frenzied reaction from the Christian Right except in cases, such as this one, where they involve sex.

While I respect Antimedia’s beliefs because I think they’ve made him a better person and a better citizen, I have to concur with Infidel about the political religious right’s obsession with regulating and directing the sexual expression of the American culture. I remember reading one of Antimedia’s past blog posts where he revealed that a close family member (a brother, perhaps if I remember correctly) was a homosexual and he said basically the same thing that he said above. I have always found his viewpoints to be level-headed and open-minded to the point of a conclusion being reached.

That being said, my own views on the issue of abortions and homosexual education being supported by tax dollars are as follows. I truly believe that the income tax (a direct tax which should not be allowed according to the US Constitution) is one of the most egregious violations of individual liberty in the history of our nation. I don’t believe that US taxes should be used to fund eduction of any type. I believe that the wealthy of our nation would give far more generously to their communities were they not impelled by the government to give half of their earned income away and have it distributed to programs that do little measurable social good.

The education system has failed us and we have produced a nation of whiney pitty panty-face ho ass muthafuggas who feel entitled to a living standard which is unrealistic for those without earning potential. I’ll like to take some of these post-9/11 teenage dramatists and bitch slap them before dropping them off the ravine of common sense.

And as far as naked women go–I love women and I love to look at naked women. I say more of that, but I’ll be damned to hell before I let my daughter walk around looking like that in public–this is where good parenting comes in and I’m stepping up to bat. If other parents are too absent to guide their daughters into wearing what will make other people respect them upon first glance; then all the better for me as I ogle their daughters (when they become legal age of course) walking down the street.

Great stuff, gentlemen–thanks for contributing to the discussion.