An Open Letter to Southpark Republicans.

Settle in because I have something to say.

A few days back there was a post over at Protein Wisdom about having Kid Rock perform at the inaugural at the White House. Michele Malkin had opened her blog up to comments and many of the religious conservatives were very upset that he was playing because of his nasty lyrics and nasty lifestyle. They felt it wasn't a good message to send to young people. Jeff at PW was sorta put out by that, feeling that the religious conservatives were kinda saying that if you weren't a certain kind of Republican then they didn't want you around. Someone came up with the perfect name imo of the kind of Republican Jeff and many of the conservative bloggers are; Southpark Republicans.

Southpark Republicans (and some libertarians who vote Republican) are conservative in most things politically but either iffy or apathetic on social and cultural issues. They tend to have naughty humor and language on their blogs, and I must admit I enjoy their blogs very much. But they seem to be truly bothered by the Jerry Falwells, James Dobsons, and the like in the Republican party.

There is no doubt in my mind that we really are the big tent party. All you have to do it look at this conservative Catholic blog, to Jeff's naughty Jewish Protein Wisdom blog to atheist BigDog's House blog to gay Republican Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities blog to Protestant religious La Shawn Barber's blog. Catholic, Jewish, atheist, Gay, and Evangelical, we have it all. I like it that way. I think we can all learn a lot from each other. But I think I need to address Jeff's concern about religious conservatives. Many conservative bloggers (and others) who are non religious or marginally so don't seem to understand religious conservatives concerns on social and culture issues. I was trying to figure out how best to explain it and this is what I came up with.

For years and years I have subscribed to 3 magazines. "National Review" in order to retain my sane view of the world, "U.S News and World Report" for a general balanced view of world events, news, and politics, and finally "Vainty Fair." At first I read "Vanity Fair" as a guilty pleasure. It was like a more sophisticated "People Magazine." It has in depth articles on the rich and famous, not only from today, but from the past. It always had very good articles on famous and some not so famous criminal trials as well. It has always been liberal, but the last few years it has become a liberal screech. That is the only way to describe it. I thought this month's issue illustrated well the reason social conservatives are so concerned with our culture and why we feel we have to be so vocal about it in our party.

Flip through the magazine with me, will you?

I'll skip the rants on the war and President Bush that we conservatives all agree that the liberals are way off on , but trust me, they are all there. From the "election fraud" here to the "evil" Gonzales for Attorney General.

The letters to the Editor begins with praise and concern over a previous article on the Italian Lolita whose best selling non-fiction book is all the rage in Europe and coming here as well. It is the diary of a 16 yr old girl into sexual perversions of every kind ( and I mean every kind) with older men and women. This behavior is not considered wrong or deviant. Only the "poetry" of her diary is discussed. The fact that she was a minor is never mentioned.

Next we have an article about the next Star Wars sequel, "Revenge of the Sith." It seems this sequel may have a PG-13 rating. Lucas says in the article that children should be warned, thinking Star Wars is innocent. This one is not. People are cut in half and arms are cut off in this one. Isn't that nice? Make a string of wonderful movies for kids, then make the last sequel that isn't for them. Who believes that small children will not see this movie, much less 9 and 10 yr olds?

Keeping with the anti-American and anti war theme of Vanity Fair, another article describes "new accounts of prisoner abuse in Iraq." I'll keep it simple for you. Our soldiers are bad, evil, sexual perverts, and the poor Iraqi's caught up in our immoral war are victims of the abuse by our soldiers.

Next we have a biography of Bob Guccione, "one of the greatest success stories in magazine history, the cornerstone of a multi million dollar publishing empire." That is until the "Reagan era censorship" made him almost lose it all. They call him a "pioneering pornographer" in founding Penthouse magazine. His "daring and graphic displays of genitalia" were a way of passing up Playboy magazine in sales. He is an "artist whose pornographic imagination came from his repressed Catholic background."
No mention of the women he exploited, used, and drugged, or the sexuality he warped of young boys on his way to fortune and fame.

And finally I bring you the article, "The Gay Divide." Which focuses on gays in television. It begins with Showtime being surprised that one it's episode of "The L Word," a lesbian "Sex In The City" type show, didn't cause the controversy they thought it would.

I know this is going to sound weird, but I cannot type what the episode is about in the way they did. I just can't. So instead of "Christ" I am going to type "a man." Just bear with my sensibilities here please. In this episode "a man" is depicted in an art video performing graphic sex from behind with a fallen woman. As the woman, on all fours, grimaces, the producer of the video says "it's like she's longing for faith."

I am hoping that the reason the episode didn't generate controversy is because no one saw it. Because if there is a case of more extreme religious bigotry, I am not aware of it.

So this is what I have to say to my Southpark Republican friends. Let me give you a little perspective if faith is not a part of your life. Imagine that someone you love more than anything in this world; your child, is constantly being depicted in a gross or perverted manner in print, TV, and movies. Imagine a show that depicts your child, calling him by the name you have given him, being sexually raped or molested with no hint that there is anything wrong with that. I would think you would be enraged. You would scream from the roof top.

That is the way religious conservatives feel about this culture. We feel that what we love is being put on display for ridicule and that we are having to raise our children in a culture than not only disrespects the faith we are trying to pass on to our children, but denigrates it in every way that it can from music, to TV, to movies. Every moral value that we convey to our children from pro-life issues to sexual issues to religious issues are considered "judgmental" or "prudish." We honestly feel our children are breathing in the venom our society puts out there and we feel helpless.

Many adults with young children are under the grand illusion that you can somehow protect your children from the nasty and perverted. It is impossible. Especially with the Internet. Unless you follow your child around 24 hrs a day until he is 12, he will see and hear things you would never want him to hear or see by the time he is 7. For every parent who watches carefully there are 200 who do not. And your child will be exposed to them. There is no getting around it.

We did not have cable in our house for 13 yrs until they came out with the V chip so I could block channels. My brother told me once, "you can't keep them innocent forever." I asked him, "Can I keep them innocent until they are 10??? Is that possible? Is that OK?"

So maybe you Southpark Republicans can be a little more understanding of those of us who rant against the sexualization of our kids, the crudeness of our public airwaves, and the anger and sadness we feel fighting the Golaith of our society who seems to only care about what adults want and not what kid's need.

We want what you want, a better society. Whenever I look at an issue I don't only look at who is for it, I look at who is against it. That tells me a lot about it. Yall might think about that as well next time you disagree with a religious conservative. Look around you and see who is against us as well.

You might not like the company.