Calling Sergeant Friday
By Michael R. Bowen (02/03/04)
Humor me for a moment, and try this experiment: I want you to stand before your stove, and call it a pillow. Praise its fullness, its plump outlines, its downy softness. Declare how it's just as comfy a place to lay your head has anything that ever came from Fluffy Down Pillows, Inc.
Then, after a few minutes of this, take off your shoes and kick it across the room. Or pick it up and have a pillow fight with it.
You, believe it or not as your nurse your throbbing foot, will thank me. You'll thank me because you've just gotten a very cheap lesson. As Mark Twain said, "The man who sets out to carry a tomcat home by the tail is getting all kinds of useful information." Not so lucky the many who have been persuaded to a similar exercise (by our popular culture, academia, feminists, or the Left in general) to look upon couples in cohabitation or divorce, homosexuals who want to be "married", lesbians adopting a child, or a church electing an active homosexual as their spiritual leader, and practice "tolerance" by naming them "normal", "alternative lifestyles", "inclusiveness" and of course "diversity".
They don't just have sore toes. They have broken lives, and broken hearts, because the words of their promises and vows have become meaningless. Their children are adrift, not knowing where in the world they can get absolute faith, absolute love, and promises which won't be broken. Their wives are stuck with the kids while Daddy enjoys the Trophy Wife. The parishioners are without a leader to encourage them to keep the Commandments, for Bishop Oscar Wilde, who could "resist everything except temptation", tells them that the meaning of the Commandments is negotiable. Right and wrong are not reference points anymore; they're moving targets which change with the times and with the Times. When they're in a jam and need a little guidance on how to do the right thing, they're expected to refer to the newspaper or television and not the Bible.
But this is not the old Dragnet show, and the names have not been changed to protect the innocent. When an old sin becomes newly popular (there are no new sins), the name will be changed to protect the guilty. As old virtues fall out of fashion, the names are changed to condemn the virtuous. You've got to be on your toes, just to keep track of whether you're a sinner or a saint this year.
We already have euphemisms to denote "lost child of broken home", "lonely woman who never married because her career came first", and "tempted Christian who struggles to do right while his Bishop says 'embrace tolerance'". So, if you're feeling guilty over some wrong thing you wish to do, don't fret. We'll soon have nice, easy, comforting words to describe whatever act you're contemplating. You'll feel better in no time, kid.
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