CNN.com - Parents challenge weekly Bible classes - Feb 12, 2005

CNN.com - Parents challenge weekly Bible classes - Feb 12, 2005

The killer quotation in this article comes from Jack Hinton, who speaks for a rural Virginian group that provides religious education to children. As quoted in the CNN article, "Without religious classes, he said, 'kids get into trouble and have no moral structure on which to combat drugs, sex, pornography and all that.'"

For me, the whole state/religion divide is argument enough to keep the Bible out of the classroom (except in English class). But what I just can't figure out is why the religious right is always carping on and on about the moral decay of America and then goes on to blame it on a lack of religiousness in various public services.

There is no law that says NBC, FOX, ABC or CBS can't make television programming that is geared towards the Christian community. As far as I can see, the only show that routinely crosses into the religious is Seventh Heaven, which supremely sucks. Why don't these guys go after televison and do something real, instead of filing these petty claims against networks for airing a breast gone astray. Get some good writers with good ideas and put them into action if that is what they want.

It is the guys at the top of these media corporations who have more of a say as to which direction the moral compass points. But the guys at the top of the media corporations are businessmen, and usually they are pretty successful businessmen. Of course, they sell things that, for the most part, pretty much sell themselves. Everyone watches television, they are simply trying to persuade people to his 5 on their remote instead of 2 or 7.

So, they are trying to persuade viewers to switch over by giving them what they want. And you guessed it, America likes "moral decay." We love it. We eat it up for breakfast. CSI is an acronym for crime scene investigation. I mean, we are fascinated by gory crime scenes!

I say this not because I am (not) fascinated by gory crime but because mainstream America is. Mainstream America wallows in its own adolescent sexuality, voyeuristically turned on by the sight of a breast or by Paris Hilton sticking her arm up a cows ass.

This is what America wants. It can crow on about moral values, but if business really does gauge the delights of America, then it wants mainstream hackery far more than it wants Christian ideals.