Mr. Potato Head in a Dress

Why Conservatives Must Reject the Whole Charade

Introduction
It may seem like I talk and write about nothing else, but in my defense, they keep doing it. I’m well aware of the hammer and nail fallacy and the temptations of certain hammer wielding fanatics to see the whole world as nothing but nails. But there is also the possibility that in this fanatical world of ours that there could be madmen going around tapping nails into boards and railings and leaving them there exposed, waiting to catch on any unsuspecting sweater that comes by. In such a world, it wouldn’t be a fallacy to be a man with a hammer, it would be a noble necessity. And so that is my defense. Not everything is a nail, but there certainly are a lot of nails sticking out and up in all manner of angular positions. And so here I am once again to insist that conservatives actually act like conservatives. Let us be done with half measures, compromises, and slightly left of early 2000s Democratic talking points. I mean even Barack Obama would not have publicly supported Dave Rubin’s delusional “marriage” to his sodomite partner, at least at the beginning of his presidency, not to mention his Margaret Sanger-lite eugenics and freezers full of breastmilk. 

Not Following Arguments
There are several things to note, but the overarching point is the inability or unwillingness for many conservatives to follow an argument, unlike, for example many liberals and leftists. Yours truly was quoted recently in the Idaho Statesman saying shockingly Christian things like only the Christian God sent His Son to die for you, and therefore we should follow Him and trust His words and laws for all public morality. It was shocking, I tell you. And apparently even some Mormons would be shocked. Also, apparently, this editorial was written by someone who gets out as much as the folks at Meet the Press on NBC. 

Now the whole argument was a grand example of a sort of slippery slope fallacy, except I might call it the slippery incline fallacy, since several of the conclusions the author suggested were the sorts of things you couldn’t get out of a stoned magician’s hat. Yes, I’m a Christian pastor, and yes, I’m on the board of the Idaho Family Policy Center, which is an explicitly Christian and Bible-based political action group, seeking to influence Idaho’s lawmakers to make Biblical and Christian laws. Yes, that’s true, and I’m not sorry at all. But then the opinion writer, one Bryan Clark, quotes some Iranian law code referring to sharia law, and says something along the lines of “waddabout that?” And we might just as easily quote Charlie Brown or Charlie Chaplin back to him and ask him the same. You see, in order to make arguments, the ideas have to actually, you know, connect. 

Let me make the point very carefully and clearly: just because someone believes that the Bible should be the basis for all human morality, including the public square, does not mean, following me closely here, that they want the Quran to be the basis for all human morality. See what Mr. Clark failed to remember is that these are two completely different books, two completely different religions, and the one that condones violence and genital mutilation is not Christianity. Speaking of which: which political party is openly defending unlimited access to gender destroying treatments and surgeries? Oh, that’s right, it would be the Democrats and their dutiful assistants, spineless Republicans. 

The Secular Neutrality Fallacy
Now, the real fallacy that Mr. Clark is engaged in is the secular neutrality fallacy. He’s assuming that there is this spooky boogeyman called “Religion” that is automatically coercive and fascist. But he, standing over there, is observing “religionists” from his non-religious, neutral and ever-so secular hideout, warning the citizens of Idaho of fell Religion’s approach. The problem with this of course is the fact that Mr. Clark is every bit as religious as the Idaho Family Policy Center, the Mormons, and Mr. Potato Head wearing a dress talking to Biden in the Whitehouse. And Mr. Clark can sputter and deny till the cows have come home and had a mind-numbing night cap, but the fact of the matter is that everyone is religious, just as sure as everyone is human, just as sure as everyone has a mom, even if Dave Rubin is determined not to let his kids have one.

“Religious” simply means that you have a worldview, a way of thinking about the world, a way of believing about the world. You may be atheist or agnostic, you may be a materialist and a secularist, but guess what? You believe that your vision of the world is true, and you live according to that belief. You may believe in science and democracy as your ground and pillars of truth, but that is your religion. And by the way, that is the religion that is currently established in our public schools and halls of government, despite the fact that the First Amendment prohibits a religion being established. But I digress.

Despite this secular neutrality fallacy, Mr. Clark did manage to connect a few dots better than most Republicans. He is correct that a thoroughly Biblical worldview denies that sexual immorality is good for human flourishing. He is correct that the Bible clearly condemns homosexuality, transgenderism, and gaudy clown crossdressing as sinful and in some cases criminal, just as nearly every law code in America recognized for about 200 years, until about five minutes ago. We are not promoting some new, novel vision for America. We simply want a Christian America that George Washington and John Adams would recognize and be proud of. But ever since so-called “free love” hit the scene mass incarceration, drug addiction, and suicides have sky-rocketed, not to mention riots, vandalism, burning police stations down, and Drag Queens twerking for kids. Sorry, your version of “freedom” looks like a lot more slavery and death.  

Mr. Potato Head in a Dress
Speaking of spooky boogeymans, you may have seen that Halloween came early to the Whitehouse, and it was a minstrel show mocking our mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. Mr. Potatohead showed up in a dress doing blackface for women, and President Biden assured him, in his stream of consciousness sort of way, that he opposed all restrictions on genital mutilation surgeries and sex-sterilizing hormone therapies. Biden also said he supports open access to fentanyl for all toddlers. Ok, he didn’t say that, but I have no idea why he wouldn’t, if for example, the CDC came out and said it was good for toddler mental health. 

As far as I can tell, this point, full access to life-destroying medical poisons and dismemberment, was the central target of most conservatives and republicans. The clip that was shared and the shrieks that went up were almost entirely aimed at Biden’s blathering about wanting children to be castrated. Which, for the record, was horrific, disgusting, and appalling. I think he used the words “morally wrong” at some point in his stumbling soliloquy, and I almost threw up in my mouth. To call the right to burn, cut, and maim children for life any kind of moral right is raw madness. Again, if we are going to draw similarities between public policies and certain extremist religions, this is the place to do it. 

But the worst part wasn’t that. The worst part wasn’t the stammering support of child genital mutilation. The worst part was actually the whole charade. The worst part was President Biden talking to Mr. Potato Head in a dress, who began by saying it had been some number of days since he had begun crossdressing. And Biden made some inane comment about these people being great and brave. He also said it reminded him of that one time when he signed the Declaration of Independence and his Dad said to him, Hey Joey, nice job signing the Declaration of Independence! Or something like that… 

Sorry, where was I? Oh, right: the worst part was the whole charade. And this is why the charade is worse than what Biden said. You cannot merely object to the sexualization and mutilation of children, while talking straight faced with a Clown Man. If you admit the legitimacy of LGBTP perversion in adults, then there is absolutely no reason why you may prohibit children from learning about it. If dressing up as a clown is a morally legitimate, brave, and virtuous thing for adults to do, you cannot consistently ban children from being taught about clown life and clown virtues. You cannot admit Drag Queens to the public square as one reasonable option among many and then ban them from public libraries and schools.

Are they a morally virtuous option or not? But the same thing goes for divorce, adultery, fornication, pornography, homosexuality, buying eggs from a catalogue, mixing up babies in test tubes, renting wombs, and mangling the natural family in general. But piles of Republicans are unwilling to connect the dots. Piles of so-called conservatives want to camp out half-way down the water slide. But you can’t get on that slide of immorality and stop half-way down. You can’t jettison Biblical morality when it comes to your porn habits or adultery, and then magically pull Biblical morality out of your traditional values hat when they want to twerk in public parks for kids or chemically castrate them. 

Conclusion
And so yes, this brings us back to Jesus. Will we trust the word of man or the Word of God? Will we trust human consensus or will we trust the God who sent His only Son to die for sinners? And let us be clear, this God, the Christian God of the Bible, sent His only Son to die for all kinds of sinners who have committed all kinds of sins. This God sent His only Son to die for conservative sins and liberal sins, Republican sins and Democrat sins. This God so loved the world that He gave His only Son so that all who believe in Him might have eternal life. God sent His Son for homosexuals, for effeminate, for adulterers, for fornicators, for crossdressers, and for those who have mutilated their bodies or helped others do so. And since God sent His only Son to die for all of those sins, the hopelessness of conservatives must die, and the despair of leftists must die. Both imprison men and women in dark prisons, where they simply refuse to believe that they can be forgiven, cleansed, and made whole. Guilt, shame, regret, failure, hurt – all these things are hooks in the hearts of people that cause them to give up, to think it is too late, that nothing can be done, to succumb to whatever they think is safe. But the consensus is not safe, some moral tradition is not safe. Christ died for sinners, and He rose from the dead to make all things new, to make men new. “Behold what manner of love, the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called the sons of God… Hereby we perceive the love of God, because He laid His life down for us” (1 Jn. 3:1). So come and welcome to Jesus Christ.