Too Long at the Culture Wars?

More is the pity that you did not know, but April 6 is National Twinkie Day, a day to celebrate that scrumptious little cake that, left uneaten and alone, will likely last until the end of days. 

Frankly, I did not know when National Twinkie day was either, but when someone mentioned it on Facebook, my first thought was not the cake itself but rather to the fact that Twinkie is the word used by older homosexuals for teens and other weak men entering the gay life. 

The great advocate for reformed homosexuality, Joseph Sciambra, speaks openly about how he was a Twinkie when he entered that world and how the older and stronger men took advantage of him. They did more than introduce him to their way; they helped him understand his submissive role. He says it is a common occurrence—strong older men and young Twink—and part and parcel of the homosexual milieu. 

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Putting all that aside, what made me chuckle and perhaps blanche a little bit was that my mind would go so quickly from something so sweet, to something so dark; from cakes to unnatural predatory sex. I suspect this is because I have been so long at the culture wars. To describe my vocation as a writer and reporter, I like to quote T.S. Elliot’s The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, come back to tell you all. I shall tell you all.”

I am also reminded of the dying words of the sentient robot Roy Batty in Blade Runner, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.”

While I have not seen C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, I have seen quite a bit; if not in person, then in the words and images of the revolution that has subsumed us all. The sexual revolution is all around us. You cannot escape it, not even in the BenOp. 

You likely have heard middle-aged Catholic moms use the phrase “money shot.” They likely do not know its true meaning, or that it’s from porn. I will refrain from telling you what exactly it means. I will refrain from mentioning any other such now-commonly-used phrases with a nasty provenance, but they are all around us. I know many more, as does my wife, who was a porn fighter in the early part of her career in the Culture Wars. We sometimes laugh at all the things we know that we probably shouldn’t (and sometimes wish we didn’t) know. 

The Sexual Left has invaded our world. As you likely know, they are teaching certain unnatural and deeply harmful sexual acts to our children in school, though to call it “sex” is to dress up a pig for the prom. 

There is a problem for us, though, and it is one of description. Twinkie Day came, and I was scolded for commenting on Facebook that Twinkie had a double meaning, a colloquial meaning from GayWorld. I was scolded for being too explicit. The woman who scolded me derided the “culture warriors” she used to work with who always wanted to be explicit about what is going on out there. 

Some want to show the pictures of aborted babies. Abortion pictures made Lila Rose pro-life, but they harm or turn others away. Please know I am not advocating for displaying the images of aborted babies or of porn. Consider, however, what happened to William F. Buckley back in the 1990s. He was set to participate in a Firing Line debate on porn, one on which my wife was set to participate. Always the libertarian, Buckley was not sure which side of the porn debate he wanted to be on, pro or con. Then my wife provided him with a list of porn titles, titles only, no images. The titles did it for Buckley. He joined the anti-porn side. 

But sometimes titles are not enough; sometimes the pictures must be seen. Consider the Congressional debate about online decency back in the 1990s. Congressmen were reluctant to require age verification to keep porn away from kids. But then, two Culture Warriors—Donna Rice Hughes and Mariam Bell—actually showed them the pictures of what kids would be able to access. Congress voted in favor of age verification to access pornography. Sadly, the Supreme Court struck this down—now, any kid with a smart phone can access even the most brutal porn. 

The Culture Warriors of the Left have us over a barrel; they know the typical person will look away, must look away, and that we are practically required by our faith to look away. 

What you must also know about the Culture War is that we did not start it. The lefties at Georgetown University hosted a panel last year on how Americans exported the Culture Wars. I pointed out to them that International Planned Parenthood Federation was founded way back in 1952. The conservative World Congress of Families was not founded until nearly forty years later. Our side has been late to the Culture Wars. 

One could say the Culture Wars were started in earnest with the advent of “the pill” in 1965. You could place it further back to the Supreme Court removing prayer from school a few years before that. You could go back to the French Revolution that declared war on the Church and the family. Of course, you could go all the way back to the Garden of Eden. But what is crystal clear is that we are not the aggressors in the Culture War, the Left is. We are only ever reacting. We are on defense, and therefore our Culture War is also a Just War. 

Some preach boredom, fear, and even defeat. They tell us to go away; the Culture Wars are boring. They are so 1980s. They say we have lost the Culture Wars. Rod Dreher says we have lost. Again, quoting T.S. Elliot, “If we take the widest and wisest view of a cause, there is no such thing as a lost cause, because there is no such thing as a gained cause.” 

What is left to us is the lesson from the Garden of Eden—that the fight goes on until the end of time, and that we cannot lament the time He has placed us in, for this is our salvation. The Culture Wars are not lost. You may not know what “money shot” really means, but trust me, you may not want to use it so much.

[Photo Credit: Shutterstock]

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