Sexuality Scandals are Religious
On Thursday, Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner resigned from the House of Representatives over some crotch photos he tweeted. Why did he resign? Well, it was a whole scandal. What was the big deal? Why was it a scandal? The way I see it, it is because religion has skewed our priorities as moral agents.
Yeah, I know people are going to say that I blame religion for everything. Well that’s not true. I only blame religion for the attitudes encouraged by religious holy books. I can’t help it if that seems to be negative. Perhaps the character of God shouldn’t have been an asshole in those holy books.
Let’s face facts, the Abrahamic religious are pretty uptight when it comes to sexuality and the idea that Anthony Weiner tweeted out photos of his crotch would hardly even be news if it weren’t for this nations obsession with the puritanical philosophy of western religion.
Sex and sexuality are often thought of as being dirty and as a result, our culture has become overly obsessed whenever something of a sexual nature takes place. Who cares that Anthony Weiner took photos of his weiner and tweeted them? Does that really affect the way he represents the people in his district? Does it make him less correct when he goes onto the floor of the House and exposes what his Republican colleagues really want to do? Does it make him wrong on healthcare reform, or on saving social security and medicare?
On the other hand, we have a Supreme Court Justice alleged to be taking bribes and Congressmen around the nation (Democrats and Republicans alike) being bought off by large corporations and Wall Street bankers to reduce regulation on those industries putting the American public at risk. No one’s forcing any of those people to resign.
The really odd thing is that Weiner wasn’t even being hypocritical on the issue of sexuality like so many of his Republican colleagues. The reason why it is a scandal for Republicans and not for Weiner is because Republicans run their campaigns on being sexually pure and Christian “family values.” They often attempt to pass laws condemning homosexuality and try to regulate sexual activity in the bedroom. Then they are caught in gay bathhouses and with prostitutes. Their hypocrisy becomes their scandal. Anthony Weiner on the other hand is alleged to have an open relationship with his wife and doesn’t push any of the religiously inspired sexual purity in speeches or in legislation.
Did Anthony Weiner do anything illegal? No, but sexuality is so evil that tweeted crotch photos are much more scandalous than deregulating the insurance, credit card, banking, and oil industries so that they can rip off the public and pollute our air and water to make a few extra billion dollars to just sit around in their already bloated back accounts and not stimulate the economy.
My point is that instead of caring about the real corruption in Washington and scandalizing the greed and carelessness of those in political office who abuse their power, we are more concerned about scandalizing Anthony Weiner over sending crotch photos to consenting adults on twitter.
For more on how religion demonizes sexuality, check out my atheism 101 article: Why has Christianity demonized nudity, sex and sexuality?
Related articles
- Anthony Weiner resigns over lewd photo scandal (independent.co.uk)
- Anthony Weiner Photos Scandal: House Democrats To Meet About Controversy: AP Sources (huffingtonpost.com)
- Weiner Resigns (aphilosopher.wordpress.com)
Filed under: culture war, Evils of Christianity, family values, Politics, sex, twitter
