Separation of Sex and State

It's a point so obvious even I've made it ad nauseum. Still, it's a good point, and it's good to keep asking the question until we finally get an answer that's a bit more logically rigorous than "just because."

After comparing the elites' l"libertarian consensus" that just about anything of a sexual nature is permitted in the public square, whereas even mentioning Christmas is considered uncooth bordering on offensive, Carol Platt Liebau wonders:

All these measures spring from a laudable aversion to giving offense, and the impulse that prompts them is a tribute to the nation's history of religious tolerance. But nonbelievers or non-Christians are not being forced to celebrate Christmas (much less profess belief in Jesus' divinity).

So it's worth wondering: In a nation founded on religious principles, why should spiritual messages be tailored to the sensitivities of nonbelievers, while sexual messages are not similarly constrained for the sensibilities of traditionalists?

If there's a standard for deciding what content is appropriate for the public square, surely it should be uniformly applied. At the very least, we should rethink a status quo that presumes religious messages will elicit the kind of indignation once reserved for the crude sexual messages that pass without comment (or censure) today.

posted by Ace at 01:51 PM

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