Twenty First Century ‘Courage’ is So ‘Gay’
This malevolent vibe, lately on the malodorous increase, actually has been around a while. We were treated to a more nuanced hint of it when, October past, Indiana Senatorial candidate Richard Mourdoch was filleted for insisting that a baby conceived through rape should not be aborted. “Life is that gift from God … even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
Mourdock’s avowal was little more than application of a basic tenet of Christianity 101: a merciful Creator can bring something good even from something most egregious. Humanity’s salvation arising from a lawless crucifixion, for instance, comes to mind.
Mourdoch referenced God, however — presumably the One mentioned in the Bible. Not to be countenanced nowadays.
I sniffed out a whiff of this dynamic yet more recently when professional volleyballer Gabrielle Reece came clean to NBC News about the “old-fashioned dynamic” that exists within her marriage: “I’m clearly the female; [my husband’s] clearly the male … I choose to serve the family which means dinner and laundry and organizing his schedule as well as my schedule.”
I’ve nary an idea what, if any, religious/spiritual system might be honored within the six-foot-three superstar’s household, but her approach to homemaking/spousal interaction undeniably echoes a biblical model that was the norm back in the insufferably stodgy Father-Knows-Best era. Reece credits this scandalously traditionalist approach with rescuing her once divorce-bound marriage. But no matter! – it too creepily harkens to patriarchal – read: Christian – patterns, which was sufficient to raise the Bible-phobic hackles of some observers. Reece, unsurprisingly, took heat for her remarks.
More than a decade, then, into this callow century, where does real “courage” reveal itself? Hollywood was ooh-ing and ahh-ing twenty years ago when Marielle Hemingway’s lesbian character smooched Roseanne Barr on the latter’s sitcom. I think I’m paraphrasing Bill Kristol who impishly pointed out a prime time program featuring an intelligent pro-lifer or attractive, articulate Christian would be exhibiting lots more guts – and that back in the early ’90s. If anything, the giggly mania with all things “gay”, with anything that thumps biblical mores, has intensified exponentially since then.
Today, when, despite the milieu’s saturating anti-Christian hostility, biblically-fortified believers resolve to make a difference, speaking out/living out their convictions – now there is authentic courage on display.
And when the phone doesn’t ring with a fawning, congratulatory shout out to those same believers? Be assured it’s Barack Obama.
