After several conservative commentators blamed the financial crisis on ethnic minorities, now some are stepping up to the plate and blaming it on God's wrath for our sexual sins:
In a September 25th blog post titled 'The Nation Will Right Itself If It Fixes Sex', Christian Civil League of Maine Executive Director Michael Heath writes that the financial crisis facing Wall Street is a symptom of America's sinful sexual culture, including the acceptance of gay unions.
"Our crisis is a symptom, not the cause," writes Michael Heath. "I am not saying I know whether this financial crisis is God's judgment or not. It is not for me to know that definitively."
Heath goes on to list policy changes that would make God "crack a smile," including: End abortion rights and defund non-profit groups supporting it, amend state constitutions to ban gay marriage and eliminate domestic partnerships and civil unions for gay and lesbian couples, and end discrimination against private religious schools and homeschools.
This is exactly how monks in medieval Europe would explain the problems facing a group of people: bad stuff happened to you because God punished you for sinning. Wars, famine, disease were all explained this way. It is, um, uh, interesting to see this line of thought alive today in the United States of America.
From a "more Democrats" perspective, it is important to keep in mind that this is what we are up against: rank medievalism and anti-modernity. The good news is that this "God is punishing us for our sins" explanation of the problems we face isn't getting many takers from the public. Even the Georgia Senate race, as confirmed by two polls in the last two days (see here and here), is now within two and a half points because of this meltdown. If the Georgia Senate race is now too close to call, then the number of Democratic pickup opportunities is enormous. There are going to be a whole lot of "more Democrats" in 2009.
The key is to make sure that those "more Democrats" are also "Better Democrats." Over at the Better Democrats Act Blue page, we have a selection of eight challengers who we promise will all be of the Better variety. I believe that every single one of them are candidates that either Matt or I have personally met, who also would have voted correctly on both FISA and the Iraq war, and all, or virtually all, of them also singed the Responsible Plan to end the war in Iraq. With the current political environment, they all have a good chance right now, and by contributing today you can make a difference in their campaigns. Even though Act Blue was down for about three hours today, we are still more than halfway to our goal of 100 contributors today, Let's push that over the top, and move closer to a progressive governing majority.
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