Porno and Prayers

Avedon Carol has a number of great posts up from the last couple of days and I urge you to go read them. This one, however, a letter from one of her readers taking issue with the ridiculous numbers used in Nicholas Kristof’s article about how the poor Christian right is treated in the media is particularly great.

I’ve gotta tell you, if Kristoff’s numbers were true, then the rest of us are buying porn and drinking whiskey and watching debauched television every single waking minute of the day because these industries are sure as hell making billions off of somebody.

It reminds me of the great story (possibly apocryphal) about a porno store owner in Utah who was busted and tried for violating community standards. However, his defense attorney was able to prove that some huge number of locals watched porno on their cable television and that the local hotels all carried it on their closed circuit systems. Ooops.

This entire line about America being the “most religious” country on earth is belied by what we see every day in our popular culture. (If you define shopping as a religion, then perhaps it’s true.) Otherwise, people are quite obviously defining themselves to pollsters as “religious” if they have even a vague belief in God or go to church on Christmas eve. I do not know how many truly devout religious people there are, and I’m sure there are many, but clearly this is not a majority and this constant citing of polls as if they mean something on a subject like this is absurd.

In a nation where the entire congress goes completely apeshit over the words “under God” in the silly pledge of allegiance, is it any wonder that people tell pollsters they are religious? I’m sure they even believe it. They also believe that watching “Secret Co-ed Web Cam” is a sacrament, apparently.