When exactly did the Religious Right buy all rights to the word “values?” Perhaps more to the point, when did they buy the right to define exactly what is and isn’t a “value?”According to Dictionary.com, a “value” can be a number of things, among them something of “relative worth, merit, or importance,” as well as something held in “favorable regard.” From this, sociology expands the definition to include things that constitute “the ideals, customs, institutions, etc., of a society toward which the people of the group have an affective regard. These values may be positive, as cleanliness, freedom, or education, or negative, as cruelty, crime, or blasphemy.”

Now, while I personally believe that blasphemy is a victimless crime, I’m all about cleanliness, freedom, and education. I have nothing good to say about non-consensual cruelty or crimes with actual victims, however. That’s why so many of the things being pushed in my face by the Religious Right as acceptable, if not outright virtuous, simply do not line up for me, given their over-the-top campaign to claim they have a corner of the market on “values.”

While religious leaders pump insane amounts of money into campaigns designed to fight that triumvirate of social evils known as same-sex marriage, abortion, and indecency, I find myself horrified by the things that don’t even seem to make them flinch.

400,000 – 600,000 dead Iraqi citizens, for example. 300,000 fleeing Iraqi expatriates, nearly 3,000 dead American soldiers, and an entire Iraqi family murdered so that a daughter could be raped, then killed, then set on fire. Lies told to justify invading a sovereign nation, lies told to justify torturing people who may not be guilty of anything more heinous than being Islamic, lies told to justify spying on one’s own citizens. Accusations of treachery for merely raising one’s voice in patriotic disapproval or disagreement. Barely a glance at their own marital and under-age sexual misadventures while demanding Cindy Sheehan be proclaimed an internet porn addict, suggesting that it might not be a bad idea if someone fatally poisoned a centrist Supreme Court Justice, and smearing 9-11 widows — while using their tragedy to justify more and unrelated blood and death. Continued erosion at the checks and balances designed to keep us safe; evisceration of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, the Geneva Convention, and common civilized protections like Habeas Corpus. Pharmacists refusing to fill or refer prescriptions, churches wanting all the tax breaks afforded a religious institution without any of the restrictions, demands for school prayer, abstinence education built on yet more lies, and “protections” for concepts like the nuclear family, heterosexual monogamous marriage, and the flag, which is nothing more than a symbolic representation of all that the Religious Right and its governmental allies have or wish they could have dismantled and destroyed over the years.

Consistently and hypocritically, while all of this red-white-and-blue uber virtuous wanker waving has been going on, the holier-than-thou contingent has focused its ever sex-obsessed attention on television, radio, and — especially — the adult entertainment industry, accusing the latter of all manner of crimes against humanity, decency, and especially against children. The sad result is that, while assembling its tax driven legion of self-proclaimed superior morality, it has quietly made the world more dangerous for children — and loudly made the world more dangerous for just about everybody.
I have values, too. I believe in honesty, for starters. I believe in education based on facts and a media that uses the same foundation. I believe that journalists are entrusted with a great responsibility and that the fact Reporters Without Borders rates the U.S. in 53rd place for press freedom — slipping 17 positions since 2002 — is a bad sign. I believe that the human body is nothing to be ashamed of and that what one or more people choose to do consensually with it is hardly the business of uninvolved parties, unless it’s spooking their horses. I believe that kids see things every day that are far worse than naked bodies in sexual situations and that instilling sexual shame and guilt into the young is one of the most long-lasting crimes adults can perpetuate — especially when they rely upon lies masquerading as morality for leverage. I believe that addressing and working through our fears and “issues” like mature adults is better than legislating against them like trembling bullies. I believe that trying to shut people up, force them into “decent” behavior, and demanding allegiance to a single leader, a single cause, and a single nation is something that didn’t work during World War II and won’t work now. I believe that it doesn’t matter whether you’re waving a cross, a crucifix, a star, a crescent, or anything else — demanding unwavering obedience to an insane and destructive agenda is still demanding unwavering obedience to an insane and destructive agenda.

The next time I hear some happily outraged “values voter” oriented so-and-so rant about the wickedness of modern society as regards sexuality or language, I hope they’ll take a second look at their own nest before claiming that I’ve fouled my own. If they won’t, I certainly hope they won’t mind while I question their values, their right to enforce them politically, and their right to call them American values. Most of all, I hope they’ll remember that I have not only run for public office, I vote — and I vote my conscience, while I vote — and live — my values.