Sex

It all started with St. Augustine.
Back in 400 AD, this admitted sexual acrobat reformed. And, like many reformed sinners before and since, demonized his addiction.
And that is why Christianity, and, from that, America, hates sex.

Really hates sex.
Grand Theft Auto. You may have heard of that video game, how it made the news a while back. Do you remember why? Was it the fact that you stole cars, slapped people around and killed them?
Nope. It was because a hidden level let your male picture "do the nasty" with a female picture.
Sure. Stealing and killing are tolerable, but sex? Forget it.
Movies. You can see theft in a kid's movie. Graphic violence will earn you an "R" rating. But, for the real forbidden fruit, the "X" rating, you need . . . well, nudity. Not even sex - nudity!
Educators and law enforcement personnel are continually warning us that our culture is deteriorating. Well, what do they expect? We make love detestable and violence desireable.
James Bond can blast people by the score in his films, but the one time he marries, the poor woman has to die. Can't have him married, can we?
In fact, we can't even show him under the sheets. Bond is the perfect action hero - he only pretends to have sex, he only hints at it. But when he blows something up, you can see bodies go flying.
No wonder we're becoming nihilistic. No wonder the kids are shooting their schoolmates. That's all they know.
Why does the Christian Church have it in for sex, anyway? It tolerates and forgives theft and murder, despite the fact that two of the Ten Commandments expressly forbids these acts. No commandment makes sex forbidden, yet Christianity lashes out against it.
Just about everything Evangelicals are up in arms against these days is sex related. Homosexuality, abortion, . . . both aspects of sexuality.
You don't hear them railing against the violence in Darfur, let alone Bagdad. Violence can be forgiven, in a good cause. Sex can't.
The first command to mankind was to "be fruitful and multiply". If you believe that Da Vinci Code garbage, then even Jesus had sex. But Christians continue to ignore the Bible in favor of the teachings of that 5th Century reformed sex addict.
That needs to change.
It's time we got over our intolerance for intimacy. It's about time that we accepted that real men care about people, that they care for women, and that their lives are not confined to the overcharged automobile and the semi-automatic weapon.
That way lies death. Literally. For America, too.