SKIPPING TOWARDS GOMORRAH PDF, EPUB, EBOOK

Dan Savage | 320 pages | 01 Oct 2003 | Penguin Books | 9780452284166 | English | New York, NY, United States SKIPPING TOWARDS GOMORRAH |

Bork , a former United States Court of Appeals judge. Bork's thesis in the book is that U. Specifically, he attacks modern liberalism for what he describes as its dual emphases on radical egalitarianism and radical individualism. The title of the book is a play on the last couplet of W. Bork first traces the rapid expansion of modern liberalism that occurred during the s, arguing that this legacy of radicalism demonstrates that the precepts of modern liberalism are antithetical to the rest of the U. He then attacks a variety of social, cultural, and political experiences as evidence of U. Among these are affirmative action , increased violence in and sexualization of mass media , the legalization of abortion , pressure to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia , feminism and the decline of religion. Bork, himself a rejected nominee of President Ronald Reagan to the United States Supreme Court , also criticizes that institution and argues that the judiciary and liberal judicial activism are catalysts for U. Except, of course, for the first lines of our nation's first document. That "pursuit of happiness" stuff? That's just poetry. Americans shouldn't be free "to choose which virtues to practice or not practice," Bork argues, as that would entail, "the privatization of morality, or, if you will, the 'pursuit of happiness,' as each of us defines happiness. The pursuit of happiness is so rank and unpleasant a concept for Bork that he sticks it between quotes as if he were holding it with a pair of tongs. Bork isn't the only social conservative who wants to rewrite our nation's founding document. Buchanan simply deletes the pursuit of happiness from the Declaration of Independence: "Jefferson meant that we are all endowed by our creator with the same right to life, liberty, and property," Buchanan writes. If our founding fathers were as thoughtful and wise as original intenters and social conservatives are always telling us, we can only assume that our founding fathers selected "pursuit of happiness" over "property" for a good reason. Out of respect for our founding fathers' original intent, shouldn't we assume that they knew what they were doing? Shouldn't we assume that they meant it? Apparently not. Pleasure is material; happiness is spiritual. Pleasure is self-involved; happiness is outer- and other-involved. Laura, but all Americans should be free to define happiness for themselves, and some of us find happiness in pursuits that Dr. Laura wants to see banned. But Dr. Laura is hardly the most extreme of the virtuecrats. Keyes is an African American conservative who ran for president in and , and is the host of a talk show launched on MSNBC in early Gosh darn that liberal media elite! Keyes is obsessed with abortion and homosexuality, and he believes America wouldn't be in such "a dismal state" if only Americans would recognize that the Christian Bible trumps the United States Constitution in matters of law and public policy. Why is that? It's a willfully perverse reading of the Declaration of Independence. By invoking the Creator, Keyes argues, the authors of the Declaration of Independence meant to negate every other word they wrote. Our founding fathers had ample chance to distance themselves from or completely disavow the pursuit of happiness when they gathered in Philadelphia in to draft the United States Constitution. They didn't seem to slouch into Philadelphia heavy with regret about the happiness line in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, they seemed pretty pleased with themselves, gathering in Philadelphia, as they wrote, "in order to form a more perfect union. I'm no Constitutional scholar, I admit, nor have I had the honor of being nominated to the Supreme Court; I didn't serve my country as the first in a long line of wildly ineffective drug czars; and I've also never hosted a do-as-I-say call-in radio advice program that obsessed about sexual morality while at the same time nude pictures of me taken by a premarital sex partner were circulated on the Web. And I haven't, like Bennett, "served two presidents. Nevertheless, it seems to me that if "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" were such a big, fat, fucking mistake, then our wise founding fathers would have realized it in the eleven years that passed between the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the first meeting of the Constitutional Congress. If they felt "the pursuit of Happiness" was a mistake, they surely would have done something to correct it when they gathered to make our union just a little more perfect. Our founding fathers failed, of course. It was their "original intent" to allow slavery to flourish and to deny women the right to vote. Talk about your imperfect unions. Joycelyn Elders, RIP. I, for one, am sick of being told that I live in an immoral wasteland. Robert Bork is a best-selling author, former federal judge, and failed Supreme Court nominee who looks at the United States and sees Gomorrah, the biblical city-state destroyed by God along with Sodom, a neighboring bedroom community. William J. Bennett is the Jesse Jackson of the right, the omnipresent former education secretary and federal drug "czar," who, like Jackson on the left, is the ass his party feels obliged to kiss. Bennett was somewhat less prominent when Newt Gingrich divorced his second wife and married a congressional aide. Pat Buchanan is the conservative television pundit, Hitler-admiring two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and the Reform Party's candidate in Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah was published in , and in it Bork made the case for censorship of rap albums, video games, and violent films , the rollback of reproductive rights, and the enforcement of sodomy laws, among other things. It's a thrilling read, and it set a new standard for conservative commentary. In books, magazines, speeches, and on television, Bork and other right- wing "scolds," as Andrew Sullivan has dubbed them, argue that the United States of America is in a state of moral collapse--Bennett says as much in the title of his latest book, The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family. The United States is "a moral sewer and a cultural wasteland that is not worth living in and not worth fighting for," according to Buchanan. Buchanan seems anxious to be president of this moral sewer, however. The threats, however, come not from without but from within. Abortion, drugs, and single moms. The moral-rotters, according to conservatives, are aided and abetted at every step by the liberal media elite. The same media elite that can't turn over a rock without offering a book deal and a show on Fox News to whatever is crawling underneath. As we learned on September 11, , our moral rot can have deadly consequences with supernatural causes. According to Rev. Jerry Falwell, it was the presence of feminists, ACLU members, homos, and federal judges that prompted God to "lift the curtain" of protection from the United States, "and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve [on September 11]. Writing in The New Republic after the attacks, Andrew Sullivan pointed out that the reaction of the American people to the attacks on our country by Islamo-fascists proved that the scolds--the Borks, Buchanans, Bennetts, Falwells, Robertsons, et alia--had been wrong about America all along: Not long ago, leading paleoconservatives were denouncing America as a country, in Robert Bork's words, "slouching towards Gomorrah. None of this was ever true. The response of the American people to the events of September 11 surely disproved these scolds once and for all. Shortly after Sullivan wrote those words, Pat Buchanan's Death of the West-- " [the United States is] a moral sewer and a cultural wasteland that is not worth living in and not worth fighting for. Curiously, after spending three hundred pages making the United States sound like Calcutta, Buchanan wraps up his book with a one-sentence paragraph about what a beautiful country this is. Speakers at the Republican National Convention do the same thing: Once they've finished telling us that the United States is a shithole, they wrap up their speeches with claims that the United States of America is unique in the world, a shining example to other nations, and the greatest country on earth. Oh, and God bless America. It's difficult to square this circle: America speeds towards hell in a handbasket, year in, year out, through both Democratic and Republican administrations; things get progressively worse, never better; and yet the United States remains the greatest country on earth, year in, year out. How is this possible? How can we be the stinking moral sewer and the shining city on the hill at the same time? Gomorrah and God's country? Are all the other countries on earth so irredeemably awful, so squalid, so beyond hope that no matter how fast America falls we can't pass a single one on the way down? This explanation might cut it if the rest of the world were Syria, Sudan, and Serbia. But how do the Buchanans, Bennetts, and O'Reillys account for perfectly pleasant little countries like Sweden? Or the Netherlands? Or Canada? By the way, someone needs to alert Pat Buchanan that Canada is not in Europe. Between and , out-of-wedlock births soared in Canada from 4 percent to 31 percent, in the U. Watching the Republican National Convention is like going to the doctor every four years and being told your body is riddled with some horrible, disfiguring, fast-spreading, terminal cancer. David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print. Now, in Theft by Finding , Sedaris brings us his favorite entries. From deeply poignant to laugh-out-loud funny, these selections reveal with new intimacy a man longtime fans only think they know. In Skipping Towards Gomorrah, Dan Savage eviscerates the right-wing conservatives as he commits each of the Seven Deadly Sins himself or tries to and finds those everyday Americans who take particular delight in their sinful pursuits. Among them:. Laura, and Bill O'Reilly bashing to more than make up for their incessant carping, and you've got the most provocative audiobook of the fall. Okay, let's start of by admitting that I'm an absolute Savage Fan. The thought process that went into buying this book was "Oh, there's a new book by Dan Savage available? I'd better pre-order it!!! Savage as a shameless hedonist trying to tear down the walls of decency That's what it is, and that's what he is. Not only that, but he doesn't go in the directions you'd expect. For example, for Pride he talks about the Pride Parades This is actually one of the two points I disagree with him on-- I think their meaning has changed and they are totally relevant. I also did not think that "firing a gun" served well as Wrath-- it was more of a platform for him to attack the second amendment. And I'll freely admit I'm one of those people who gets bitchy when you attack the second amendment, and that it's my main complaint with Mr. This a review, not a rebuttal, so I'll just leave it at "if you're like me on the second amendment, you will have objections. I certainly don't think he's wrong about every point he makes, I just think he doesn't accurately represent the views he's opposing which is as much the fault of the NRA as his. As always, the author is inappropriate, but as I believe he has said himself-- just inappropriate enough to get the job done. The books is, at different points, thought provoking, insightful, informative, outrageous I'm very glad he read it himself-- it always irritates me when books by talented speakers are read by others. That being said, there were some production issues; at several points he stops and starts a sentence over-- perfectly understandable, but should have been edited out. If you haven't read a Dan Savage book, or listened to his podcast, or read his column, this is probably not the place to start. Taking on the "Moral Majority," who can't see a natural disaster, political tragedy, or fallen ice cream cone without tracing it back to gay marriage, Dan travels the country trying to exploit all seven deadly sins. It brings him back to the subject of happiness and the pursuit of it. Are we to give up the Bill of Rights because the finger waggers see sin at every juncture? This is laugh-out-loud funny, while encouraging everyone, if no harm is being done, to mind their own beeswax. Part travelogue, part polemic, and part philosophy, Dan's a perfect partner in sin. With tongue in cheek, Dan Savage shows himself to be a committed hedonist. All seven sins are lampooned and coveted with delight. Americans are not "Skipping Towards Gomorrah"; i. Americans, like all human beings, are what they are, and do what they do—humans live, experience, and die, rarely knowing or understanding happiness. I really enjoyed this audiobook. Dan savage is a formidable pundit, hilarious realist and has an acerbic wit that comes through his reading of his own words. This book gives a tour through the idea that America is better when we are all free to pursue what makes us happy, thematically arranged by each of the deadly sins. Dan Savage is a great story teller. He is happy to show you what other people are doing, hire they make themselves happy and the large point that it is there right to do that. I am happy to read stories of sex, drugs and other fun things when they are the truth and Savage shows that one's head will not fall off with the puff of a joint, your balls won't root off if you try swinging with other consenting people and that your children won't all die of plague because two people of the same sex like doing things that you aren't too keen on. A fun time read that could be given to grandma or the rebellious teen-ager alike Loved it. The only thing i disagree with Dan is guns. Hand guns are for more than just killing people. I keep a sidearm when i go hunting as well. Farmed animals for meat are not happy from the day they were born. So i will keep and fight for my guns. Police can not always be relied on and excellent food is not bought in grocery stores. Another side note: thank hunters for wild life preservation lands. The money we spend to hunt goes to wild life conservation. Keeping people out and letting nature be nature. Just read about the millions spent because of us on restoring land destroyed by people. Really, get off the soap box and do something else. The diatribes were senseless and repetitive. He reads it himself. That by itself is worth an extra star or two. I'd have given it five stars for story either way. Slouching Towards Gomorrah - Wikipedia

Pat Buchanan is the conservative television pundit, Hitler-admiring two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and the Reform Party's candidate in Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah was published in , and in it Bork made the case for censorship of rap albums, video games, and violent films , the rollback of reproductive rights, and the enforcement of sodomy laws, among other things. It's a thrilling read, and it set a new standard for conservative commentary. In books, magazines, speeches, and on television, Bork and other right-wing "scolds," as Andrew Sullivan has dubbed them, argue that the United States of America is in a state of moral collapse--Bennett says as much in the title of his latest book, The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family. The United States is "a moral sewer and a cultural wasteland that is not worth living in and not worth fighting for," according to Buchanan. Buchanan seems anxious to be president of this moral sewer, however. The threats, however, come not from without but from within. Abortion, drugs, and single moms. The moral-rotters, according to conservatives, are aided and abetted at every step by the liberal media elite. The same media elite that can't turn over a rock without offering a book deal and a show on Fox News to whatever is crawling underneath. As we learned on September 11, , our moral rot can have deadly consequences with supernatural causes. According to Rev. Jerry Falwell, it was the presence of feminists, ACLU members, homos, and federal judges that prompted God to "lift the curtain" of protection from the United States, "and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve [on September 11]. Writing in The New Republic after the attacks, Andrew Sullivan pointed out that the reaction of the American people to the attacks on our country by Islamo-fascists proved that the scolds--the Borks, Buchanans, Bennetts, Falwells, Robertsons, et alia--had been wrong about America all along: Not long ago, leading paleoconservatives were denouncing America as a country, in Robert Bork's words, "slouching towards Gomorrah. None of this was ever true. The response of the American people to the events of September 11 surely disproved these scolds once and for all. Shortly after Sullivan wrote those words, Pat Buchanan's Death of the West-- " [the United States is] a moral sewer and a cultural wasteland that is not worth living in and not worth fighting for. Curiously, after spending three hundred pages making the United States sound like Calcutta, Buchanan wraps up his book with a one-sentence paragraph about what a beautiful country this is. Speakers at the Republican National Convention do the same thing: Once they've finished telling us that the United States is a shithole, they wrap up their speeches with claims that the United States of America is unique in the world, a shining example to other nations, and the greatest country on earth. Oh, and God bless America. It's difficult to square this circle: America speeds towards hell in a handbasket, year in, year out, through both Democratic and Republican administrations; things get progressively worse, never better; and yet the United States remains the greatest country on earth, year in, year out. How is this possible? How can we be the stinking moral sewer and the shining city on the hill at the same time? Gomorrah and God's country? Are all the other countries on earth so irredeemably awful, so squalid, so beyond hope that no matter how fast America falls we can't pass a single one on the way down? This explanation might cut it if the rest of the world were Syria, Sudan, and Serbia. But how do the Buchanans, Bennetts, and O'Reillys account for perfectly pleasant little countries like Sweden? Or the Netherlands? Or Canada? By the way, someone needs to alert Pat Buchanan that Canada is not in Europe. Between and , out-of-wedlock births soared in Canada from 4 percent to 31 percent, in the U. Watching the Republican National Convention is like going to the doctor every four years and being told your body is riddled with some horrible, disfiguring, fast-spreading, terminal cancer. We've been getting that same diagnosis from the same doctors every four years for--what? Twenty years? Am I the only one who sits through our national chemotherapy sessions with former drug czars and radio talk-show hosts and is not convinced we're so ill that we require such an annoying and toxic course of treatment? Can't we get a second opinion? Sometimes we do, but it's not all that helpful either. Americans are sinning, wimpy liberals, but we're not sinning quite so much as Bill Bennett would lead us to believe. Americans may cheat on their spouses and smoke a lot of pot, but we don't cheat or smoke pot at the rate one might expect. If only a few more Americans would have Just Said No, liberals and conservatives agree, we could reverse our moral collapse and avoid the ignominious prospect of being a slightly less glorious nation than Canada, the sick man of Europe. For anyone interested in genuine political arguments, the second opinion offered by liberals is deeply frustrating: it buys into the same values espoused by the people who gave us that faulty first opinion--namely, that "sin" is always bad. Terrified of being the pro-pot party or the pro-adultery party or the pro-sodomy party, the Democrats opt for virtue-lite politics and send junior varsity scolds like Sen. Joe Lieberman out to lecture Hollywood. Where is the politician who will look Bennett in the eye on television and say, "Some of the nicest, most virtuous, morally uncollapsed people I know smoke pot and commit adultery with their spouses' permission --it's how they pursue happiness, and so long as they're not hurting anyone else, why should they be made to feel guilty? Or any less virtuous than you, Bill Bennett? There's something deeply problematic about praising Bill Bennett--an activity that eats up an awful lot of Bill Bennett's time--for pursuing those things that make Bill Bennett happy heterosexuality, sobriety, monogamy while condemning someone else for pursuing the things that make him happy say, homosexuality, pot, and the occasional three-way. Refraining from having sex with men and with women who aren't his wife makes Bill Bennett happy. But everyone should have the same right to happiness. Should the law coerce all of us into pursuing Bill Bennett's brand of happiness? Bill Bennett thinks so, and so do Bork and Buchanan. These men, so far as we know, derive happiness from things that have been labeled virtues, and hence they are praised for their pursuit of happiness. For others, the things that make us happy have been labeled sinful, and we're condemned for our pursuit of happiness. But if I'm not hurting anyone, my pursuit of happiness is no less virtuous than Bennett's. In fact, it may make some of them miserable. There may be conservative pundits out there who desire to smoke dope or sleep around, but deny themselves these pleasures, and their public calls for virtue are simply an externalization of their own inner struggle to be good. Jimmy Swaggart. Swaggart, you'll recall, condemned pornography and prostitution for years, and then was caught visiting prostitutes and "consuming" pornography. Swaggart had deeply conflicted feelings about pornography and prostitution, and he called for the more restrictive laws against both in hopes that the state might help keep him right with God. But those of us who enjoy pornography and prostitutes without conflict shouldn't have to go without to protect Swaggart from himself. Whether virtue comes easy or the virtuecrat has to do battle with his desires, the virtuous all conspire to force their virtues on us sinners, which is not something sinners do. The existence of the virtuous is not regarded by sinners as a personal threat, nor do sinners attempt to stamp out virtue wherever we find it. No urban music lover has ever, to give one example, placed a gun to Robert Bork's head and forced him to buy a rap CD. Even if it were possible to scuttle the First Amendment--so much for original intent! The Soviet Union, a police state with unlimited powers and spies in every workplace and apartment building, attempted to ban rock and roll music. It failed. It's hard to imagine how our government could enforce a ban on rap music in a country whose citizens own almost as many CD burners as they do guns. Not that I would put it past John Ashcroft. Social conservatives will sometimes argue that rap music or violent movies or drugs need to be banned to protect the weak and vulnerable from taking up a life of sinful indulgence. It would be easier to take these arguments more seriously if the same social conservatives weren't opposed to laws that protect the weak and vulnerable from unsafe workplaces, flammable children's pajamas, and arsenic in our drinking water. Rap versus show tunes; monogamy versus variety; pot versus Bud Light--different things make different people happy. It's such a simple concept, so--what's the phrase? Oh, yeah. It's so self-evident. Why, then, do so many conservatives have such a hard time wrapping their heads around it? Like a room full of Victorian spinsters with the vapors, virtuecrats would have us believe that the mere knowledge that sinners are out there having fun keeps them up nights; indeed, knowing that someone, somewhere, might be pursuing happiness in ways they disapprove of is a profound psychological torment to them. Therefore, they argue, it's in the best interest of society--and by society they mean, "me and everyone who agrees with me"--for the law to come between sinners and their vices. Not only will it save the sinners from themselves, but it will also make it easier for the virtuous to get their nine hours every night. Need it be said? Bork doesn't have to listen to rap music if he doesn't care for it; Dr. Laura doesn't have to engage in premarital sex anymore if she's opposed to it now ; Jerry Falwell doesn't have to join the ACLU; Bill Bennett doesn't have to have a same-sex marriage if he disapproves. Law-abiding Americans who listen to rap music, indulge in premarital sex, feminism, and agitate for gay marriage do no harm to those who don't enjoy these activities or share these goals. Bennett's marriage, for instance, doesn't appear to have been harmed by legal gay marriages in the Netherlands. If straight marriage in the United States is such a delicate institution that even a national conversation about gay marriage can destroy it, as Bennett argues in The Broken Hearth , then the institution of straight marriage isn't long for this world. The next light breeze should blow the thing away. It's not even a two-way street. Freedom is space, weightlessness, room to maneuver, to go your own way. It's people blasting off in all directions. We should agree to disagree about certain things like, say, drug use or premarital sex, and, when necessary, establish reasonable rules to prevent people from slamming into each other--such as laws against assault, rape, and murder, laws that set an age of consent for sexual activity, laws against drinking and driving. Beyond these simple rules, however, the freedom to pursue happiness must be regarded just as Thomas Jefferson described it--an inalienable right, God-given--or all our rhetoric about freedom is meaningless. Do some people get harmed in the pursuit of happiness? Aren't people--and neighborhoods and whole cities--harmed by, say, the drug trade? Aren't prostitutes frequently harmed by violent clients? Doesn't adultery destroy homes? Yes, yes, and yes. But much of the harm done by drugs, prostitution, and adultery should be laid at the feet of the virtuous. It's their meddling that often creates the harm, not the sins in and of themselves. There would be no money, and therefore no gangs or violence, in the drug trade if drugs were legalized and their sale taxed and regulated. When was the last time beer distributors killed each other? Oh, yeah: prohibition. If prostitution were legalized, an American prostitute with a violent client or an abusive pimp could turn to the police for protection, just as prostitutes do in the Netherlands. If every couple were encouraged to have a realistic, rational conversation about the near-inevitability of infidelity in long-term relationships, fewer homes would be destroyed by adultery. But the political right wing doesn't allow for realistic, rational conversation about anything--tune into Fox News anytime to see irrational, unrealistic nonconversation twenty-four hours a day. Furthermore, the law shouldn't be concerned with preventing people from harming themselves. Our bodies and minds and souls are our own, and we should be free to use, abuse and dispose of them as we see fit. Not all sinners lack virtue, and not everyone who's technically virtuous is ethical. A woman who commits adultery with her husband's permission--or in her husband's presence--has to be viewed as more virtuous than a faithful man who's married to a woman he emotionally abuses. Product Details. Inspired by Your Browsing History. Courting Injustice. Rajesh Talwar. Setting Them Straight. Betty Berzon. Connecting to God. Gonzo Judaism. Rabbi Niles Elliot Goldstein. Digital Civil War. Alex Grijelmo. The Romanian. Bruce Benderson. Naked Republicans. Shelley Lewis. Reverend Barry W. The Thom Hartmann Reader. Thom Hartmann. Final Edition. Wallace Shawn. Virginity or Death! Katha Pollitt. Right is Wrong. Arianna Huffington. True to Life. Michael P. Sent by Earth. Alice Walker. The House of Secrets. Varda Polak-Sahm. The Dialectics of Liberation. David Cooper. Why Have Children? Christine Overall. Are Men Necessary? Maureen Dowd. The Weary Sons of Freud. Catherine Clement. Why the Left Hates America. Daniel J. The Faith of the Faithless. Skipping Towards Gomorrah by Dan Savage: | : Books

Our founding fathers had ample chance to distance themselves from or completely disavow the pursuit of happiness when they gathered in Philadelphia in to draft the United States Constitution. They didn't seem to slouch into Philadelphia heavy with regret about the happiness line in the Declaration of Independence. In fact, they seemed pretty pleased with themselves, gathering in Philadelphia, as they wrote, "in order to form a more perfect union. I'm no Constitutional scholar, I admit, nor have I had the honor of being nominated to the Supreme Court; I didn't serve my country as the first in a long line of wildly ineffective drug czars; and I've also never hosted a do-as-I-say call-in radio advice program that obsessed about sexual morality while at the same time nude pictures of me taken by a premarital sex partner were circulated on the Web. And I haven't, like Bennett, "served two presidents. Nevertheless, it seems to me that if "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" were such a big, fat, fucking mistake, then our wise founding fathers would have realized it in the eleven years that passed between the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the first meeting of the Constitutional Congress. If they felt "the pursuit of Happiness" was a mistake, they surely would have done something to correct it when they gathered to make our union just a little more perfect. Our founding fathers failed, of course. It was their "original intent" to allow slavery to flourish and to deny women the right to vote. Talk about your imperfect unions. Joycelyn Elders, RIP. I, for one, am sick of being told that I live in an immoral wasteland. Robert Bork is a best-selling author, former federal judge, and failed Supreme Court nominee who looks at the United States and sees Gomorrah, the biblical city-state destroyed by God along with Sodom, a neighboring bedroom community. William J. Bennett is the Jesse Jackson of the right, the omnipresent former education secretary and federal drug "czar," who, like Jackson on the left, is the ass his party feels obliged to kiss. Bennett was somewhat less prominent when Newt Gingrich divorced his second wife and married a congressional aide. Pat Buchanan is the conservative television pundit, Hitler-admiring two-time candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, and the Reform Party's candidate in Bork's Slouching Towards Gomorrah was published in , and in it Bork made the case for censorship of rap albums, video games, and violent films , the rollback of reproductive rights, and the enforcement of sodomy laws, among other things. It's a thrilling read, and it set a new standard for conservative commentary. In books, magazines, speeches, and on television, Bork and other right- wing "scolds," as Andrew Sullivan has dubbed them, argue that the United States of America is in a state of moral collapse--Bennett says as much in the title of his latest book, The Broken Hearth: Reversing the Moral Collapse of the American Family. The United States is "a moral sewer and a cultural wasteland that is not worth living in and not worth fighting for," according to Buchanan. Buchanan seems anxious to be president of this moral sewer, however. The threats, however, come not from without but from within. Abortion, drugs, and single moms. The moral-rotters, according to conservatives, are aided and abetted at every step by the liberal media elite. The same media elite that can't turn over a rock without offering a book deal and a show on Fox News to whatever is crawling underneath. As we learned on September 11, , our moral rot can have deadly consequences with supernatural causes. According to Rev. Jerry Falwell, it was the presence of feminists, ACLU members, homos, and federal judges that prompted God to "lift the curtain" of protection from the United States, "and allow the enemies of America to give us probably what we deserve [on September 11]. Writing in The New Republic after the attacks, Andrew Sullivan pointed out that the reaction of the American people to the attacks on our country by Islamo-fascists proved that the scolds--the Borks, Buchanans, Bennetts, Falwells, Robertsons, et alia--had been wrong about America all along: Not long ago, leading paleoconservatives were denouncing America as a country, in Robert Bork's words, "slouching towards Gomorrah. None of this was ever true. The response of the American people to the events of September 11 surely disproved these scolds once and for all. Shortly after Sullivan wrote those words, Pat Buchanan's Death of the West-- " [the United States is] a moral sewer and a cultural wasteland that is not worth living in and not worth fighting for. Curiously, after spending three hundred pages making the United States sound like Calcutta, Buchanan wraps up his book with a one-sentence paragraph about what a beautiful country this is. Speakers at the Republican National Convention do the same thing: Once they've finished telling us that the United States is a shithole, they wrap up their speeches with claims that the United States of America is unique in the world, a shining example to other nations, and the greatest country on earth. Oh, and God bless America. It's difficult to square this circle: America speeds towards hell in a handbasket, year in, year out, through both Democratic and Republican administrations; things get progressively worse, never better; and yet the United States remains the greatest country on earth, year in, year out. How is this possible? How can we be the stinking moral sewer and the shining city on the hill at the same time? Gomorrah and God's country? Are all the other countries on earth so irredeemably awful, so squalid, so beyond hope that no matter how fast America falls we can't pass a single one on the way down? This explanation might cut it if the rest of the world were Syria, Sudan, and Serbia. But how do the Buchanans, Bennetts, and O'Reillys account for perfectly pleasant little countries like Sweden? Or the Netherlands? Or Canada? By the way, someone needs to alert Pat Buchanan that Canada is not in Europe. Between and , out-of-wedlock births soared in Canada from 4 percent to 31 percent, in the U. Watching the Republican National Convention is like going to the doctor every four years and being told your body is riddled with some horrible, disfiguring, fast-spreading, terminal cancer. We've been getting that same diagnosis from the same doctors every four years for--what? Twenty years? Am I the only one who sits through our national chemotherapy sessions with former drug czars and radio talk-show hosts and is not convinced we're so ill that we require such an annoying and toxic course of treatment? Can't we get a second opinion? Sometimes we do, but it's not all that helpful either. Americans are sinning, wimpy liberals, but we're not sinning quite so much as Bill Bennett would lead us to believe. Americans may cheat on their spouses and smoke a lot of pot, but we don't cheat or smoke pot at the rate one might expect. If only a few more Americans would have Just Said No, liberals and conservatives agree, we could reverse our moral collapse and avoid the ignominious prospect of being a slightly less glorious nation than Canada, the sick man of Europe. For anyone interested in genuine political arguments, the second opinion offered by liberals is deeply frustrating: it buys into the same values espoused by the people who gave us that faulty first opinion--namely, that "sin" is always bad. Terrified of being the pro-pot party or the pro-adultery party or the pro-sodomy party, the Democrats opt for virtue-lite politics and send junior varsity scolds like Sen. Joe Lieberman out to lecture Hollywood. Where is the politician who will look Bennett in the eye on television and say, "Some of the nicest, most virtuous, morally uncollapsed people I know smoke pot and commit adultery with their spouses' permission --it's how they pursue happiness, and so long as they're not hurting anyone else, why should they be made to feel guilty? Or any less virtuous than you, Bill Bennett? There's something deeply problematic about praising Bill Bennett--an activity that eats up an awful lot of Bill Bennett's time--for pursuing those things that make Bill Bennett happy heterosexuality, sobriety, monogamy while condemning someone else for pursuing the things that make him happy say, homosexuality, pot, and the occasional three-way. Refraining from having sex with men and with women who aren't his wife makes Bill Bennett happy. But everyone should have the same right to happiness. Should the law coerce all of us into pursuing Bill Bennett's brand of happiness? Bill Bennett thinks so, and so do Bork and Buchanan. These men, so far as we know, derive happiness from things that have been labeled virtues, and hence they are praised for their pursuit of happiness. For others, the things that make us happy have been labeled sinful, and we're condemned for our pursuit of happiness. But if I'm not hurting anyone, my pursuit of happiness is no less virtuous than Bennett's. In fact, it may make some of them miserable. There may be conservative pundits out there who desire to smoke dope or sleep around, but deny themselves these pleasures, and their public calls for virtue are simply an externalization of their own inner struggle to be good. Jimmy Swaggart. Swaggart, you'll recall, condemned pornography and prostitution for years, and then was caught visiting prostitutes and "consuming" pornography. Swaggart had deeply conflicted feelings about pornography and prostitution, and he called for the more restrictive laws against both in hopes that the state might help keep him right with God. But those of us who enjoy pornography and prostitutes without conflict shouldn't have to go without to protect Swaggart from himself. Whether virtue comes easy or the virtuecrat has to do battle with his desires, the virtuous all conspire to force their virtues on us sinners, which is not something sinners do. The existence of the virtuous is not regarded by sinners as a personal threat, nor do sinners attempt to stamp out virtue wherever we find it. No urban music lover has ever, to give one example, placed a gun to Robert Bork's head and forced him to buy a rap CD. Even if it were possible to scuttle the First Amendment--so much for original intent! The Soviet Union, a police state with unlimited powers and spies in every workplace and apartment building, attempted to ban rock and roll music. It failed. It's hard to imagine how our government could enforce a ban on rap music in a country whose citizens own almost as many CD burners as they do guns. Not that I would put it past John Ashcroft. Social conservatives will sometimes argue that rap music or violent movies or drugs need to be banned to protect the weak and vulnerable from taking up a life of sinful indulgence. It would be easier to take these arguments more seriously if the same social conservatives weren't opposed to laws that protect the weak and vulnerable from unsafe workplaces, flammable children's pajamas, and arsenic in our drinking water. Rap versus show tunes; monogamy versus variety; pot versus Bud Light--different things make different people happy. It's such a simple concept, so--what's the phrase? Oh, yeah. It's so self-evident. Why, then, do so many conservatives have such a hard time wrapping their heads around it? Like a room full of Victorian spinsters with the vapors, virtuecrats would have us believe that the mere knowledge that sinners are out there having fun keeps them up nights; indeed, knowing that someone, somewhere, might be pursuing happiness in ways they disapprove of is a profound psychological torment to them. Therefore, they argue, it's in the best interest of society--and by society they mean, "me and everyone who agrees with me"--for the law to come between sinners and their vices. Not only will it save the sinners from themselves, but it will also make it easier for the virtuous to get their nine hours every night. Need it be said? Bork doesn't have to listen to rap music if he doesn't care for it; Dr. Laura doesn't have to engage in premarital sex anymore if she's opposed to it now ; Jerry Falwell doesn't have to join the ACLU; Bill Bennett doesn't have to have a same-sex marriage if he disapproves. Law-abiding Americans who listen to rap music, indulge in premarital sex, feminism, and agitate for gay marriage do no harm to those who don't enjoy these activities or share these goals. Bennett's marriage, for instance, doesn't appear to have been harmed by legal gay marriages in the Netherlands. If straight marriage in the United States is such a delicate institution that even a national conversation about gay marriage can destroy it, as Bennett argues in The Broken Hearth , then the institution of straight marriage isn't long for this world. The next light breeze should blow the thing away. It's not even a two-way street. Freedom is space, weightlessness, room to maneuver, to go your own way. It's people blasting off in all directions. We should agree to disagree about certain things like, say, drug use or premarital sex, and, when necessary, establish reasonable rules to prevent people from slamming into each other--such as laws against assault, rape, and murder, laws that set an age of consent for sexual activity, laws against drinking and driving. Beyond these simple rules, however, the freedom to pursue happiness must be regarded just as Thomas Jefferson described it--an inalienable right, God-given--or all our rhetoric about freedom is meaningless. Do some people get harmed in the pursuit of happiness? Audible Premium Plus. Cancel anytime. The syndicated sex-advice columnist of "Savage Love" tells a no-holds-barred story of an ordinary American couple who want to have a baby, except that in this case, the couple happens to be Savage and his boyfriend. By: Dan Savage. It Gets Better is a collection of expanded essays and new material from celebrities, everyday people, and teens who have posted videos of encouragement, as well as new contributors who have yet to post videos to the site. We can show LGBT youth the levels of happiness, potential, and positivity their lives will reach if they can just get through their teen years. By: Dan Savage , and others. Dismissed by a bored author at a book signing, a betrayed young man named David Sedaris made a vow. In this hilarious and perceptive essay, the celebrated humorist reflects on the unusual patterns of forced socialization between author and audience, and the obligations and sometimes surprising returns of not-so-chance encounters with strangers: jokes, secrets, insights, and even charity. By: David Sedaris. In this urgent work, Buttigieg confirms his status as a visionary political thinker. By: Pete Buttigieg. When Andrew Rannells left Nebraska for New York City in , he, like many young hopefuls, saw the city as a chance to break free. To start over. To transform the fiercely ambitious but sexually confused teenager he saw in the mirror into the Broadway leading man of his dreams. In Too Much Is Not Enough , Rannells takes us on the journey of a something hungry to experience everything New York has to offer: new friends, wild nights, great art, standing ovations. By: Andrew Rannells. Universally acclaimed from the time it was first published in , Slouching Towards Bethlehem has been admired for decades as a stylistic masterpiece. By: Joan Didion. An intelligent and comprehensive guide to polyamory, open relationships, and other forms of alternative love, The Smart Girl's Guide to Polyamory offers relationship advice radically different from anything you'll find on the magazine rack. This practical guidebook will help women break free of the mold of traditional monogamy, without the constraints of jealousy, possessiveness, insecurity, and competition. If you're curious about exploring group sex, opening up your current monogamous relationship, or ready to "come out" as polyamorous, this book covers it all. By: Dedeker Winston. A visionary new master class in cooking that distills decades of professional experience into just four simple elements, from the woman declared "America's next great cooking teacher" by Alice Waters. By: Samin Nosrat. An affair: It can rob a couple of their relationship, their happiness, their very identity. And yet this extremely common human experience is so poorly understood. Adultery has existed since marriage was invented, and so, too, the prohibition against it - in fact it has a tenacity that marriage can only envy. Iconic couples' therapist and best-selling author of Mating in Captivity Esther Perel returns with a groundbreaking and provocative look at infidelity, arguing for a more nuanced and less judgmental conversation about our transgressions. By: Esther Perel. In the newest installment of the best-selling series Mythos, legendary author and actor Stephen Fry moves from the exploits of the Olympian gods to the deeds of mortal heroes. Rediscover the thrills, grandeur, and unabashed fun of the Greek myths. Whether recounting a tender love affair or a heroic triumph, Fry deftly finds resonance with our own modern minds and hearts. By: Stephen Fry. When he stepped down in January as the fourth US Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper had been President Obama's senior intelligence advisor for six and a half years, longer than his three predecessors combined. By: Trey Brown , and others. Plus, it features exclusive bonus audio of young Neil delivering an adorable speech! By: Neil Patrick Harris. From the outrageously filthy and oddly innocent comedienne and star of the powerful film I Smile Back Sarah Silverman comes a memoir—her first book —that is at once shockingly personal, surprisingly poignant, and still pee-in-your-pants funny. By: Sarah Silverman. We already rely on science to tell us what to eat, when to exercise, and how long to sleep. Why not use science to help us improve our relationships? In this revolutionary book, psychiatrist and neuroscientist Dr. By: Amir Levine , and others. From the internationally bestselling author of No god but God comes a fascinating, provocative, and meticulously researched biography that challenges long-held assumptions about the man we know as Jesus of Nazareth. Sifting through centuries of mythmaking, Reza Aslan sheds new light on one of history's most influential and enigmatic characters by examining Jesus through the lens of the tumultuous era in which he lived: first-century Palestine, an age awash in apocalyptic fervor. By: Reza Aslan. No one knows more about everything - especially everything rude, clever, and offensively compelling - than John Waters. The man in the pencil-thin mustache, auteur of the transgressive movie classics Pink Flamingos , Polyester , and many more, serves it up raw: how to fail upward in Hollywood; how to develop musical taste from Nervous Norvus to Maria Callas; how to build a home so ugly and trendy that no one but you would dare live in it; more important, how to tell someone you love them without emotional risk; and yes, how to cheat death itself. By: John Waters. David Sedaris' collection of essays - including live recordings! With every clever turn of a phrase, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other to every unforgettable encounter. For nearly four decades, David Sedaris has faithfully kept a diary in which he records his thoughts and observations on the odd and funny events he witnesses. Anyone who has attended a live Sedaris event knows that his diary readings are often among the most joyful parts of the evening. But never before have they been available in print. Now, in Theft by Finding , Sedaris brings us his favorite entries. From deeply poignant to laugh- out-loud funny, these selections reveal with new intimacy a man longtime fans only think they know. In Skipping Towards Gomorrah, Dan Savage eviscerates the right-wing conservatives as he commits each of the Seven Deadly Sins himself or tries to and finds those everyday Americans who take particular delight in their sinful pursuits. Among them:. Laura, and Bill O'Reilly bashing to more than make up for their incessant carping, and you've got the most provocative audiobook of the fall. Okay, let's start of by admitting that I'm an absolute Savage Fan. The thought process that went into buying this book was "Oh, there's a new book by Dan Savage available? I'd better pre-order it!!! Savage as a shameless hedonist trying to tear down the walls of decency That's what it is, and that's what he is. Not only that, but he doesn't go in the directions you'd expect. For example, for Pride he talks about the Pride Parades This is actually one of the two points I disagree with him on-- I think their meaning has changed and they are totally relevant. I also did not think that "firing a gun" served well as Wrath-- it was more of a platform for him to attack the second amendment. And I'll freely admit I'm one of those people who gets bitchy when you attack the second amendment, and that it's my main complaint with Mr. This a review, not a rebuttal, so I'll just leave it at "if you're like me on the second amendment, you will have objections. I certainly don't think he's wrong about every point he makes, I just think he doesn't accurately represent the views he's opposing which is as much the fault of the NRA as his. As always, the author is inappropriate, but as I believe he has said himself-- just inappropriate enough to get the job done. The books is, at different points, thought provoking, insightful, informative, outrageous I'm very glad he read it himself-- it always irritates me when books by talented speakers are read by others. That being said, there were some production issues; at several points he stops and starts a sentence over-- perfectly understandable, but should have been edited out. If you haven't read a Dan Savage book, or listened to his podcast, or read his column, this is probably not the place to start. Taking on the "Moral Majority," who can't see a natural disaster, political tragedy, or fallen ice cream cone without tracing it back to gay marriage, Dan travels the country trying to exploit all seven deadly sins. It brings him back to the subject of happiness and the pursuit of it. Are we to give up the Bill of Rights because the finger waggers see sin at every juncture? This is laugh-out-loud funny, while encouraging everyone, if no harm is being done, to mind their own beeswax. Part travelogue, part polemic, and part philosophy, Dan's a perfect partner in sin. With tongue in cheek, Dan Savage shows himself to be a committed hedonist. All seven sins are lampooned and coveted with delight. Americans are not "Skipping Towards Gomorrah"; i. Americans, like all human beings, are what they are, and do what they do—humans live, experience, and die, rarely knowing or understanding happiness. I really enjoyed this audiobook. Dan savage is a formidable pundit, hilarious realist and has an acerbic wit that comes through his reading of his own words. This book gives a tour through the idea that America is better when we are all free to pursue what makes us happy, thematically arranged by each of the deadly sins.

Skipping Towards Gomorrah - Wikipedia Between and , out-of-wedlock births soared in Canada from 4 percent to 31 percent, in the U. Watching the Republican National Convention is like going to the doctor every four years and being told your body is riddled with some horrible, disfiguring, fast-spreading, terminal cancer. We've been getting that same diagnosis from the same doctors every four years for--what? Twenty years? Am I the only one who sits through our national chemotherapy sessions with former drug czars and radio talk-show hosts and is not convinced we're so ill that we require such an annoying and toxic course of treatment? Can't we get a second opinion? Sometimes we do, but it's not all that helpful either. Americans are sinning, wimpy liberals, but we're not sinning quite so much as Bill Bennett would lead us to believe. Americans may cheat on their spouses and smoke a lot of pot, but we don't cheat or smoke pot at the rate one might expect. If only a few more Americans would have Just Said No, liberals and conservatives agree, we could reverse our moral collapse and avoid the ignominious prospect of being a slightly less glorious nation than Canada, the sick man of Europe. For anyone interested in genuine political arguments, the second opinion offered by liberals is deeply frustrating: it buys into the same values espoused by the people who gave us that faulty first opinion--namely, that "sin" is always bad. Terrified of being the pro-pot party or the pro- adultery party or the pro-sodomy party, the Democrats opt for virtue-lite politics and send junior varsity scolds like Sen. Joe Lieberman out to lecture Hollywood. Where is the politician who will look Bennett in the eye on television and say, "Some of the nicest, most virtuous, morally uncollapsed people I know smoke pot and commit adultery with their spouses' permission --it's how they pursue happiness, and so long as they're not hurting anyone else, why should they be made to feel guilty? Or any less virtuous than you, Bill Bennett? There's something deeply problematic about praising Bill Bennett--an activity that eats up an awful lot of Bill Bennett's time--for pursuing those things that make Bill Bennett happy heterosexuality, sobriety, monogamy while condemning someone else for pursuing the things that make him happy say, homosexuality, pot, and the occasional three-way. Refraining from having sex with men and with women who aren't his wife makes Bill Bennett happy. But everyone should have the same right to happiness. Should the law coerce all of us into pursuing Bill Bennett's brand of happiness? Bill Bennett thinks so, and so do Bork and Buchanan. These men, so far as we know, derive happiness from things that have been labeled virtues, and hence they are praised for their pursuit of happiness. For others, the things that make us happy have been labeled sinful, and we're condemned for our pursuit of happiness. But if I'm not hurting anyone, my pursuit of happiness is no less virtuous than Bennett's. In fact, it may make some of them miserable. There may be conservative pundits out there who desire to smoke dope or sleep around, but deny themselves these pleasures, and their public calls for virtue are simply an externalization of their own inner struggle to be good. Jimmy Swaggart. Swaggart, you'll recall, condemned pornography and prostitution for years, and then was caught visiting prostitutes and "consuming" pornography. Swaggart had deeply conflicted feelings about pornography and prostitution, and he called for the more restrictive laws against both in hopes that the state might help keep him right with God. But those of us who enjoy pornography and prostitutes without conflict shouldn't have to go without to protect Swaggart from himself. Whether virtue comes easy or the virtuecrat has to do battle with his desires, the virtuous all conspire to force their virtues on us sinners, which is not something sinners do. The existence of the virtuous is not regarded by sinners as a personal threat, nor do sinners attempt to stamp out virtue wherever we find it. No urban music lover has ever, to give one example, placed a gun to Robert Bork's head and forced him to buy a rap CD. Even if it were possible to scuttle the First Amendment--so much for original intent! The Soviet Union, a police state with unlimited powers and spies in every workplace and apartment building, attempted to ban rock and roll music. It failed. It's hard to imagine how our government could enforce a ban on rap music in a country whose citizens own almost as many CD burners as they do guns. Not that I would put it past John Ashcroft. Social conservatives will sometimes argue that rap music or violent movies or drugs need to be banned to protect the weak and vulnerable from taking up a life of sinful indulgence. It would be easier to take these arguments more seriously if the same social conservatives weren't opposed to laws that protect the weak and vulnerable from unsafe workplaces, flammable children's pajamas, and arsenic in our drinking water. Rap versus show tunes; monogamy versus variety; pot versus Bud Light--different things make different people happy. It's such a simple concept, so--what's the phrase? Oh, yeah. It's so self-evident. Why, then, do so many conservatives have such a hard time wrapping their heads around it? Like a room full of Victorian spinsters with the vapors, virtuecrats would have us believe that the mere knowledge that sinners are out there having fun keeps them up nights; indeed, knowing that someone, somewhere, might be pursuing happiness in ways they disapprove of is a profound psychological torment to them. Therefore, they argue, it's in the best interest of society--and by society they mean, "me and everyone who agrees with me"--for the law to come between sinners and their vices. Not only will it save the sinners from themselves, but it will also make it easier for the virtuous to get their nine hours every night. Need it be said? Bork doesn't have to listen to rap music if he doesn't care for it; Dr. Laura doesn't have to engage in premarital sex anymore if she's opposed to it now ; Jerry Falwell doesn't have to join the ACLU; Bill Bennett doesn't have to have a same-sex marriage if he disapproves. Law-abiding Americans who listen to rap music, indulge in premarital sex, feminism, and agitate for gay marriage do no harm to those who don't enjoy these activities or share these goals. Bennett's marriage, for instance, doesn't appear to have been harmed by legal gay marriages in the Netherlands. If straight marriage in the United States is such a delicate institution that even a national conversation about gay marriage can destroy it, as Bennett argues in The Broken Hearth , then the institution of straight marriage isn't long for this world. The next light breeze should blow the thing away. It's not even a two-way street. Freedom is space, weightlessness, room to maneuver, to go your own way. It's people blasting off in all directions. We should agree to disagree about certain things like, say, drug use or premarital sex, and, when necessary, establish reasonable rules to prevent people from slamming into each other--such as laws against assault, rape, and murder, laws that set an age of consent for sexual activity, laws against drinking and driving. Beyond these simple rules, however, the freedom to pursue happiness must be regarded just as Thomas Jefferson described it--an inalienable right, God-given--or all our rhetoric about freedom is meaningless. Do some people get harmed in the pursuit of happiness? Aren't people--and neighborhoods and whole cities--harmed by, say, the drug trade? Aren't prostitutes frequently harmed by violent clients? Doesn't adultery destroy homes? Yes, yes, and yes. But much of the harm done by drugs, prostitution, and adultery should be laid at the feet of the virtuous. It's their meddling that often creates the harm, not the sins in and of themselves. There would be no money, and therefore no gangs or violence, in the drug trade if drugs were legalized and their sale taxed and regulated. When was the last time beer distributors killed each other? Oh, yeah: prohibition. If prostitution were legalized, an American prostitute with a violent client or an abusive pimp could turn to the police for protection, just as prostitutes do in the Netherlands. If every couple were encouraged to have a realistic, rational conversation about the near-inevitability of infidelity in long-term relationships, fewer homes would be destroyed by adultery. But the political right wing doesn't allow for realistic, rational conversation about anything--tune into Fox News anytime to see irrational, unrealistic nonconversation twenty-four hours a day. Furthermore, the law shouldn't be concerned with preventing people from harming themselves. Our bodies and minds and souls are our own, and we should be free to use, abuse and dispose of them as we see fit. Not all sinners lack virtue, and not everyone who's technically virtuous is ethical. A woman who commits adultery with her husband's permission-- or in her husband's presence--has to be viewed as more virtuous than a faithful man who's married to a woman he emotionally abuses. Yet adulterers are universally condemned by the virtuecrats, without any regard for their particular circumstances. Similarly, all users of illegal drugs are condemned. Yet a man who smokes a small amount of pot every day in his own home is doing himself and society less harm than a man who drinks himself drunk every night in public. The man who goes to a prostitute doesn't seek to harm the man who doesn't go to a prostitute; the man who goes to a gay pride parade in a lime-green thong doesn't seek to harm the man who goes to church fully clothed. Indeed, it has long been my belief that the "bad" are frequently more virtuous in their private pursuit of vice than the good are in the public pursuit of compulsory virtue. Sinners, unlike the virtuous, do not attempt to impose their definition of happiness on others. I've never met an adult dope smoker who wanted to force a non-dope-smoking adult to smoke dope against his will. Yet our nation crawls with non-dope-smoking adults who want to force dope- smoking adults to stop smoking dope. Likewise, I've never met a homosexual who wanted to make a straight person into a gay person, but straight church groups take out full-page ads in newspapers trying to convince gay people to become straight people. Prostitutes don't force anyone to patronize them; the virtuous, however, seek to throw prostitutes in jail for tending to the needs of their clients. There are millions of ethical, fully moral sinners in America, and I've grown sick of listening to the right wing bitch and moan about them while the left wing refuses to defend them. No one sticks up for the sinners--not even the sinners themselves. Some of the best Americans I know are sinners, but they lack the necessary conviction to defend themselves, their sins, and their right to be sinners. Meanwhile, the worst--the Bennetts, Borks, and Buchanans--are filled with a passionate intensity. Some sinners are no doubt scared. They worry that speaking up for themselves will prompt Bill Bennett to call them names in the op-ed pages of the Wall Street Journal. Sinners are bullied and coerced into remaining silent, and as a result, only the self-proclaimed "virtuous" are heard from in public. How much longer can American sinners sit by and say nothing while the vices we enjoy and know to be perfectly harmless are maligned? To explore the lives of virtuous sinners, I decided to leave home and walk up and down in the United States, committing in turn all the seven deadly sins, except one, which, try as I might, I simply couldn't do. I wanted to meet and sin with other virtuous sinners. Part travelogue, part memoir, part Bork-and-Bennett bitch slap, this book is a love letter to Thomas Jefferson, American freedom, and American sinners. The Mercury depends on your continuing support to provide articles like this one. In return, we pledge our ongoing commitment to truthful, progressive journalism and serving our community. Thank you—you are appreciated! Steven Humphrey Newsletters Sign up for the latest news and to win free tickets to events. Dear readers, Now more than ever, The Portland Mercury depends on your support to help fund our coverage. Thank you and we are truly grateful for your support. News Oct 9, Steven Humphrey. Newsletters Sign up for the latest news and to win free tickets to events. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Skipping Towards Gomorrah Book cover, ed. Books portal LGBT portal. The Best American Sex Writing Running Press. Chicago, Illinois : glbtq, Inc. Archived from the original on June 4, Retrieved May 31, Chicago, Illinois : chicago. Retrieved May 26, Algonquin Books. Publishers Weekly. Cahners Business Information, Inc. Library Journal. Reed Business Information, Inc. Kirkus Reviews. October 1, Flagpole Magazine. Gay Today. VI Archived from the original on July 23, Retrieved May 25, Library in a Book: Gay Rights. Facts on File. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company. The Quotable Stoner. Adams Media. Skipping Towards Gomorrah. Seven Stories Press. 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