From the Dec-Jan edition of ERWA

ALL WORKED UP ABOUT THE THEME FOR 2006
By J.T. Benjamin
Copr. 2005

It’s a common practice this time of year for reflection and resolve. Giving thanks for our homes, lives, and loved ones evolves into getting into that “Peace On Earth, Good Will Toward Men” idea, and then into this year, THIS year, losing a few pounds and, more importantly, finding out who’s on the list for “Entertainment Tonight’s Top Ten Celebrity Scandals of 2005.”

2005 was a banner year if you happen to be a free-lance porn pundit and philosopher such as myself, for which I am grateful. And 2006 looks even more promising.

That’s because 2006 is an election year. I know, I know, it seems like we’ve finally gotten the stench from the 2004 campaign out of the carpets, clothes,
and upholstery. But most of Congress will be up for grabs this year, and even more importantly, the big candidates for the ’08 race for the White House are
already planning twenty to thirty moves in advance, like chess grandmasters. Get a whiff of the air. Can’t you already detect the odor of moldy socks, intermingled with human excrement and the burped-up residue of deviled eggs gone bad? It is indeed an election year.

In case you didn’t know, or knew but had simply forgotten, the Powers that Be have been engaged in a campaign, a War On Whoopie, if you will, to wipe out all things fun about sex. Contraceptives, homosexuality, sex toys, pornography, obscenity and
sex education are all enemies of the State according to the government and its puppet masters on the Religious Right, those whom I’ve dubbed the Holy Terrors.

Now that hundreds of politicians have their jobs on the line, we can anticipate some major offensives from the Holy Terrors as they try to ram through our bedroom doors and shove their anti-fun agenda down our throats.

As for me, I have a theme for 2006. A central message, a core concept that is easily understood and impregnable. A perfect soundbite, if you will. Every
attack the Holy Terrors make must be met and a counter-offensive launched, and every such counter-offensive I make will be have this theme at its heart.

And what is this theme? How must we respond to the Holy Terrors’ War On Whoopie? Four words.

Mind Your Own Business.

It’s firm. It’s assertive. It’s simple. It’s “Get The Government Out Of Our Private Lives.” It’s Freedom. It’s Liberty. It’s All-American.

It’s Ann Landers saying, “Dear Concerned: M.Y.O.B.” It’s Hank Williams singing, “Why don’t you mind your own business, so you won’t be minding mine.” You
can’t get more All-American than Ann and Hank.

Of course, regarding child pornography and sexual assault, we all need to crack down, but when it comes to monitoring the sex lives of consenting adults, we
have to say just four simple words.

Mind Your Own Business.

A guy down the street hangs a “Gay Pride” flag in his window where everybody can see it.

Mind Your Own Business.

The newsstand on the corner sells books and magazines with all kinds of filth and dirty pictures.

Mind Your Own Business.

That couple in church looks nice, but I hear they throw late-night private parties once a month, and some of the people in those parties wear lots and lots
of leather.

Mind Your Own Business.

Mr. Edwards, the math teacher, has a roommate named Jim, and there’s only one bed in their apartment.

Mind Your Own Business.

I was watching cable last night, and you wouldn’t believe the curse words and naked bodies on the screen.

Change the damn channel. And Mind Your Own Business.

By now, you must be wondering, where do we draw the line? At what point does my neighbor’s sex life become my business? The simple answer is, when my loved ones and I are harmed. Not offended, harmed.

Frankly, if you aren’t offended by someone somewhere at least three times a day, you need to get out more. But if you can show you’ve been harmed by someone else’s sex life, then and only then do you have the right to raise a stink.

If we let those queers tie the knot, the entire institution of marriage will be destroyed.

How will letting gays marriage hurt YOUR marriage? Not the institution, YOUR marriage.

Uh, well, my marriage is just fine, thanks.

Until you can show me the scars or the divorce papers then, to quote Ann Landers again, M.Y.O.B.

I got the idea from a conversation I had with two friends, whom I’ll call Ginger and Mary Ann. They’re getting married soon, but unfortunately they’re going to have to travel halfway across the country to make it legal. Literally. Our conversation moved away from gowns and a ring ceremony and into a discussion of the broader scope of gay marriage and gay rights in general and how, in the eyes of the Holy Terrors, gay rights are a promotion of the so-called “Gay Agenda.”

“You know what the gay agenda is,” asked Mary Ann. “It means that we want people to leave us the fuck alone!”

I have to admit that “Mind Your Own FUCKING Business” has a better ring to it, but it’s definitely too R-rated for polite dialogue. In any case, it’s time to lace up the gloves. Election Day is less than eleven short months away, you can already download porn onto those new video I-pods, and the Super Bowl is right around the corner.

I'd have felt better about Sam Alito's nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court if they'd had this sort of dialogue at the confirmation hearing.

Sen. Righteous: Judge Alito, these receipts indicate that last year you spent two thousand dollars at Kitty’s XXX Video Store And Arcade. Do you have anything to say, Judge?”

Judge Alito: “Yes Senator, I do. Mind Your Own Business.”

Music to my ears.