The Forgotten Six

Pandagon reported yesterday that the governor of Ohio is planning a day of purity for St. Valentine's day. A day when good, upright Ohioan (?) minors can celebrate sexual purity. (And God bless the Pandagonians for reading the Agape press so I dont have to do it. 'Cause, like, ew. OTOH, damn those Pandagonians for putting Agape press drivel where I can see it. Bastards.)

I'm not going to write much about how sexual repression and the fixation on sexually repressing others is creepy, and hypersexual in its own way. Nor will I consider the types of people who run around asking 15 through 19 year-olds whether they've engaged in oral sex. I won't even question the journalistic ethics that allow a publication to post their findings on oral sex next to an HIV+ number for kids the same age, thereby suggesting through the placement of the info that oral sex inevitably leads to AIDS. I'm going to practice snark-abstinence on all these issues. I'm so pure.

What's getting my goat is the complete abstinence the most vocal of the religious right practice with regard to all those other mortal sins. I've called Pride about it, and she's pissed too. Pride HATES being upstaged by Lust, makes her downright churlish. Pride and I called a meeting, and we discussed this issue with the four responding Mortal Sins. (Sloth could not be reached for comment) To a Sin, they all expressed rage and confusion about the complete lack of press they were getting, whether Agape-based or otherwise. To rectify this most horrible inequity, I have decided to do the Sins a solid, and post their objections here.

Wrath- Well, wrath responded as one might expect, blustering on about how so very many examples of uncontrolled fury were existing in the political world, and how it's un-fucking-acceptable that Lust would have so much front-page time when Wrath was doing all the heavy lifting in political rhetoric. (Wrath and I are old friends, and I've come to accept his tendency toward tmesis as an endearing personality quirk.)

Envy - Envy agreed with Wrath, as is so often the case, but centered his objections on how *unfair* it is that no discussion of his work would come into play when people are monitoring the personal lives of others, for fear that somebody somewhere might be having a little fun. Or even that young somebodies somewhere might eventually have a little fun. Clearly, Envy's work has been undervalued.

Gluttony - Gluttony showed me thousands of pictures of people who will have too much, whether it be food, drink, drugs, or power, and knew that the evidence he presented clearly marked him as the driving force behind most of the religious right's rhetoric. He was particularly proud of Limbaugh. ("I pulled a hat-trick with that one," he said, "and nobody notices.")

Greed - Save Pride, Greed was the most dissatisfied of the group. Since all the tax cuts that failed to punish Greed at the governmental level have been passed, he's been seeing a major upsurge in business. Last year, people were talking about social security as if the money belonged to them individually, rather than existing for the weakest of the people. Starving grandmothers be damned, Greed said, people need to hoard their gold like they did in the good old days. Greed did good work there, and that's not all he did. Why, just this last quarter, as the elderly made decisions whether to heat their homes or buy their medicine, the oil industry pulled in the biggest profits ever in the history of this country. Not even Cabbage Patch dolls did that kind of business. That has to be worth a mention or two.

As you celebrate purity this February 14th, do remember to keep Pride, Greed, Envy, Gluttony, and Sloth close to your heart as well, and tell your friends. And if anybody is on speaking terms with Sloth, tell him I've been trying to reach him for some time now, and Wrath and I are starting to talk.