Anyone with half a brain can see that Miss California was a victim of ideological sodomy perpetrated by blog "queen" and pageant judge Perez Hilton. She wasn't the first, and the inexorable advance of gay marriage through the courts guarantees that she won't be the last. In fact, you won't have to answer a loaded question at a beauty pageant to be victimized. You may just have to have a child in public schools or go to a job interview. The legalization of gay marriage means little to marriage itself, but it means everything to your freedom of religious expression. In our age of moral relativism, legal is as good as normal is as good as moral.

The closest analogy to the prohibition of gay marriage is the law against mixed-race marriages common in southern states over 50 years ago and proponents of gay marriage are quick to use it, but the analogy fails at a critical point--there is no biological or credible moral argument in support of miscegenation laws. "Races" are genetically superficial and nothing prevents people of different races from having healthy offspring. There is also no "divinely revealed" morality in any religious text that forbids people of different races from marrying. If there is any injunction against marrying foreigners, it's based on cultural and religious differences, not race.

The reasons for prohibiting homosexual marriage have generally been understood as being naturally self-evident throughout history, whether or not a specific religious motive existed. Ironically, in an age of sophisticated science, it seems we've forgotten some basic facts of physics and biology. Our abundance of education has led to a dearth of wisdom. Ask any high school educated farmer whether he prefers homosexual or heterosexual livestock. Now, we live in a society in which children are a luxury, so perhaps we can afford to sanction marriages that are biologically useless, but my concern isn't about physics or biology. My concern is religious freedom. Perez Hilton and others in the elite niches of our society clearly demonstrate that those who demand tolerance from the majority of Americans are the least tolerant of all when it comes to dealing with some pretty, young woman's inconvenient, neolithic religious convictions.

Somebody losing a beauty pageant due to the vindictiveness of some catty judge isn't a world-shaking event to me, but it is an indication of what will happen more generally when gay marriage becomes the law of the land. It is a very short walk from, "I'm sorry, you're not a winner," to, "I'm sorry, but we're an inclusive workplace and your beliefs, while I believe they are honestly held, are not compatible with our company." Will the constitutional protection of religious expression be interpreted to cover disapproval of gay marriage or homosexuality in general, or will the courts see it in the same light as racism and consider such belief unprotected? I don't know the answer and much depends on the ideological makeup of the courts at the time. Until I know that my religious beliefs on the subject will remain protected, I will await gay marriage with grave concern.

Seeing Congress getting all worked up over the AIG bonuses shows that our government is closer to the bottom of the toilet bowl than ever. Sure, we all ought to be mad about the bonuses simply because they were given in order to retain the "talent" that ran AIG into the ground, but Congress? What blatant hypocrisy! Congress pisses away billions of dollars in every bill it passes without a second thought, but suddenly becomes incensed that $150 million of the roughly $100 billion it approved got paid out in bonuses--bonuses specifically protected by a clause in the "stimulus" bill Congress just passed! Talk about trying to take the speck out of your brother's eye while ignoring the plank in your own! Maybe if they'd actually read the bill,...

More disturbing than the hypocrisy is the hostile attitude from Congress toward capitalist enterprise in general. Barney Frank, the moron from Massachusetts, said that the government should exercise its "ownership rights" to get the bonuses back. I remember when all this bailout business started that the administration (Bush's at the time) assured us that while the government might be buying stock in financial companies in order to provide capital, they would not interfere with the structure and operation of the companies. At least in Barney Frank's mind, that policy may no longer be valid. If the government is moving from being a capital provider of last resort to being an active manager of the corporations it "saves," then we're doomed.

Yesterday's lynch mob treatment by Congress of the current CEO of AIG, a guy who's working for a dollar a year and had nothing to do with the bonuses, is a clear signal to other CEOs that maybe it is better to just let their businesses fail rather than deal with the hassle of getting involved with the government. It will also tend to scare off any potential competent candidates to assist companies and the government in the process of repairing the financial system. Wouldn't you rather stay home and play golf and avoid the risk of being hauled before Congress to testify before a committee of idiots? The pettiness of the government will be its own downfall as it will eat alive the decent people who step up to help and discourage others from getting involved. That ultimately wouldn't be such a bad thing. The sooner this bloated, unsustainable system collapses under its own weight and allows us to go back to limited, Constitutional government, the better. Until then, the inmates are running the asylum, so prepare accordingly.

So, it looks like Obama is going to cut the deficit with increased taxes on people making more than $250,000 a year--what's left of them, anyway.  Oh, wait, he's also going to use that revenue to pay for a new $650 billion worth of universal health care.  Not sure how one dollar can go to two places at once, but maybe Obama has changed the laws of mathematics.

While we're at it, for the sake of absurdity, I propose a gay tax.  Let's raise the marginal rate by 5% for all taxpaying homosexuals in America.  They can afford it.  Most of them don't have kids or a partner that doesn't work to raise those nonexistent kids.  The ones that do can still claim them as tax deductions.  They have enough money for stylish clothes, grooming products, furniture, and trendy art, so they can take an additional hit on their paychecks.  A few may even make more than $250,000, too.  Wow, double tax!!!  With all that money coming in, Senator Byrd will be able to get ten more federal buildings in West Virginia!

Why this absurd proposal?  Well, the premise of the Democrats' tax-the-rich policy is that the "rich," like homosexuals, only make up just a few percent of the population, so what's done to them is of little concern to the public at large.  Never mind that "rich" people, perhaps with the exception of lazy trust fund babies like the Kennedys, happen to run the businesses that most of us work for.

Greed got us into this mess, but greed is at least productive.  Someone who wants more money does more business and takes more risk.  Obama's philosophy is one of envy, a sin just as deadly as the other six, and envy is destructive, not productive.  Taking from somebody only makes that person less inclined to take risk and be productive.  It may even cause the person to leave the system altogether.  The "rich" are like seed corn.  They provide risk capital for new businesses that create new jobs.  If you eat all your seed corn, what are you going to plant next year?  If you eat too much of it, what will you do when next year's planting gets flooded out?  Congress doesn't seem to be thinking that far ahead, of course.

Just two days until Obama ha-Mashiach rides to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on his party's mascot while the masses lay palm branches before him.  Wait, no, he's going to walk across the Potomac, bringing a net bursting with 153 fish for good measure.  Either way, this is all getting ridiculous.  Celebrities and rock stars have all flocked to DC to trumpet the coming of the Messiah.  Jesus himself could come back now and probably not even be able to get a single camera crew.  This is the perfect setup for a delicious disappointment.  I want to see them all when the bond market recoils at the thought of trillion-dollar deficits and interest rates soar.  I want to see them all when his "green jobs" program gets bogged down by environmentalist lawsuits or exposed as just more special interest politics.  I want to see them all when his "smarter" foreign policy gets us a new hole in some famous skyline.  Not that it will make much difference to them.  The "journalists" and celebrities that sold Obama to the gullible will still have their careers, no matter what.  As for those who voted for him out of misguided hope or irrational emotionalism, that just has to be beaten out of them.  We've had several bubbles burst in this decade and judging by the fiscal ambitions of Obama and Congress, the next, and likely last, bubble is government itself.  For America to have "real change," people must have their last hopes in the power of government utterly devastated.  Only then can we get limited government again.

Bush may be a Texan and may pride himself on his poker game, but I guess he's never played poker with a union boss.  This whole exercise of trying to pass a bailout for the auto companies has turned out to be a charade given that Treasury is now considering using the TARP money, after all.  As unpalatable as the idea of throwing $700 billion at the financial system was, there was at least the sense that it was only to be used to keep the system itself from dying.  Bailing out a non-financial industry changes the program from defibrillation to dialysis.  Now, any company that can convince a few important politicians that it is indispensible to the economy can get a federal IV infusion and be on its way again.  Even if the treatment is limited to the Not-so-big-anymore Three, once it's started, who would stop it?  If $25 billion a quarter keeps them alive and keeps Obama, Pelosi, and Reid from being blamed for letting them go bankrupt, why would they stop writing the checks?

The executives of the Not-so-big-anymore Three are fools for taking government money.  Congress knows as much about making a profit as they do about making cars.  American car manufacturing will become a government-sponsored entity--kind of like Fannie Mae--and be subject to political whims.  Maybe Congress will form another enterprise called "Caddy Mac" to develop creative financing for low-income car buyers.  After all, all the Chevy Volts in the world are useless if nobody can get the credit to buy them.  I think the car companies are a symbol of the real problem--a government that has grown too big, spends too much money, and has hopelessly expensive entitlement liabilities.  The only logical solution is radical restructuring, but the powers that be are unwilling to bite the bullet and be done with it.

The debate about where the Republican Party goes from here is underway.  Some say that we should de-emphasize moral conservatism in favor of fiscal conservatism.  Others suggest the way to expand the tent is to de-emphasize both and submit to the "new reality" of our evolution into European-style fiscal and social policy.  The remaining option is to continue the "compassionate conservatism" of Bush, in which we maintain what morally conservative policies we can while being fiscally accommodating so as not to appear heartless--not a viable option given that we've lost two elections in a row on that plan.  Anything other than rebuilding on the foundation of fiscal and moral conservatism will end in failure because like bricks and mortar, one can't stand without the other.

Moral conservatism is the foundation upon which Republican principles are built.  What is fiscal conservatism without it?  How you handle money is a reflection of your morality.  Covetousness is the lifeblood of the consumer culture.  Marketing firms go to great lengths to convince us that we must have the latest, greatest, "new and improved" product today, for just ten easy payments of $19.99.  Billy Mays wouldn't be annoying us daily on television (in HD, no less) if the pitches didn't work.  Companies have made it easy for us to indulge ourselves by creating financing plans, credit cards, and the now infamous interest-only option ARM.  Thirty years of debt and leverage came to its logical conclusion this year as it all came down amidst a hearty cry of "Jenga!!!"  Now we see the government encouraging us to go back out and do more of what nearly blew up our economy in order to keep our economy from blowing up, and if we won't, they will!

An unexpected misfortune can strike anyone, but if you look at people in financial hardship in general, you will find one or more moral failings.  After all, anyone can find a roach in his house, but whether or not it becomes an infestation depends on the hygiene habits of the homeowner.  When you look at the lives of those in financial distress, you can often find plenty of roach food.  Single parenthood is the big financial killer.  Sometimes that happens through divorce, which is a moral failure of at least one party in the marriage.  Many times it's through carelessness that a woman finds herself pregnant and unmarried.  The government's foray into welfare programs had a tendency to aggravate this problem by providing a financial disincentive for the man involved to do the responsible thing.  In two-parent households, financial hardship is often associated with some kind of addictive behavior.  Alcohol, drugs and gambling are expensive hobbies and they tend to prevent career advancement, unless "prison laundry supervisor" is something you want on a resume.  Where single parenthood or addiction aren't present, any financial hardship not the result of pure, bad luck is the result of self-indulgence.  Tens of thousands of dollars worth of credit card bills don't just happen on their own.  That kind of professional indebtedness requires a lot of trips to the mall.  Bass boats and expensive SUVs don't just randomly park themselves in people's driveways.  People don't fall asleep in a trailer one night and wake up in a $500,000 McMansion.  Although, that could have happened with the right mortgage broker during the last couple years of the housing boom!  Financial roaches feast on bad decisions and anyone sitting in a 4,000 square-foot bad decision with rooms and a garage filled with more bad decisions all bought on credit is an infestation waiting to happen.

The predicament of the government is far worse.  The scale of the debt is practically unmanageable.  A typical consumer may have made five to ten years worth of bad decisions to build up tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, but the government has had fifty years worth of bad decisions and now has over $10 trillion worth of roach food sitting around.  This year, the lights got turned on and the roaches scurried everywhere.  Rather than calling the exterminator, i.e., slashing spending and selling assets, their solution is to create additional roach food and distribute it into the world economy, hoping that enough roaches will scurry out of the kitchen in pursuit of it to make life tolerable for a while longer.  How much longer?  As long as foreign central banks are willing to fill their cupboards with it.

It is said somewhere that we get the government we deserve.  If we have a government "of the people," then it's only natural to expect our representatives to reflect the moral failures of the population.  The more morally lax the population becomes, the more government will spend more than it has and print or tax its way to making up the difference.  To give up moral conservatism is to give up fiscal conservatism, but how do Republicans regain power in a society that seems to be growing more morally permissive?  It is unlikely that simply trying to intellectually convince voters to become morally conservative will work on its own.  Life itself has a way of bringing about such change.  The addict doesn't change until faced with the painful outcome of the addiction.  A severe recession, or worse, can sear the psyche of a generation, doing what all the preaching in the world cannot, assuming government doesn't short-circuit the learning process in its misguided benevolence.  Many people will come out the other side with a new-found appreciation for conservative principles.  The Republican Party must be there waiting for them as the party of both moral and fiscal conservatism.

It's a staple of addiction programs that people often come to a "rock-bottom" moment before getting on the road to recovery.  Perhaps they lose the house, kill someone while driving drunk, get busted performing a lewd act in a dingy public restroom or, God forbid, even vote for Al Franken!  If he loses, they'll never see just how low they've sunk and they will go on to commit some other horror.  Most people have a low opinion of Congress, but they need something tangible on which to focus their dislike--a monster, if you will.  What could be a better monster than Frankensenator?  He is mean, dark, and as humorless as a re-animated corpse.  Sending him to Washington would surely be a rock-bottom political moment.

And so it begins.  Democrats are preparing to double down on the bailout of GM, Ford, and Chrysler.  Is it really so bad if these companies go bankrupt?  Will Toyota get money, too, if their condition deteriorates?  After all, they do build cars in America, too.  Bankruptcy is what these companies may really need to burn out their financial dead wood and rebuild in an economically sustainable way.  When the Japanese economy collapsed in the 1990s, there was a continuous effort to preserve insolvent banks and companies, which created zombie corporations that ate cash, rather than brains.  If the Big Three are preserved in their current state by successive government bailouts, they will never attain a corporate structure that can be competitive in this century.  They have cancer and the government is giving them palliative care.  It's time to give them a big dose of chemo and radiation and finally kill the cancer so that they can return to good health.

"Daniel answered and said: "Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, to whom belong wisdom and might.  He changes times and seasons; he removes kings and sets up kings; he gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding..." (Dan 2:20-21, ESV)

"The sentence is by the decree of the watchers, the decision by the word of the holy ones, to the end that the living may know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will and sets over it the lowliest of men." (Dan 4:17, ESV)

"It is I who by my great power and my outstretched arm have made the earth, with the men and animals that are on the earth, and I give it to whomever it seems right to me." (Jer. 27:5, ESV)

Many Christians, particularly those who would call themselves "evangelical," have been praying that John McCain would win the election.  Well, it wasn't even close.  McCain was certainly not one of the favorites of the evangelicals during the primaries and the fact that such a prayer even happened is a funny twist of Providence.  If you'll remember, his campaign was practically bankrupt late last year.  He benefited from the campaign flops by Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson and the "friendly fire" Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee expended on each other.  He has always been a survivor.  If anyone were to look for a life story of someone who was destined to be President and do something pivotal in history, McCain's would make a great script.  Surviving shoot-downs, accidents, and the Hanoi Hilton to come home and build a long Senate career and then finally survive a difficult primary in order to run against a compelling, but unknown, opponent is the stuff of movies.

On the other side, the Invisible Hand seems to be at work in Barack Obama's rise.  Until 2004, he was a young, Illinois state senator.  He would have likely stayed such, but the Republican favored to win the US Senate seat from Illinois had a nasty divorce and ended up dropping out, leaving the Republicans without a credible candidate.  The election was a cakewalk for Obama.  Along comes the 2008 primary and like McCain, Obama starts out way behind.  He certainly piqued the interest of many, but he was so young and nobody could possibly defeat the well-oiled machine of Bill and Hillary Clinton.  It turned out that the machine had a factory defect--Bill Clinton.  His mouth, combined with losses on Super Tuesday gave Obama the traction he needed to hang onto a lead to the end and slay the Clinton dragon.

And so we got through the conventions with two candidates who could claim that the Invisible Hand was guiding them to the Presidency.  Then a meteor hit Wall Street and trillions of dollars in assets went to money heaven, or in the case of the lower-rated assets, money hell.  McCain was successfully tacking against a headwind of negative sentiment for Republicans, but got swamped by the rogue wave on Wall Street and foundered.  The glimmer of a miracle appeared in the last weeks, but it was not to be, and he went to the bottom with all hands aboard.  So, if God has ordained Obama to be the President, to what purpose?  He does nothing without some greater purpose in mind.  We shall see in the coming years whether that purpose was for good or ill.