Why do Evangelicals (of all religions) insist that only people who practice religious faith in the exact manner the Evangelical thinks they should have morals and ethics? Not only do I -- an atheist -- have very strong morals and ethics, many people (including me) believe that the evangelical mindset is, at its core, amoral.

People who are told what to think and given rules on how to behave never develop an internalized moral and ethical system. Once they decide that either they don't want to follow the rules or that the rules don't apply to them, then they have no internal moral code to fall back on. In addition, they come to believe that if they are righteous, then everything they do must be righteous (and the converse as well: people who aren't righteous must be immoral, which is the whole foundation of Henninger's argument).

Thus, you get highly pious religious practitioners who, when they get to a place where they feel they are "above the rules" act in totally amoral fashion. That's the reason why morally bankrupt behavior (torture, cronyism, flagrant disregard for the rule of law and the constitution, etc.) has become commonplace under the leadership of our Evangelical president.

As a "soft" liberal who is going to have turkey on her table next week, I'm a little annoyed at the media for making such a big deal about this video. Doesn't the "liberal media" (I'm guessing the conservative media had no problems with it) realize that their gleeful horror at this video just reinforces all the stereotypes about effete liberals who are out of touch with the "real world"?

The only thing Palin did wrong was not recognize the tender sensibilities of urbanites who prefer to think their meat magically appears in sanitary plastic wrap at their meat counter. Since that's not Palin's demographic anyway, why should she pander to it?

Okay, that's not the only thing she did wrong: she murdered the English language in such a way that its struggles were just as ugly and ineffectual as the turkey's!

Ms. Williams wrote:

"I do believe it's pretty damn tough to make a connection with anybody when one is physically cut off."

Pity she can't connect with her mother and father.

-- bigguns

****

Or with her children, other people's children, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, co-workers, female friends, gay male friends, male friends who aren't sexually available, etc.

Really, do we need another person -- especially someone on Broadsheet -- telling women (or anyone) that they're emotionally defective because they choose not to have sex? Maybe Ms. Williams ought to examine the fact that she thinks the only way to be intimate is to be physically intimate. Maybe her emotional life would be richer if she found ways to connect with people outside the bedroom.

I must have missed the part where they tied the author down, subscribed her to these Twitter lists, read them all to her and forcibly restrained her from unsubscribing.

Sheesh people -- if you don't want to be informed of every inane detail of someone's life, then unsubscribe! Or better yet, don't subscribe in the first place. Just say "no" to a medium whose shallowness and triviality is embodied in its name.

... this guy knows Hans Reiser? In fact, he seems to be a combination of notorious California wife-killers Reiser and Scott Peterson. The missing fourth wife is like Nina Reiser, who Hans claimed had left her two young children behind and gone back to Russia, until after they convicted him of her murder (without a body -- maybe the Alameda County DA can give the Illinois folks some pointers) and he then offered up the location of her body in exchange for a lighter sentence. The "engaged to the fourth wife before the third wife mysteriously died" scenario sounds like Scott (presumably no relation) Peterson, who told his new girlfriend he'd "lost" his wife weeks before his pregnant wife disappeared and then was found murdered.

I don't know about Reiser (who unlike many other sociopaths isn't at all charming), but as other people have noted, Scott Peterson has women groupies even in prison. Heck, Richard "Nightstalker" Ramirez got married on death row!

... get over yourself. This has to be the most pretentious letter I've ever read on Salon. Your all-consuming problem is that at 25 you can't decide which boyfriend to choose? Wow. What a tragedy! Get out the violins.

I disagree, knecht! There's no indication that the relationship between the young people was anything but consensual, and there's nothing outrageous (despite our somewhat silly statutory rape laws) about a 14-year-old being with an 18-year-old. The young man wanted to marry the young woman, and he offered what must have been to him a substantial amount of money for the privilege of doing so. That tells me that had a relationship and that he loves her very much (or at least, as much as an 18-year-old knows about love -- Romeo and Juliet were 18 and 14, btw). It's not like an 18-year-old man can't find plenty of willing women his age if he just wants someone to marry/live with/have sex with.

Now if it were a 12-year-old being sold without her consent to a much older man, that would be different. But what I see is a father being opportunistic: his daughter was going to be with this guy whatever he did, so he he probably figured he might as well get something out of it. Not very nice, but not a crime, IMHO.