Free Republic

Edward Cardinal Egan railed yesterday against gay-marriage supporters, Hollywood honchos and even Britney Spears for "desecrating" marriage and destroying "something sacred and holy." Pulling no punches, Egan said the specter of legal gay marriage would have a devastating effect on traditional values already eroded by an R-rated pop culture that includes sleazy reality TV shows. "History assured us that no civilization can survive if marriage is rejected, humiliated - if marriage is set aside," he told hundreds of worshipers at St. Patrick's Cathedral on World Marriage Day. The cardinal said traditional marriage should be preserved and protected at all costs....

<p>An appalled friend sent in the quick solution to what happened at half-time during the Super Bowl: "The entire Jackson family should be launched into outer space." Since we can't do that (can we?), it falls to we earthlings to discern just what came to pass on Super Bowl Sunday. Another friend -- also young, urban and sophisticated -- found cause to be perplexed: "One feels like a bluenose complaining, but that's part of the problem. How did things reach this point, with strip-club sleaze part of mainstream youth culture?"</p>

<p>Howard Dean stepped into the culture wars this week by proclaiming "silly" a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) investigation of the on-air smut that passed for halftime entertainment at this year's Super Bowl.</p> <p>"There are a great many far worse things on television that you can inadvertently turn on when you happen to be cruising through cable at regular viewing hours," Mr. Dean said from the campaign trail. He didn't explain how he would know, however, since he and his wife have repeatedly told us they don't subscribe to cable television.</p>

Keeping Abreast of the Culture Wars Yes, the Super Bowl half-time show was unfit for children to watch and just plain insulting to the rest of us. Most of the commercials made the humor from the movie Wayne’s World seem positively high-brow--old people being tripped, women being burned from torched horse flatulence, a monkey hitting on a woman. But network television didn’t just fall into the sink hole overnight. This cultural slide has been happening for decades and for decades those who were trying to raise public awareness about it were branded a bunch of unhip philistines, throwbacks to the...

<p>Has our culture gone iredeemably to pot, or can we jump for our lives?</p> <p>On Saturday night Sept. 8, 2001, I did something unusual. I went to Madison Square Garden to watch the taping of a Michael Jackson special that was soon to be aired on CBS. A friend had come to town with tickets and we decided to meet for dinner and go together. We thought it would be fun because we thought it would be strange.</p>