Read Tony’s response to this article here.

You, as a self-proclaimed Christian conservative, believe Jesus is the son of God, the paragon of love and decency.

Ironically, this belief has failed to reflect your political ideology or instill in you the principles of his teaching.

What you are either unwilling to understand or unwilling to concede, is that the phrase “Conservative Christian” is an oxymoron. Being a Christian Conservative is like being a “compassionate narcissist” or a “black redneck.”

Your most treasured social construct””free-market capitalism””is at complete odds with the very fabric of who Jesus was. If present today, Jesus would be the welfare state’s biggest cheerleader. Jesus would be a socialist or a communist, but never a conservative or capitalist. Jesus would advise you to do away with all your wealth.

Also revealing is your militant objection to the health care bill while claiming to be on the right side of Jesus. It is as if the Democrats are playing Robin Hood in order to provide stabilizing services to the poor. You care little that this is exactly what Jesus would advocate.

Also disturbing is your nostalgia for patriarchal traditions that have nothing to do with morality. Individuals like yourself and the church’s untaxed dollars came out in spades in support Proposition 8. Yet, you are not willing to consider the fact that Jesus may have been a homosexual. He did not desire women or marriage or children, and ended many of his sayings with “Ah, men.”

You may not find this funny, but rather offensive. This can only be the case if your anxiety about sex exceeds any rational intensity. This is why you may consider gay marriage to be one of the most tremendous moral issues of our time, when it is quite clear that gay marriage is not of any moral concern.

You are more preoccupied with homosexuality, abstinence and abortions rather than alleviating suffering and increasing happiness.

A few years ago an immunization to America’s most common STD, human papillomavirus (HPV), was rejected by many prominent religious conservatives on the grounds that it acts as a valuable impediment to premarital sex.

Also, George W. Bush used his first veto as president to kill a stem-cell research bill, saying “it crosses a moral boundary society needs to respect.” A three-day-old embryo is a collection of 150 cells with no brain or neurons, thus it cannot feel pain. There are over 100,000 cells in the brain of a fly, which has a brain and neurons. An overwhelming majority of the scientific and morally rational community conclude that stem cell research is the most promising development in eradicating cancer and other sufferable diseases.

You are telling a cancer, diabetes or heart disease patient that your belief in religious metaphysics justifies giving equal consideration to 150 cells in a Petri dish that can prolong their misery.

You spend more energy protecting the unborn rather than curing disease or upholding social traditions rather than justice while refusing to act Christ-like. Your adulterated priorities and moral compass is what, in reality, is offensive.

This does not at all surprise me. As a Christian, who at the very minimum many scholars have said must adhere to the notion of Jesus’ divinity and resurrection, you have explicitly expressed your willingness to believe in absolutely ANYTHING. Why this is admirable, I admit, is lost upon me. Why it is prudent or even ethical to grant respect to these customs, particularly those which provide you shelter from scrutiny and accountability for your beliefs, is beyond me.

There is much to be learned from Jesus the philosopher, but conservative Christians find it most difficult to emulate him despite their boisterous claims to the contrary.