A handy guide to sinning: Examination of Conscience For Boys And Girls

Excavated by Mona Goldwater, Social Mores Ed.

 

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A New Sin

I've come up with a new sin. This has been germinating for something like 34 years.

When the sin is revealed, you'll have to enjoy it while you can, because the powers that be and the self-appointed moral executioners will, as Barney Fife says, "nip it in the bud."

The establishment will pass state, local, and national laws prohibiting the sin, and go to court to litigate which jurisdiction takes precedence. When the Pope gets wind of it, he'll be so spooked and rattled that he'll convene a Vatican III. As word spreads around the Moslem/Muslim world, the inventor of the new sin (yours truly) will be hung in effigy and they'll put a price on my head like Salman Rushdie.

The Ku Klux Klan will burn crosses with my face stapled to the crossbars and the televanegelists will howl for my hide. Religious and political factions will plot to take me out. Soon, the conservative press will demand my incarceration and possible execution; what else could they ask for an inventor and promulgator of degeneracy?

Like the hapless technician who discovers a new element, I invented nothing. I merely unlocked what was there, but hidden.

When the potential legal ramifications are squared away, I'll let you know. Somewhere, someone will need to write a new chapter or codicil to the Book of Mormon, The Torah, The Bible, and the Upanishads. Histories, books, and references will be updated to reflect the 8 Deadly Sins, the eleventh commandment, and the newly revised U.S. Code. An industry will spring up and around the new sin and provide work and income for philosophers, authors, prison guards (a/k/a screws), cops, lawyers, prosecutors, lawyers, judges, psychiatrists, parole officers, psychologists, poets, and behavioral scientists.

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