Here is proof that women in America no longer have to postpone their wish for children until marriage. Here, also, is proof that David Brooks’ obsession with out of wedlock births as a sign of American decadence is not about moral decay, but rather about the waning power of patriarchal values i.e. the Abrahamic Tradition of Judaism,Christianity and Islam in the United States, as arbiters of morality, ethics and the image of women and their place in a thoroughly entrenched secularized republican setting. Although that secular state, and its institutional safeguards, are under concerted attack from the most reactionary members of these patriarchal traditions, as unelected legislators and guardians of public morality . The waning of male heterosexual power to dominate the discourse that seeks to define the acceptable expressions of gender roles and morally permissible sexual conduct, female/male, gay/straight/ and intersex/transsexual are the uncomfortable realities that goad Mr. Brooks and his political/religious allies, Conservatives, who continually sound the alarm about the moral decay inherent in the free choice of existential/political actors, in a dangerous, out of control secular environment. This is the argument of first and last resort, always play this handy trump card, that sounds the well worn notes of a carefully cultivated political hysteria. The other is my enemy,even if it is my sister, brother, father,mother, friend or just a person I have not, nor will ever meet.

Queer Atheist