There we were, my precious 11-year-old daughter and I, curled up on the couch, anxiously awaiting the Super Bowl halftime extravaganza. Let's be clear about this: We weren't watching the game ? not a single minute of it. Nope, we were having a girls' fun night running back and forth between decorating her room and trying to catch the much-awaited halftime spectacle. And boy, what a spectacle it was. Janet "Flashing" Jackson and all.
Halftime had already started before we realized it, so we quickly scrambled to catch the rest of the show. Big mistake. I should have known better when I saw the cast of shady characters gyrating across the stage to chaotic music and words I couldn't quite understand. But I'm an optimist, so as we snuggled close and threw the blanket over our legs, I just knew the show would get better. "Besides," I thought, "millions upon millions of families are gathered around their television sets across America to watch the biggest game of the year ? we can't all be wrong." At that precise moment, I became a very dumb blonde, as I sat uncomfortably glued to the tube along with the rest of America and my trusting, vulnerable little girl.
By the time Justin Timberlake ripped off half of Janet's bra to reveal her bare breast like some cheap lap dancer, it was too late.
The over-sexualized commercials ? of which I saw a few ? should have tipped me off that even the Super Bowl is no longer family-friendly. From crotch-grabbing dogs, to a monkey begging a girl for sex, to ways to enhance romance, the nation was saturated with Super Bowl sex.
What, exactly, does any of that have to do with the American pastime of football? The game used to be about teamwork, and athletic ability, and strategy. It used to be about a competition between the best of the best. It seems that America has been sliding down the slippery sewer of cultural immorality for so long that it was not until we were faced with Jackson's disgust for America and our values that we realized, ugh, we're covered with stinking sludge.
My friend and colleague, David Spady, of Salem Communications has a much better phrase for what America was exposed to on Super Bowl Sunday: Cultural terrorism. He's right. While American soldiers are dying overseas to protect our freedom, we're becoming slaves to malevolence in our own homes. While we're subjected to body searches at airports, increased monitoring of communications, and constantly changing terror alerts ? all to combat terrorists who would destroy our nation ? we invite cultural terrorists into our homes and allow them to destroy our sensibilities and the innocence of our children.
I, for one, have had enough. Janet Jackson, et al declared war on America's families, and it's time to fight back.
A recent paper from the Heritage Foundation reports on a poll in which parents were asked if they want their kids to be taught about sex and condoms, or if they would like for someone to help them teach abstinence and virtue. Guess what? Parents want schools to tell their children "no" when it comes to sex.
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