We live, Gore Vidal observed during the Salem Witch Follies known as the Starr Investigation, in a nation “evenly divided between political reactionaries and religious maniacs.”

There isn’t a liberal in sight, he chortles — not a pretty sound — off the pages of The Last Empire — Essays 1992-2000 .

And, really, of all the “liberals” who have announced their candidacy for President in 2008, not a one wants to handle gay marriage in anything like a sober, informed way.

Not a one makes anything like a forthright declarative sentence in support of the full and equal civil rights of that dependable portion of their base that has been relegated to weekend trysts on Brokeback Mountain.

Amid the chorus of Republican demagogues honking about tradition, morality and — that special GOP preserve — “sanctity”, the Democratic hopefuls differ by not a hair from the two leading Republican contenders, Honest John and America’s Mayor.

Although the Republican Party still does bigotry best, all the front-runners, left and right, now sing in harmony about the holy unit of one man, one woman and as many unplanned pregnancies as possible. All, if pressed and then in lowered voices usually saved for off-the-record asides, will sluggishly support something called “civil unions” — which always brings to mind phrases like “common-law wife” and “family court,” suggesting the black-and-blue shacking up of the town slattern with the town drunk.

In the land of the brave, politicians must never say anything too intelligent lest they wake up the mob and have them come out, in big numbers whipped up by their opponents, with noose in hand. The issue sure to get the untethered totally off their meds is always “morality.” Here again, Vidal is instructive:

“For Americans morality has nothing at all to do with ethics or right action or who is stealing what money — and liberties — from whom. Morality is SEX. SEX. SEX.” Prompted by an editorial in “that cheery neofascist paper” The Wall Street Journal entitled “Modern Morality” (”a subject,” quips Vidal, ” I should have thought alien to [the paper's] core passions“), he notes that the right-wing morals squad is always out there to frighten the great unwashed and keep them obedient to the ruling class, the squad’s benefactors, concluding with devastating tartness that the Journal is not remotely “interested in morality. In fact any company that can increase quarterly profits by poisoning a river is to be treasured.”

And so we have this Valentine’s Day decided to climb on the Morals band wagon with a big brass tuba and our chins pointed toward heaven. Inspired by a letter sent to the editors of the Sheboygan Press by Gregory Hartman — a man we never met but to whom we are sending out this heart-shaped box of creamy caramels — we present the following (with a few Nightcharm zingers mixed in):

1. Studies Show Homosexuality is Contagious

Statistics show that allowing gay marriage will encourage more people to become gay, just like spending time with someone short makes you shorter.

Homosexuality must not be allowed to spread. Once people hear more about being gay they will stampede to join the club, hoping to be persecuted and alienated from their families, friends and face discrimination on a daily basis, along with all the other benefits of being “fabulous.”

2. Homosexuality is, in fact, Unnatural

Truth be told, being gay is not natural, despite what modern science would have us believe.

All true Americans reject things that are unnatural, which is why you will never see an American wearing glasses or polyester or even using air conditioning.

3. Homosexuality is the First Step to Man-on-Dog Sex

Legalizing gay marriage will create an opening for other abnormal behaviors. People may now wish to marry their cats, and we would have to allow them since animals can sign the marriage contract to give consent, and considering an animal’s legal standing, this would be perfectly acceptable.

4. What About the Children?

The fact is marriages can only be considered valid if children are produced.

For this reason we have laws forbidding infertile couples, the elderly, as well as gays from getting hitched. Even testicular and ovarian cancer survivors are out of luck once radiation and chemical cocktails decimate their reproductive cells. No matter the circumstances, if a couple cannot procreate, their marriage cannot be considered legal.

5. Gay Parents Raise Gay Children

Tragically, if a child was procured through adoption, gay parents would obviously only raise gay children, since straight parents only raise straight offspring. (Like our two “Mountain” boys, at left.)

6. Children Need Sex-Appropriate Role Models

Children need both a female and male role model at home, which is why we explicitly prohibit single parents from raising children, in fear of how demented the children will turn out.

One need only look at Nelson Mandela, Senator Barack Obama, President Bill Clinton, and actress Rene Russo (raised by a lesbian mother, as she announced proudly one “National Coming Out Day”) to see the devastating consequences of being raised by a single parent.

7. Gay Marriage is the Most Pressing Problem Facing the Nation

Gay marriage is merely an idiotic idea that will ruin everyone’s life. So the sheer thought of allowing it should strike us all with fear. The Republican Senators were right to call it “the most important problem facing the nation today” during their last run at an anti-gay marriage amendment, when a week was set aside to “educate” their liberal colleagues who were being distracted at the time by trivial issues like the budget and the 3,000 American dead in Iraq.

8. Gay Marriage Flies in the Face of 4 Thousand Years of Tradition

Only when society remains stagnant and stupid will it continue to be of good quality. The Founding Fathers knew what they were doing three centuries ago, which is why slavery was enshrined in our first laws and remains an engine of prosperity for the American Empire today. Why the education of women is limited to the idle rich who have time to fiddle away on painting landscapes and reading frivolous Jane Austen novels. And why so many lucky children can now work around the clock in our mills and factories.

9. Gay Marriage is Communism, Atheism and Terrorism All in One

Wake up, people (as our beloved Nancy Grace would say.) The left-wing Commies want women to abandon their husbands and children, grease their hair into Elvis Presley D.A’s, and practice witchcraft.

Our greatest televangelists have warned of this on the cable stations they own, thanks to the same sort of sweetheart deals that gives them so much tax-free real estate. These Godly churchmen have taken time from their filmic tours of Nicaraguan slum children to rally the faithful into voting blocs. Reverend Pat, in particular, is renowned for having the latest science at his fingertips and regularly produces the stats to show that legalized same-sex marriage is causing earthquakes and tsunamis in Holland, Spain and Godless England. Also Canada.

10. What Would Jesus Do?

We are, of course, a Christian Nation — except for the Jews, Muslims and atheists possessed by Satan. We must ask ourselves, what would Jesus do?

He certainly would not have sided with the outcasts and sexual outlaws. He would not have preached love for such men, as we know from his Sermon on the Mount where he told the multitude to take up arms against the heathen. Scripture shows Jesus was an upstanding friend of the Pharisees and would never have challenged the state-appointed religious leaders of his day.

He and his youngest apostle St John, known from earliest Christendom as St. John the Beloved, would have had a hearty laugh over what our great heterosexual poet, Walt Whitman, called “the sweet love of comrades.” So if Jesus condemns these the least of his brethren, who are we not to pick up a stone and start hurling?