Manifest By The Light

Bieber Fever Strikes Conservatives

It doesn’t take much to impress conservatives these days. It doesn’t matter if you stand on a stage with only postage stamps for a covering as long as you state your support for family values. Just ask Carrie Prejean, Miss USA from a couple of years ago, who overnight became the instant pin-up girl for conservatives who were sent into spasms of delight as she defended traditional marriage while flaunting her surgically enhanced bosom. (This was before the sex tape scandal came out.)

Another nearly naked values warrior, Teresa Scalan, strutted her stuff in a black bikini and then warmed the hearts of (mostly male) conservatives nationwide after she announced she was headed to a Christian college. She gave God the credit for her winning the Miss America pageant. News comment sections were immediately filled with conservative wolf-whistles. “Another red-hot Republican babe ready to launch,” crowed one devoted fan.

Now conservatives have really hit the jackpot as Justin Bieber, adolescent pop star, announced in aRolling Stone interview that he was opposed to abortion. That’s all it took for pro-life groups to vault him to the top of their lists within hours. Press releases were immediately forthcoming as pro-lifers eagerly claimed him as their own.

But wait! In the same interview in Rolling Stone, Bieber was asked about his views on sex before marriage. In that Bieber identifies as an evangelical Christian, it was a valid question, and given the millions of hormonally-charged females biting their fists worldwide at his photo, an interesting one. But Bieber disappoints.

“I don’t think you should have sex with anyone unless you love them. … I think you should just wait for the person you’re … in love with,” he said.

In that babies conceived out of wedlock are at the highest risk of being murdered in the womb, Bieber’s views on premarital sex are hardly conservative and hardly helping the pro-life cause.

That hasn’t stopped pro-life groups from seizing at this crumb hurled from the celebrity table, regardless of how contradictory his interview was.

When naked beauty queens and boy pop stars not old enough to shave are seen as bright lights in the conservative values crusade, our problems in this country are clearly deeper than abortion.

As a side note, Christianity Today Entertainment (you read that correctly) last week asked readers if their pastors and churches were getting “Bieber fever?” Undoubtedly they are. God has given American evangelicals the kind of leadership they crave: girly men whose god is their own reflection.