Howard Stern

In my life I have always found myself on the "conservative" side of the political and religious debate.
I was at Washington for Jesus in 1980, 1988, and 1996- marching and (once i was sold enough) voting for whatever republican party we were supposed to believe in at the time.
For those of you who don't know, the religious right was founded and created at those rallies by people with whom I became really close- especially in the 90's.
you have to understand that satellite and cable TV was propelled and pushed forward in the early days by Pat Robertson and friends- because they realized that this new medium was a viable outlet for Christians to get the word out, because network TV cost so much money, and the bandwidth existed to create and program entire networks around Christian themes and beliefs.
In other words, it was the "secular" market that drove Christians into the newer cable TV markets. Pat Robertson literally walked door-to-door in the Virginia Beach/ Hampton Roads area selling cable boxes getting faithful churchgoers to sign up for cable TV and watch the new Christian channel he was programming. Christian TV was a safe haven for Christian families to turn the TV on and "feel safe."
Later, we got smart enough to realize that not only could we control our own little channels on various Cable networks, but we could also throw some weight around and some political clout to push our beliefs on the popular media as well. We cracked down on content, and got bogged down in subcommittees debating what was decent and what was not, while all along Howard was building his own media empire.
So now fast forward 20-30 years to now, and the Religious right (we) managed to talk congress into cracking down on indecency on free radio channels- especially on "shock" jocks like Howard Stern- and what is it that we have actually accomplished?
1. Howard has the freedom to say whatever he wants on Monday morning
2. He isn't just going away, he is creating a whole network on Sirius, where he is programming 24 hours of material
3. He has the chance to pioneer a whole new medium and push the boundaries even further.
I'm not mad- I have listened to Howard's show for the last month or two. It wouldn't have been that big of a deal if we had just ignored him and left him alone- but no- we're in power, so we gotta fine him and censor him, and give him exactly what he wanted- publicity, controversy.
Its just like the early Christians in Rome, but this time we're Rome, and Howard and his followers are the ones being persecuted.
When you listen to his show, its easy to be "shocked" by some of the things he does- but when you really listen to what's going on, you hear something being communicated underneath; Equality, gut-wrenching honesty, self-depreciating humor, and realism, and these are all things that Jesus preached, but are missing from the message of the right. Rooting for the underdog, reaching out to the sick, and the poor, and the forgotten members of society. The religious right is missing out on the basic message of what Howard Stern does and says.
So, now Howard will have the freedom to preach his gospel any way he sees fit, and now there's nothing the religious right can do about it.
If we want to reach out to this generation, we need to focus less on what "they" (the far left) are doing, and spend more time using the tools and the media outlets we have to show that we have to capacity to care, to understand, and to listen instead of constantly trying to legislate morality.