Theological Considerations

To switch from the technical tax accounting community so distressed with their future prospects to the theological community might seem to be too great a leap for an orderly exposition of the development of the Sex Tax, but the author begs to point out that there is a great similarity between the two groups of professionals. One group keeps books with Caesar, the other with God.

In particular, by this time the conservative religious elements of the entire theological spectrum were worried. There was an insidious thought gnawing at their souls that perhaps the churches had taken a position too early in the game. Without proper realization of the depths of the problem, thinking only of the immediate tax saving by exemption of the clergy from personal income tax, and of course mindful that in the last analysis this was a saving that could be passed on to their congregations, the national church bodies, and perhaps even the Curia, had given this tax measure its support.

Now that consideration was being given to the concept of taxing sex at a national level; taxing, that is, not sex at a national level-a truly mind-boggling thought--it seemed time that religious leaders reconsider and study the problem more carefully. Had the religious community sold its birthright for a mess of pottage? The most elevated theological thinkers met unobtrusively to discuss the problem in depth.

Certainly one must conclude that there was an enormous unifying force bringing together such diverse theological positions, a first score for the Sex Tax. The issue of celibacy had been settled. In tax matters the united front of all the clergy would not be broken. But the matter at hand was whether in principle the Sex Tax would serve their diverse philosophies.

The more acute theologians could sense that the shock of sex taxation might well rival the shock wave of the pill. The combination of the new sex frontier with tax reform was a devastating blow to the programs of inculcating guilt. No longer could they promote Vatican Roulette or urge use of the theological birth control pills, Sulfodenial and Noassatol.

With each individual seeking to get more for his tax dollar, these theological nostrums simply wouldn't suffice. Their flock would need the pill or worse. Theologians out on a sex limb were in extreme danger. They had to figure out how to climb down to a more earthy level without risking the notions of infallibility that some of their flock cherished.

But there were also benefits to be considered. It was obvious that the increased bedroom activity would decrease the divorce rate. The average taxpayer, concentrating on his tax-dollar value, would be too spent to play around. His heart now lay with his money, at home.

Now this thought was both good news and bad news. A decrease in divorce rate would tend to stabilize society; that was what they professed to want, but what of the loss to "homolitics"? Sermons such as "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God" just wouldn't go. How could a pastor facing a satisfied male church populace (and probably the distaff populace also) arouse even a decent set of guilt feelings. There were indeed portents of disaster threatening the theological community.

Fortunately, news of the great conclave was kept from the media. Theological uncertainty elevated by media hype would have played havoc with the Sex Tax scene. Fortunately also, the great theological debate was settled before anything could be leaked to the press.

In the course of the conclave it became apparent that, diverse as the theological viewpoints represented were, there was something good in the Sex Tax for all. Something novel for each and every faith that could be related to their most cherished doctrine and avidly preached to the faithful as evidence of the modernity of their beliefs.

For those who had a history of polygamy it was a bonanza, one tax for a multiple marriage. Even for those monogamously inclined who were interested in population gains, the expected bedroom frolics statistically had to pay off. Those who eschewed dancing and cards looked to enhanced domestic activities to eliminate sinful activities. Those who declaimed against alcohol could be reasonably certain that its use would decline at least to the level where the taxpayer could get decent return on his tax dollar.

The ecumenicals, who had a vigorous campaign against "living in sin," spearheaded by the President himself at one time, were the originators of the I am a Taxpayer" bumper stickers that became so popular. This occupied them for several years and provided program for the various individual churches, which supplemented and finally replaced the missionary movement in underdeveloped countries. ("Underdeveloped" is used here in the traditional sense, not the later usages that coincided better with Sex Tax concepts.) The Sex-Tax-engendered programs managed to allow ecumenicals quietly to phase out their antigay program.

On the other hand, theological fractions of Calvinistic bent saw the tax as a punishment for human activities they had long been forced by necessity to accept yet decry. With the tax penalty neatly determined by others, now a political responsibility, the Calvinist church had done its bit and could be quit of this embarrassing issue. Many looked forward rather secretly to becoming very happy taxpayers. They could look forward to moving their efforts into the social action arena, defining social action to be outside the bedroom.

How today's Calvinists got into their current theological bind is a mystery, since their Puritan forebears saw a wife not as a "necessary evil" but as a "necessary good." But then, how did Prohibition get started? Theologians could speculate upon the thesis and antithesis of Hegel to explain this. Somehow there is almost always someone to take the opposite side. We pause to note, however, that the Sex Tax emerged from its political trial by fire almost unscathed by Hegel.

The nature of the Sex Tax prevented predictions of the coming of the end of the world" because eschatology didn't fit too well. Perhaps it was because the doctrine of the "second coming" did have bedroom relevance. Fundamentalists had no trouble with the Sex Tax after their hierarchy made the point that this social change was a "getting back to the fundamentals."

Faith healers were among those most benefited by the Sex Tax, gaining a new field of activity-"Impotence healing", which, lying almost exclusively in the realm of the psychological, guaranteed them a great chance of success. This was quickly perceived and the response of faith healers to the Sex Tax was most enthusiastic.

They made common cause, in some cases, with the astrologers, who guaranteed their predictions of bedroom success for those troubled in the bedroom. There were even rumors of a boom in Venus research in the astrological faculties of the occult colleges, though this did not have any measurable effect on the popularity of the Sex Tax.

The UFO sightings declined, as might have been predicted. Those who espoused the cause of UFO research were faced with a dearth of sightings to fill their journals. One might have expected less sightings of night UFOs because of increased bedroom activity.

Perhaps the organizations that like to profit from taking issues "to the streets" can hardly be called a political institution, but, collectively, if we consider the institution of political protest, we can evaluate the effect on the inchoate Sex Tax legislation.

On any issue there is always some aspect that can be exploited, something good for a sign-painting session and a street march. But the institution of street protest, generally composed of youth, with the odd couple of up to eighty years occasionally present, stood principally to gain from the Sex Tax because of their youth. In fact, the only emotion raised in the ranks of most protesters in the youth category was one of their final success. It was some time later that the thought penetrated to the leaders that, with success, they were fated to become part of the establishment. That unmade their day.

Not included in the institution of protest were the Communists, both overt and covert. Notwithstanding the multiple memberships in do-gooder and front organizations, the Communists remained a disciplined and cohesive group, which also might rightly be called its own institution. They did have and promoted a legitimate Sex Tax issue.

Remembering their glorious early days of struggle in the streets of the thirties, days destined to end in failure but heady while they lasted, the Communist organizations painted their signs for a second time, some four decades later with FREE LOVE! Even though their mentor, the Russian Soviets, had long since opted for family stability and eliminated the free love and easy divorce statutes that marked their earlier times, the front organizations, with an acute sense of history, swung into support of free love.

Their demonstrations might have had some significant impact upon the legislation, since they mounted their protest at maximum strength, which wasn't much, but any showing is noted by the politicians. But the demonstration was a disaster.

Word leaked out where the demonstration was planned, and the ever-alert college fraternities decided that their spring frolic would be a counterdemonstration.

When the buxom girls of the Communist demonstration marched down Pennsylvania Avenue carrying their banners, Ivy League college fraternities, in defense of the established virtues, met the Communist maidens with an imposing array of signs painted "Show Us" and "We Don't Want to Pay, Either." The melee was on.

Police were not able to quell the disturbance; in fact, they were standing back holding their sides with laughter as the fraternities launched a mass panty raid reminiscent of the good old days of their daddies. Not only were the protesters' signs flattened, the grass of the park was considerably trampled with couples from the demonstration. Bra burning would have been quite unnecessary even had there been any militant feminists present.

The networks and newspapers carried the story, while America chuckled. The demonstration did more than anything since the Madam to speed passage of the new tax bill. The Communist groups didn't fully recover from the disaster for years, which contributed to the era of social peace that ensued. The next World Communist convention asked the pertinent question "Where did we go wrong?"

The environmentalists really had no issue. Surely any tax measure that kept hubby home, not out hunting, blazing away at defenseless deer, should have been to their liking. There was no degradation of the environment likely. But to view their concern as arising from such surface issues would be underestimating the gravity of the problem the environmentalists faced. They were dependent upon the outdoor activities of the frustrated male. Any program that would lure and keep him in the bedroom was a potential threat. Were the male, even the young male, to lose interest in the wonders of nature and the chances of copulation with another nature lover in the great outdoors and switch to the deep, deep peace of the double or water-bed, the nature groups were done. Memberships would lapse, outdoor sporting goods sales would drop, and environmental lobbies would have to be curtailed.

Without such backing, their organizations could not enjoy the infinite pleasure of frustrating businessmen in efforts to provide energy needed for people to live comfortably. Zero growth would be threatened and, worst of all, progress could no longer be blocked and might break out again to threaten mankind with pleasures alien to those to be gained from contemplation of the starkness of nature.

But how could the environmentalist lobby attack the bill? What kind of class action suit could be filed to forbid bedroom pleasures? Was there any way they could whomp up machismo? How could they go beyond the temptations of nylon tents and double sleeping bags, two deep and one wide, to draw youth into the arms of nature?

Legions of young lawyers were pressed into service. Storefront legal services were curtailed. Law libraries were searched assiduously to find some avenue whereby this insidious tax could be countered. Nothing turned up, The environmentalists were caught in their own trap. Their insistence on man staying out of nature, not degrading the environment by his presence (except, of course, their own members, who came only to observe nature's grandeur with a view to protecting it when they returned to suburbia), was about to be fulfilled.

They could foresee dimly the disaster that was about to befall them. Man would be so attracted to the bedroom and tax saving (value recovery, that is) that he would to a significant extent abandon nature. The wandering youth of bygone days would couple up and copulate, leaving Mother Nature to her own devices, except in the bedroom, where the pill would protect against environmental impact.

Their mission accomplished, would the environmentalists be satisfied? Not so. Would there be a shift, as there was with the March of Dimes from polio, now conquered, to the almost limitless frontier of genetic defects? That would take some doing. What is bigger than all of nature to be protected?

The leaders of the environmentalist groups, assembling in executive session, bit the bullet and decided that they would shift their attention to the protection of man, an endangered species. They would "leave the animals be," let them take care of themselves; man was their prime target. He was threatened as never before. With this insidious Sex Tax he would become a prime target for the "Wobbsies," a World War II returnee's disease--overfucked and underfed. (Perhaps the true Legionnaire's disease.)

The tax must be opposed on the grounds of this threat to evolution. Needless to say, the silliness of this proposition was recognized by the grass-roots membership, and the elected leadership was soon turned out to enter the government service as land management personnel and forest fire fighters. The latter occupation being favored because of latent pyromaniac tendencies formerly assuaged only by setting political bonfires.

The consumerists might have been expected to raise a protest, that being the stock in trade of their institution, but the target was difficult to locate. Their strategy committees could identify good industrial targets. Not those obvious ones of the contraceptive industry, but the more important and less obvious targets of bedspring and mattress quality, and so on. But this didn't quite do it. The manufacturers, schooled in their responses to such attacks, were now quite able to deal with the new consumerist threats and frustrated the consumerists completely.

The branch of feminist consumerism that counseled that women were the proper target staged a campaign of "Are you getting your money's worth?" but made little headway. Personal interviews were arranged with a proper statistical design covering fifteen families characteristic of the nation's sex habits (Nielsen, with your twelve hundred samples, hang your head in statistical shame!), and it was confirmed that the women were indeed getting their money's worth, sometimes double. With the results of this expensive data-gathering campaign, consumerists folded their opposition.