When it comes to cognitive dissonance, it does not matter whether one is Republican, Democrat or Libertarian. Catholic, Protestant or Muslim. Baseball, Football or Soccer Fan. If you can’t connect the realities of cause and effect, you are clearly operating in the realm of unreality.

And, if you’re delusional at a deep enough level, and actually turn out to be either rich or poor enough to serve as a caricature of society and social status, you might even qualify to get your own Reality Show.

Trumped Up

Just ask the likes of Donald Trump, the rich dingbat now running for America’s highest office. His trademark bad hair and catchphrases such as “You’re Fired!” perfectly fit the carnival atmosphere of reality television. The fact that he is now the front-runner among Republican candidates illustrates the cognitive dissonance of Americans that cannot separate reality from unreality.
Their keen sense of aggressive ignorance mirrors the unreal reality of one Honey Boo Boo, the child princess with a family that perfectly expressed the worst that America has to offer in the way of values.

Yet somehow the pure absence of conscience in that show symbolizes the brand of depravity that serves as values in the post-modern age. Honey Boo Boo is a direct descendant of the circus carnivals that once toured America with bearded ladies and Strongmen, freaks of nature who somehow appeal to that sense of inhumanity and prurience from which you can’t look away, and will pay to see.

The cause of our curiosity is the effect it has on us. Desperate for both entertainment and confirmation that we’re somehow better than the people we subject to our attentions, we turn people ill-prepared for the role into heroes into rock stars. And that includes the rock stars themselves.

Confused role models

Into this cognitive disconnect between reality and unreality marches one Kim Davis. She makes the claim that her religious beliefs are being violated by carrying out her legally specified duties of issuing marriage licenses to gay couples.

We’ll leave her own confused life out of our analysis other than to say that she has not been a model of marital virtue. Not by any current measure, or past. To her credit she has apparently asked forgiveness for her mistakes, and deserves an audience with God or Christ to reconcile her need for justification. That’s between her and her maker.

Yet she’s weirdly fashioned herself into something of a role model for a certain brand of Christian who feels persecuted by a society that legitimately questions hypocrites who won’t do the job they are paid to do because it appears to conflict with their religious beliefs.

Well, social media has had a fine time with that contention, hasn’t it? There are all kinds of religious beliefs out there just waiting to be violated. A pastor that is a fan of guns could argue that the ban his church places on carrying concealed weapons is against his personal beliefs. The breaches of such nature are never-ending.

Which is why our Constitution guarantees both freedom of religion and freedom from religion. The whole point of our Constitution is to establish and preside over the general consensus between moral values and public laws. It is a confused role model that refuses to understand these qualities that govern our country.

Where she’s wrong

Kim Davis may be all right in her own mind, but she’s got it all wrong when it comes to working in the public sector. By making the claim that she should not be “forced” ––if that’s how she feels about it––to issue gay marriage licenses is an apparent confession that she does not believe in her oath and role as a public servant. Period.

And the Bible is all too clear about that, over and over again:

1 Peter 2:13 Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority…

And so on. Now you could argue that Jesus was pretty good at breaking that rule. But that’s Jesus. He had a broader goal in mind than pissing off the authorities. He came to enlighten people that the greatest law of all was love, and that love is the great revealer of the human spirit.

So Kim Davis isn’t even aligned with Jesus Christ in her attempt at castigating gays for wanting to share their love in marriage.

She’s wrong in the public sector and she’s wrong in the halls of the Lord.

Interpretations

This is the problem with so-called “modern” Christianity with its so-called evangelical roots. A faith that tries to proselytize without first checking the accuracy of its contentions, and then further push the agenda through politics, winds up way off base.

Because those contentions are all a matter of interpretation. There is no consensus among Christians on the subject of gay marriage. So what’s she’s trying to do is use her ostensible authority as a representative of her faith is to superimpose those beliefs even above those who do not agree with her theology. She is, in other words, a very loose cannon who is confused on so many fronts she can only appeal to public sympathy for elucidation and support.

And manically, we must suppose, she has used her seemingly populist popularity to claim she wants to run for Governor of Kentucky. And at what point would her religious beliefs then conflict with her pursuant oath of office?

She clearly hasn’t thought any of this through. Nor would she likely care to try. People of conviction without investigation often turn a blind eye to the facts staring them plain in the face.

But that is exactly what makes a great reality show star. The illusion of wonder is far greater than the mundane work of actually wondering what to believe.

Which should make her the next star of an Unreality Show. And you heard it here first.