Now and then, the left-wing rag that passes for a newspaper around here posts an opinion piece that seems to be little more than bait for angry reactions. It's rare, though, that the paper publishes something as transparent as today's pseudo-intellectual rant from Virginia Tech architecture professor Dennis J. Kilper.

I can almost hear keyboards being pounded across the area, and expect a deluge of angry letters to the editor over the coming weeks.

The op-ed piece in question almost isn't worth responding to... but you know me, I can't resist. Here's just a few highlights, and my take:

Jesus was the classical liberal... We don't even know if Jesus was gay. He had 12 guys he loved and few women.

In the usenet days, before blogs, we used to call this "trolling."

I'm sure that it's safe to assume that Kilper is smart enough and informed enough to know that Christians see sexuality as a spiritual exchange (rather than a mere physical one) between two people. I'm also sure that he knows that we Christians believe that the spiritual side of Christ was divine, and transcended any and all forms of mere human spirituality, including sexuality. By arguing that Jesus was possibly gay... and, likewise, by arguing that he wasn't, we're really arguing that he was a mere mortal. For a Christian, it's an unwinnable argument, best ignored. This kind of baiting is really just lazy.

If you want your student to be fairly judged among his peers, you had better hope he is the student of a liberal teacher. The liberal teacher has no ideology to promote and mostly loses arguments with ideologues, because the ideologue is a dogmatist -- certain he is right without the need for argument.

Wow. That's absolutely amazing. Talk about circular logic. Kilper argues, with a straight face, that even though liberals lose most of their arguments, their beliefs are still inherently superior to those they argue against. I think they used to call that "sour grapes."

So, yeah, right... I hope that my child is the student of a liberal teacher because I want my child to learn to lose arguments and congratulate himself for it. Sure.

Reactionaries believe in theocracy as a fantasy that our founding fathers invented, despite the Christian country they sought to escape in search of religious freedom. Pathetic, isn't it? Our founders did not invent a Christian nation -- they hoped to avoid it. .

I know that people with all kinds of perspectives assign their own beliefs to the founding fathers regularly, but this is beyond the pale.

Then, there's this nugget:

There are but three phrases necessary to preserve a democracy.

The first is "social awareness." It means the people of the democracy are aware of the inequity that surrounds them.

The second is "social conscience" -- belief that when one suffers we all suffer, and it is our communal responsibility to rectify the inequity.

The third phrase is "social responsibility" -- that we all bear the burden, and we should all have equal opportunity for success, education, health care and subsistence support when we are disabled or otherwise unable to provide for the well-being of our household. .

OK, so the three concepts that preserve our nation are social awareness, social conscience, and social responsibility. We need to be aware of the world around us and respond to one another with love and respect. Hmmm. Where've I heard those things argued for before? Oh, yeah... In church every Sunday.

But, how could that be? Our founding fathers wanted to avoid centering the nation on Christian ideals, right?

And, by the way, it's my less-learned opinion (and I'll argue this with anyone who wants to approach the topic) that of all the governmental systems that provide for those three concepts, the one that does it best is democratic capitalism.

Anyway, it was bait, and I took it. I hope that most of my fellow conservative Christians can see this piece for what it is.... and if they, like me, take the bait, I hope they do it as lackadaisically as possible. Arguments like the ones Kilper presented here don't deserve passionate responses.