I’m mad as hell.  Let’s start there.

I’m the father of a ten-year-old girl, and when someone threatens her in any way, I’m like the proverbial mother who picks up the car that’s pinned her kid.  Typing these words is my version of car-lifting.  Like the car-lifting mother, I don’t normally engage in this sort of behavior.  I despise moral grandstanding and I cringe at the thought of writing about dopey things like Miley Cyrus, or the “Teen Choice Awards”.   What could be more depressing?

But God help us all, today a line was crossed, because I actually found myself agreeing with — gulp — Perez Hilton.  He referred to Miley Cyrus’s stripper-pole performance at the aforementioned “Teen Choice Awards” as “the return of slutty Miley” and dude, he’s right on.  So I had to say something.

What I have to say is this:  if parents in America — especially those who call themselves Christians — don’t boycott Miley Cyrus now, after this despicably cynical slap in our faces, and in our daughter’s faces, we will deserve what we get.  If parents don’t say enough is enough, and refuse to buy anything with her name on it, the bad guys really will have won.

This is part of the reason Islamic jihadists hate America, and it’s why so many well-meaning  Americans can’t take Christianity seriously.   If Christians don’t speak out when public figures like Miley Cyrus — who dare claim to do all they do “for Jesus” — do things like this, then we are all guilty of extreme hypocrisy.  We cannot complain.

If you are a Christian who would like others to take you and your faith seriously, I beg you to take this seriously.  Otherwise, let’s face it, perhaps our faith really is a shallow faith, and perhaps others really shouldn’t take us very seriously.

And let’s be clear:  this is not about the perfectly clueless sixteen-year-old doing the singing and dancing. It’s about the unfathomably cynical pigs and pimps who are exploiting her and making millions as they do so.  It’s about the despicable middle-aged men at Disney and ABC — led by her dippy, jazz-patched, fright-wigged daddy-o — who are exploiting her and who exploit all women by their actions.

These men are trying to exploit your daughters.  They are leading our beloved children down the vulgar and tacky road that leads to Potterville and to the death of innocence and beauty and goodness and truth.  Let’s face it, we’re almost there as a culture.  This might be something like a “Last Exit Before Bridge” sign.   If it doesn’t get our attention, and prompt us to take a stand for our daughters’ sake, then God help us.

If we don’t have the small courage it takes to boycott those who do such things, and to send a message to the cynical marketing forces behind them, then we will have no one to blame but ourselves.