Conservative commentator Dennis Prager, whose PragerU video channel has been an instrumental recruiting tool for the far-right, is under fire for parroting the popular Evangelical Christian claim there is no morality outside religion.
Prager was raised modern Orthodox Jewish, but left Modern Orthodoxy after graduate school but remained religious. Most of Prager's conservative commentary resonates more with Evangelical Christians however if his fan base is any indication.
To illustrate his point about morality, Prager claimed there is "no secular argument" against incest among adults which is nonsense. In contrast, adult incest is implied or overtly occurs in the Bible and the Tanakh or Mikra and is not condemned as immoral.
Prager made the bizarre claim Tuesday on his radio program The Dennis Prager Show, as seen below.
Prager began his comments by expounding on what he called his "motto."
"Either the Bible's right or the left is right. They can't both be right."
To underline the point, Prager turned to the issue of incest.
He said:
"There's no secular argument against adult incest."
"Brother and sister want to make love, what's your argument? That they're going to produce mentally r-word offspring?"
"That's nonsense. It takes many generations of inbreeding to do that."
Aside from being ableist, that's also not scientifically correct.
As we all learned in high school biology, siblings are genetically closer to each other than even a parent and child are, and hence are at exponentially higher risk of passing a rare and debilitating recessive disease to children they have together.
This is why even non-JudeoChristian cultures have taboos against siblings procreating.
And, again, the Tanakh or Mikra and the Christian Bible are chock-full of incest.
Like, *chock* full.
But Prager seems to be either unaware of all these details, or ignoring them because they don't fit his narrative—which is that only with the JudeoChristian versions of the Bible can you come up with an argument against incest between consenting adults.
He went on to claim:
"There is no secular argument against adult consensual incest."
"There is a religious argument—sex cannot enter family life."
"It's a big taboo."
As you might guess, Prager's absurd assertion only practicers of JudeoChristians religions think incest is wrong was mocked soundly.
Even for Prager—who recently claimed telling kids they matter is immoral and women are ruining America with their emotions—this is an unhinged take.
Guess we should never underestimate the imagination of right-wing commentary.
