"Skipping Towards Gomorrah"

(the Seven Deadly Sins and the Pursuit of Happiness in America)
-by dan savage
2002
Down with the virtuecrats and scolds! UP WITH PEOPLE!
Or some such.
Columnist and radio host savage goes undercover, investigating each of the "deadly sins", to find out whether the hell-in-a-handbasket alarms raised by the buchanans, bennetts, borks, and o'reillys are so much hot air. They are...and what's worse (for them), astute constitutional and biblical scholarship actually supports the "sinners" over the hypocritical humanity haters.
For greed, he takes a hard-knocks crash course in gambling, and discovers that it's not about money, it's about the need to feel ALIVE in this couch potato culture.
For gluttony, he attends a NAAFA (National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance) convention, where he discovers a good idea gone wayyyyyy overboard, then cleans his supersized plate (including a piece of cake the size of his head) at an infamous Claim Jumper restaurant.
For envy, he rubs elbows with the super-rich at a $500 a day fat camp that treats you harder than an army recruit...and up close finds almost nothing to envy.
For pride, he attends a gay pride parade, and discovers that the moralizing has become just an excuse for a humdinger of a party. He warns idealistic, trusting gay youth (of which he was once one) to take the "gay people are nicer" propaganda with a big grain of salt.
For anger, he goes to gun school in Texas...and while he still decries the idiocy of our hyper-armed society, he also discovers a talent and passion for shooting that outlives his journalistic mandate.
For lust, he digs deep into the thriving swinger subculture, discovering normal people at every turn...plus the interesting insight that it's the men who persuade the women to try, but the women who keep couples swinging back for more.
For sloth, he indulges in his own once-a-year pot habit, extending time and leaving his worries behind...and unleashes a scathing indictment of our unrelenting, stressed-out culture which creates an unending need for escape mechanisms of every stripe.
Dan's writing style is familiar and friendly, and his insights are far more sane than any of the virtuecrats he takes on (someone's got to point out that falwell and bin laden are philosophically almost indistinguishable, and dan's the man). If the seven deadly sins were rewritten to reflect a higher morality, the only one that dan would fall prey to himself is tribalism (and violent tribalism at that), as he offers unapologetic support for the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan. And when he asserts that no one under eighteen should have sex, i can't help wonder whether he's entirely sincere...surely he must have some glimmer of the irreparable damage we do to our youth by denying them any outlet for their natural sexuality? Is he just protecting himself from virtuecrat backlash on the sexual front, forcing them to deal with him on their own turf (where, it turns out, he's better at their game than they are)? But these are the only quibbles i can muster for this brilliant book. You'll feel like he's your friend...
And you'll probably be right.