Eggplant bacon is everything that’s wrong with America.

While researching for a column I came across a very disturbing article in the Huffington Post titled “Eggplant Bacon is Here for Vegans Who Still Want Their Bacon Fix”.

It wasn’t just the very unappetizing idea of turning a horrid vegetable into the fake version of a divine meat that caught my eye. It seemed a symbol of everything that is wrong with modern America, particularly within the sphere of culture and social justice.

We are constantly trying to replace something real and good with a poor facsimile and then expecting the same results.

Eggplant is not bacon. It will never be bacon. You can put salt and syrup and vinegar on it and stick it in the oven for however long it takes to fully cook disgusting vegetables but no matter how hard you try it will still be eggplant when it comes out.

Because it’s eggplant.

These days Americans (specifically of the more liberal variety) want to take something very simple and complicate it, yet expect the same positive end result.

Recently an MMA fighter made headlines by knocking out her opponent, seriously injuring her. What was particularly disturbing is that Fallon Fox isn’t a woman. Fox is a man who fights as a transgender woman. He has male DNA, male hormones, male skeletal and muscular development and a male strength. No man should ever be put in a position to legally punch a woman directly in her face but because Fox says he is “she” we are willing to throw away common sense and millennia of human evolution in order to prop up the lie that gender is all in the mind.

Fox can have his penis surgically removed, his Adam’s Apple shaved down and add breast implants but he will never be a woman and will never be physically comparable to a woman. When you put him in a fighting ring with other women the results will be always be abnormal and disturbing.

Eggplant is not bacon.

The battle for gay marriage became the fight for “marriage equality”, as if a union between two members of the same sex is at all the same thing as a marriage between heterosexual partners. By definition it cannot be. Science, medicine and history all agree that men and women have different physical and psychological qualities, many of which compliment each other in the realm of marriage.

While men are typically more likely to respond to physical cues in intimacy, women respond to emotional stimulation. Two men in a relationship is double the physical motivation. Two women is double the emotion. Any marriage counsellor worth their salt will tell you counseling a homosexual couple is quite different than treating a heterosexual couple. Different biological cues, different results.

Eggplant is not bacon.

Even in the field of spirituality and faith we’ve seen a rapid shift in acceptance and tolerance of traditional mainstream faith. The “eggplant is just as good as bacon” crowd wants us to believe that “open-minded spirituality” and self-esteem week at school are the same as a deep and abiding respect for the authority of a higher, creative power.

The result has been an entire generation of Americans aimlessly searching for meaning in their lives – a meaning that used to be self-evident…so much so that the Founding Fathers pointed it out in the second-greatest document ever written by mankind. These days meaning and purpose are found in persecution. As I always say, you’re nobody until someone hates you.

Whether you’re a victim of the patriarchy, the heteronormative bigots or racism, your publicly acknowledged value is now tied to the victim group you fall into instead of the idea that we are all wonderfully and fearfully made and meant to serve each other and a Creator who made us in His image. The results of substituting one belief for the other have had a chilling effect on our mental and social health as a society.

The rates of drug addiction, mental health issues and prescription drug use have risen to shocking levels in recent decades. No matter how many “awareness” days we have, how many bathroom laws we pass or homophobe bakers we sue there seems to be no decline in the misery of the general population.

Eggplant is not bacon.

The Sexual Revolution came along and told us that in order for women to be considered equals of men they had to act like men. They had to replace their own innate sexuality with something that mirrored a male sex drive. That led to a social experiment that now leaves with a “hook-up” culture so twisted and turned inside of itself that many college campuses now ask students to sign “consent forms” before engaging in sexual activity.

You cannot strip emotion from a woman’s sexuality and call that equality. In actuality it  guarantees our personal inequality. Marriage rates, birth rates, and the rates of familial independence have all plummeted in the wake of this idea that women can treat sex just like men do with no consequences for anyone.

Eggplant is not bacon.

If you want to be a vegan or a vegetarian or a lesbian atheist married to a feminist transgender boxer more power to you. Our laws and society allow you to do that and it is your right to pursue happiness under the law. I couldn’t care less about the choices you make for yourself and your tastebuds.

But don’t tell me it’s the same thing as what we’ve known to be true and right all these millennia. Don’t tell me that a simple substitution for the real thing will not only be satisfactory, but better for me and our society as whole.

You can chop it up,  dress it in spices and bake it until it looks almost like something yummy, but eggplant will never, ever, ever be bacon.

Never.