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“Progressivism leads inevitably to utter irrationality and eventually political, as well as moral, chaos.”

So writes editor R.V. Young in the summer issue of Modern Age, the journal of which Russell Kirk was founding editor.

The magazine arrived with the latest post from our cultural capital, where the front-runner in the mayoral race, Anthony Weiner, aka Carlos Danger, has been caught again “sexting” photos of his privates, this time to a 22-year-old woman.

That broke it for The New York Times:

“The serially evasive Mr. Weiner should take his marital troubles and personal compulsions out of the public eye, away from cameras, off the Web and out of the race for mayor of New York City.”

And Weiner’s conduct does seem weird, creepy, crazy.

But it was not illegal. And as it was between consenting adults, was it immoral—by the standards of modern liberalism?

In 1973, the “Humanist Manifesto II,” a moral foundation for much of American law, declared: “The many varieties of sexual exploration should not in themselves be considered ‘evil.’ … Individuals should be permitted to express their sexual proclivities and pursue their lifestyles as they desire.”

Is this not what Anthony was up to? Why then the indignation?

Consider how far we are along the path that liberalism equates with social and moral progress. Ronald Reagan was the first and is the only divorced and remarried man elected president.

But the front-runner in the New York mayor’s race today quit Congress as a serial texter of lewd photos to anonymous women. The front-runner in the city comptroller’s race was “Client No. 9” in the prostitution ring of the convicted madam who is running against him.

Weiner’s strongest challenger for mayor is a lesbian about to marry another lesbian. The sitting mayor and governor are divorced and living with women not their wives. The former mayor’s second wife had to go to court to stop his girlfriend from showing up at Gracie Mansion.

Weiner looks like a mainstream liberal.

On cable channels we hear cries that Weiner is “mentally sick.” Ex-colleague Rep. Jerrold Nadler says Weiner needs “psychiatric help.”

Whoa, Jerry. Up to 1973, the American Psychiatric Association said homosexuality was a mental disorder. The APA now regrets that. And why is Weiner’s private sexting a sign of mental illness, when kids all over America are engaged in the same thing every day?

Are we, possibly, a mentally and morally sick society?

Thirty years ago, homosexual acts were crimes. The Supreme Court has since discovered sodomy to be a constitutional right. State courts are discovering another new right—of homosexuals to marry.