It would be disingenuous not to recognize the accomplishments of Hugh Hefner. He was an empire builder who touched an incalculable number of lives, so it seems fitting to write a tribute to his numerous accomplishments.

Hugh, you created an empire around the name Playboy, which describe the life you lived, and the life you sold. Under that name, you sold what you called sexual freedom and harmless male entertainment. Sex that was free from the guilt of a puritanical, and oppressive set of religious values. And we bought it by the millions. Millions of males wanted to emulate your lifestyle. I call them males, because I cannot call them men.

The name Playboy could not be more perfect, because it describes your life, and the legacy that you leave behind: a legacy of players. You taught us to be players who play with the sacred and the holy. We play with the emotions and value of women. You taught us to play with sacred institutions like the family and the union of a husband and wife. Under your direction, we made the holy profane. You taught us that human sexuality, and women, were toys to be played with, used and then discarded at our discretion.

God established human sexuality as a beautiful physically articulated expression of love. This beautiful expression of love allows a husband and wife the opportunity to give pleasure to one another. But you took this amazing gift of God, and made it entirely self-serving. You removed the mutual satisfaction and pleasure, and replaced them with self-satisfaction, self-gratification and pleasure at the expense of another.

Human sexuality beautifully reveals the image of God in man, for in this act the two halves of humanity come together and become one, and in that act we share Your creative ability. Only in that act can we share God’s ability to create life. However, you made it all about the act itself. You separated it from love, commitment and procreation. In so doing, you proved the words of the Apostle Paul to be true, when he said, “Professing to be wise, [you] became [a] fool” ... “For [you] exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Romans 1:22, 25). You removed the most beautiful and life-giving elements of this union and turned it into an idol to be worshipped.

You elevated the idol of human sexuality to the point that the fruit of the act got in the way of the act, and became worth less than the act of creating them. Those children that were conceived in what you called sexual freedom were also victims of your self-gratifying lie, and they paid for it with their lives. They were sacrificed on the altar of self-gratification that you helped construct. Hugh, the blood of millions of unborn children will forever be another stain your legacy.

Your self-satisfying lie is completely antithetical to Sacred Scripture. God says that “a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh” (Genesis 2:24). Only in the security of a permanent union can a man and woman become one flesh, and can the sexual union flourish. However, you separated the union from its protective boundary. So, part of the legacy that you leave behind, is the destruction of the family. As a result, millions of homes have been broken, and millions of children, grew up in homes with “sexual expression” but no security. Thus, your legacy is one of brokenness and bondage, not freedom.

Hugh, male domination is also a significant part of your twisted legacy. You sold a society on the supremacy of males at the expense of women. For centuries in this country, human beings were bought and sold merely because of the service they could provide to a dominant race. We bought them and we kept them around as long as they could fulfill our needs. When they were no longer useful, they were discarded. Thankfully, this abominable practice, this blight on our nation, was abolished about 150 years ago. Regrettably, you brought it back to life. You changed the victims, but make no mistake, you resurrected slavery and instituted male domination. You sold us on the lie that men had the right to treat a woman as nothing more than an object that would provide us with a degree of pleasure, and when they could no longer supply that they were discarded and cast aside like an old shoe. For decades you have been buying and selling women. You bought them merely for what they could provide for you and for others. As long as they were young, beautiful and firm, they were valuable and useful, but when that faded away (as it always does) they were no longer useful to you, and they were cast aside. Males, under your logic, were now free to find another woman they could use to provide the unhindered pleasure you promised.