Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow‘s creative partner and all-around wing man, reportedly told an interviewer during the promo lead-up for Knocked Up that “we make extremely right-wing movies with extremely filthy dialogue.”

Rogen “was half-joking, of course, and it’s safe to say that you won’t see Apatow and his merry men at the next Christian Coalition fundraiser,” writes N.Y. Times Op-Ed columnist Ross Douthat. “But the one-liner got something important right. By marrying raunch and moralism, Apatow’s movies have done the near impossible: They’ve made an effectively conservative message about relationships and reproduction seem relatable, funny, down-to-earth and even sexy.

“No contemporary figure has done more than Apatow, the 41-year-old auteur of gross-out comedies, to rebrand social conservatism for a younger generation that associates it primarily with priggishness and puritanism.

“No recent movie has made the case for abortion look as self-evidently awful as Knocked Up, Apatow’s 2007 keep-the-baby farce. And no movie has made saving — and saving, and saving — your virginity seem as enviable as The 40-Year Old Virgin, whose closing segue into connubial bliss played like an infomercial for True Love Waits.

I know you look at the column, Judd, so I’ll just ask you straight-out — is this guy talking shit or have I been reading you wrong the whole time? I’ve always thought that a brainy Jewish comedy director-writer who’s into subversion and dick jokes would naturally be a pinko-lefty of some kind. That’s what you more or less are…right? A lefty? I just don’t know if I could handle hearing that you’re a closet conservative and that you’re friendly with Jon Voight.

I don’t presume this to be the case. I’d just like to hear from you personally that you’re cool and that you don’t, you know, belong to the NRA and play golf with Clint Eastwood (who, by the way, I personally like and is an excellent human being). I’m just mildly freaked by the possibility, no offense.