March of the Fundies

Andrew Sullivan finally catches up to the year-old story about the HPV, or human papillomavirus. This is a virus that causes cervical cancer, and there's a vaccine that could be administered in childhood that would wipe it out. The religious right is against giving the vaccine to children - CHILDREN - because it would "encourage... unacceptable sexual behavior."

"Religious conservatives are unapologetic; not only do they believe that mass use of an HPV vaccine or the availability of emergency contraception will encourage adolescents to engage in unacceptable sexual behavior; some have even stated that they would feel similarly about an H.I.V. vaccine, if one became available.  'We would have to look at that closely,' Reginald Finger, an evangelical Christian and a former medical adviser to the conservative political organization Focus on the Family, said.  'With any vaccine for H.I.V., disinhibition' - a medical term for the absence of fear - 'would certainly be a factor, and it is something we will have to pay attention to with a great deal of care.' Finger sits on the Centers for Disease Control's Immunization Committee, which makes those recommendations."

Anyone that reads that quote surely must know that what we're talking about in the debate over "life" is about regulating sexual behavior above anything else. Digby cites yesterday's Senate bill proposal by Wyoming's Michael Enzi that would allow insurance companies to refuse to include emergency contraception or even birth control in their prescription plans. As he notes, the fundies and theocons who've been pushing this for forty years mean business, and we need to do the same.

They really mean it. This is no bullshit. There is no downside to overturning Roe for them --- and if there is, they don't care. If they want to overturn Griswald, they'll do that too. They fought the gun control fight when people were freaking out over crime in the streets and political assassinations. Conservative absolutists don't give up just because liberals get up-in-arms. They certainly don't care if we think they are shrill.

Roe is but one rung on an ever-increasing ladder, and the religious right obviously thinks they have the votes (or will soon) on the Supreme Court to implement an agenda that outlaws birth control, mandates abstinence and punishes anyone that does different. This is of course against the perfectly natural sex drive that all species share as inimical to propagating themselves. Sex is a natural need hard-wired into our lizard brains and no amount of repression is going to change that. That these extremists would try to do otherwise may be why clergies seem to have a higher rate of sexual deviance than the general population and have for many decades.

I don't understand how these guys are so disconnected to the real world. The reason religion has flourished in America is precisely BECAUSE of the separation of church and state. Countries with official state religions, particularly those in Western Europe, have seen declining congregations for centuries. When all religions are welcomed and none are discriminated against, overall religion is enhanced. The extremists are doing nothing but sowing the seeds of their own decline.