Hypocrisy and the Ultra Right

Fundamentalism in all forms is a revolt against modernity. Whether it's a head scarf and long coat on a young woman walking through the Damascus Gate in East Jerusalem or a wig over a shaven head of a teenage bride in Mea Shearim, the ultra-orthodox Jewish section of Jerusalem (where I spent a fascinating although heart-breaking week this summer), the message is clear: don't have sex before marriage. Don't have sex except to please your husband, and make sure he is actually a husband at the time of the pleasuring. Have sex to make babies.

Now the news has been released that the seventeen year old daughter Bristol of Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin is pregnant, she is going to have the baby, and she is going to marry the father of the child.

According to Talkingpointsmemo.com, the news release from the McCain campaign speaks in "family values" tones without ever mentioning that young Bristol was fornicating despite the fundamental Christianity taught at home.

We can't outlaw sex, we can educate our children.

Allegedly this announcement on the first day of the Republican National Convention, toned down so that it appears that the Republicans aren't going to give us a replay of Katrina neglect, was meant to deflect the rumors abuzz on the Net that the four month old Downs Syndrome child, the fifth born to Sarah Palin, isn't hers at all, but the same daughter Bristol's.

Could we ask for better theater?

On a more serious note, however, this just illustrates once again how accurate, complete medically-based sex education is essential to help avoid unwanted pregnancies. For too many years we have allowed the right to define women's health issues in terms of "abortion." It's become a shortcut to avoid the bigger issue. We are sexual. We have major health consequences to our sexuality, and we need to be fully informed about those consequences, especially when we are young, hormonal, and impulsive, in order to make better decisions. With the Bush administration trying to label birth control pills an abortificant, which they are not, we cannot tolerate this kind of hypocritical repression any longer. Sex as a teenager is not new. It is believed that over half of the marriages in the Puritan colony were of pregnant brides. The modernity is that women are finding it unnecessary to marry anymore, and that decision, too, has major consequences that we need to have intelligent, informed conversations about.

The Republicans once again have caved in to their right wing. I don't believe that a Creationist or a fundamentalist belongs in a position of national leadership, not because of religion per se, but because they want to keep people ignore. We have far too many serious problems to face and solve. We need as much information as possible.