So, I've managed to almost entirely avoid weighing in on the manufactured birth control controversy. Mostly because I'm, y'know, a dude. And I'm, y'know, not exactly sexually active. Also because I'm, y'know, not a fucking idiot who thinks the only proper place for women is barefoot and pregnant and makin' me a sammich.
Oh, and I'm totally aware of the economies of scale between birth control and pregnancy. Also, I know that some women take birth control for health reasons and not just not-getting-pregnant reasons. But, that's really beside the point.
Since I understand the concept of looking up things that happened before last week, I know that more than half the states in the union have had laws similar to the one that got the collective panties of the old, theoretically celibate, Catholic bishops in a bunch. I also know that most of those laws have been on the books for nearly two decades. And I know that Rick Warren happens to live in one of those states and isn't in convenient that that giant bag of douche suddenly realized that the purpose driving his life was to get rid of such laws during an election year.[1] Oh, and, of course, that rich-ass motherfucker got to play the role of martyr for his faith in the process. Because everyone's alway stepping on the faces of those poor, downtrodden Christians. No one in the goddamn country is more persecuted than Rick goddamn Warren.
Wait, where was I? Oh, yeah, birth control.
The narrative we get from jackasses like the celibate old men of the Church, television blowhards, or super wealthy, out of touch blowhards, all of whom are men, some of whom are known Viagra-popping philanderers, is that the only women who want birth control are slutty mcsluttersteins who constantly crave cock, day in and day out and day in and day out (ifyaknowwhadImean, wink wink, nudge nudge).
Let me just toss this thought out there:
I once dated a girl whose dad was a Baptist pastor from the GARB, which is one of those groups that makes the Southern Baptists look positively progressive. She went to private schools wherein she learned creation science and, due to that, genuinely believed the world is only about 6000 years old. She did a year and a half at Cedarville, which is one of those Christian colleges that makes Wheaton College look like a hotbed of free thought and free love.[2]
She was one of those no sex before marriage types, as were her friends from back home. She told me one time how weird it was to deal with her friends who were going on the Pill in preparation for their soon-to-be post-marital status as sexually active women. It wasn't because of the going on the Pill itself aspect of things. It was because the inherent chemical and hormonal changes included mood swings and other such emotional changes. She herself, if I remember correctly, pretty much took it as a given she'd be going on the Pill a few months before her wedding.
This, for any modern social conservative who happens to be reading, is how you define being on the wrong side of history. Birth control is not a controversial topic in this country. The only people who seem to think getting rid of birth control is a winning topic are the people who can't take it and need it least.
Angry, rich, old men might have the pockets to pull the strings for aspiring Presidents. Angry, scared, easily led people might be enough of a voting bloc to make it seem like there is a deep hunger in this country for the likes of Rick Santorum.
But there's a bigger voting bloc out there than everyone else combined: women. Just over 50% of people of voting age in this country are women. Hell, given the statistics I've seen (and my own half-recalled observations), better than half of the people who attend church in this country and are active in ministries are women.
Sure, some of them can be tricked or lied to or browbeaten or diverted to the role of Uncle Tom. But if you're starting with a voting bloc that's enough to carry an election all on its own, you probably shouldn't be doing your level-headed best to alienate them. This is especially true when you consider that there are plenty of men out there who are willing to join with women. It required the actions of men, after all, to bring women's suffrage to America. Women couldn't vote or write laws, so men had to do it on their behalf.
The angry, scared, old men who tried to stop women back then were on the wrong side of history, too.
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[1]Moreover, this really takes to task one of the conservative canards in this country: that of "States' Rights." The idea is that the state, rather than the federal government needs to have the most power because states, somehow, are more responsive and better at meeting the needs of their people. But the state as a laboratory of democracy is, like so many other things, only the right way to do things when the states agree with what the conservatives want.
As such, they want DOMA as a federal law to protect against Massachusetts, Iowa, Washington state, California, and whoever else legalizing gay marriage. But if the state is the best arbiter of democracy, is not a given state allowed to make something legal if that's what the state's citizens want?
Ergo, if 28 of 50 states have a law about providing birth control to women on the books, then are we not looking at more than half of those laboratories of democracy saying, "This is good for the citizens of this democracy?" I mean, we're not quite to Constitutional Amendment percentages there, but the point stands.
Also, remind me to write up a post one of these days about why the federal system we have in America is ultimately a huge load of counterproductive horseshit and Ruth Bader Ginsberg was absolutely right. That'll be fun. Everyone loves hearing about the Nullification Crisis, right?
[2]Okay, it might not be that bad. Cedarville is certainly no Pensacola Christian College.
Hmmm…I attended Grand Rapids Baptist College (name now changed in some sort of Witness Protection Program for Colleges) where the General Association of Regular Baptists (GARB) held its annual conference. We were told by the President of GARB that only Baptists were saved and if one was Baptist and not GARB…it would be a very close call.
As this was my first college away from home, and I was a rebel since birth, it gave me a chance to “sprout my wings” a bit. My group of friends became known as the troublemakers—if something was stolen, some marquee sign changed, or some words written in chalk on the soccer field…we were the ones accused. Rightfully, of course.
Anyway, having always attended strict and small Christian schools where I managed to fill the niche between those who were wildly popular and those wildly unpopular by being neither, I truly learned the origin of “Good Girls Like Bad Boys.”
Never had I so many opportunities to date. It was presumed (because I was a bad boy) that I would be ravaging said females. Because that is what “bad boys” do. When I said no (for reasons in retrospect that had less to do with my high moral standards, and far more to do with being screwed up by social upbringing) they were disappointed.
Contraception (because pregnancy between two supposed non-sexually-active students was BAD) was assumed.
We are talking 1984.
Posted by: DagoodS | 03/02/2012 at 07:19 AM
Y'know, every once in a while I think about going back to church for similar reasons to the ones you articulate.
I am a bad person...
Posted by: Geds | 03/02/2012 at 09:20 AM