Friday, November 18, 2005
"Honor Killing on the Installment Plan"
What a phrase!
What an amazing summary of the attitude of the Christian right to sex education. The phrase is well known, although new to me. It was coined by Katha Pollitt, writing in the Nation.
Essential reading. Here's some quotes:
" "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful," Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council told the British magazine New Scientist, "because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex." Raise your hand if you think that what is keeping girls virgins now is the threat of getting cervical cancer when they are 60 from a disease they've probably never heard of. "
"No matter what the consequences of sex--pregnancy, disease, death--abstinence for singles is the only answer. Just as it's better for gays to get AIDS than use condoms, it's better for a woman to get cancer than have sex before marriage. It's honor killing on the installment plan."
When the Christian Taleban arrive with their 'Silver Ring Thing', or however they package it, they inevitably claim their concerns are about health. (It's a massive part of the right's theocratic-business alliance against science.) But they're there to save your soul, not your life.
Pollitt's article is devastating (see also the article she links to about Bush's appointee to an FDA panel on reproductive drugs, W. David Hager. Be warned: it's disturbing reading and that's not a joke).
What an amazing summary of the attitude of the Christian right to sex education. The phrase is well known, although new to me. It was coined by Katha Pollitt, writing in the Nation.
Essential reading. Here's some quotes:
" "Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful," Bridget Maher of the Family Research Council told the British magazine New Scientist, "because they may see it as a license to engage in premarital sex." Raise your hand if you think that what is keeping girls virgins now is the threat of getting cervical cancer when they are 60 from a disease they've probably never heard of. "
"No matter what the consequences of sex--pregnancy, disease, death--abstinence for singles is the only answer. Just as it's better for gays to get AIDS than use condoms, it's better for a woman to get cancer than have sex before marriage. It's honor killing on the installment plan."
When the Christian Taleban arrive with their 'Silver Ring Thing', or however they package it, they inevitably claim their concerns are about health. (It's a massive part of the right's theocratic-business alliance against science.) But they're there to save your soul, not your life.
Pollitt's article is devastating (see also the article she links to about Bush's appointee to an FDA panel on reproductive drugs, W. David Hager. Be warned: it's disturbing reading and that's not a joke).
