Democracy for Utah - Sexual Purity

Red sex, blue sex

Mon, 17 Nov 2008 14:26:44 -0700

Margaret Talbot, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, examines the liberal and conservative attitudes toward teen sexuality:

During the campaign, the media has largely respected calls to treat Bristol Palin's pregnancy as a private matter. But the reactions to it have exposed a cultural rift that mirrors America's dominant political divide. Social liberals in the country's "blue states" tend to support sex education and are not particularly troubled by the idea that many teen-agers have sex before marriage, but would regard a teen-age daughter's pregnancy as devastating news. And the social conservatives in "red states" generally advocate abstinence-only education and denounce sex before marriage, but are relatively unruffled if a teen-ager becomes pregnant, as long as she doesn't choose to have an abortion. [...]

The "pro-family" efforts of social conservatives — the campaigns against gay marriage and abortion — do nothing to instill the emotional discipline or the psychological smarts that forsaking all others often involves. Evangelicals are very good at articulating their sexual ideals, but they have little practical advice for their young followers. Social liberals, meanwhile, are not very good at articulating values on marriage and teen sexuality — indeed, they may feel that it's unseemly or judgmental to do so. But in fact the new middle-class morality is squarely pro-family. Maybe these choices weren't originally about values — maybe they were about maximizing education and careers — yet the result is a more stable family system. Not only do couples who marry later stay married longer; children born to older couples fare better on a variety of measures, including educational attainment, regardless of their parents' economic circumstances. The new middle-class culture of intensive parenting has ridiculous aspects, but it's pretty successful at turning out productive, emotionally resilient young adults. And its intensity may be one reason that teen-agers from close families see child-rearing as a project for which they're not yet ready. For too long, the conventional wisdom has been that social conservatives are the upholders of family values, whereas liberals are the proponents of a polymorphous selfishness. This isn't true, and, every once in a while, liberals might point that out.

It seems that the fear of getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant and ruining your future might be a bigger disincentive to teenage sex than a lecture from some religious leader about staying abstinent.

Supporting 'traditional marriage' -- when it's politically convenient

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 09:54:13 -0600

The always excellent Glenn Greenwald notes the, ah, discrepancy currently on display from the Republican "moral values" crowd: gay-sex-seeking Senator Larry Craig should resign, but prostitute-frequenting Senator David Vitter should be allowed to remain in Congress.

The only kind of "morality" that this movement knows or embraces is politically exploitative, cost-free morality. That is why the national Republican Party rails endlessly against homosexuality and is virtually mute about divorce and adultery: because anti-gay moralism costs virtually all of its supporters nothing (since that is a moral prohibition that does not constrain them), while heterosexual moral deviations — from divorce to adultery to sex outside of marriage — are rampant among the Values Voters faithful and thus removed from the realm of condemnation. Hence we have scads of people sitting around opposing same-sex marriage because of their professed belief in "Traditional Marriage" while their "third husbands" and multiple step-children and live-in girlfriends sit next to them on the couch. [...]

It is hard to remember an incident that more powerfully reveals the true, deeply unprincipled face of the "Traditional Marriage" movement than the completely disparate treatment from the GOP leadership for David Vitter and Larry Craig. As the likes of Mitch McConnell and (the divorced and adulterous) John McCain oh-so-nobly demand Craig's resignation while continuing to embrace David Vitter, the last thing we ought to be hearing is how this demonstrates newfound moral rectitude from the Republican Party. Whatever is driving the party leaders as they keep David Vitter and push out Larry Craig — and similarly condemn same-sex marriages while saying nothing about (and often engaging in) divorces and multiple marriages — devotion to "traditional moral values" is not it.

Protect me from myself

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 10:04:46 -0600

Horsesass.org:

Now that Idaho Senator Larry Craig has finally been discovered hiding in his closet, it's becoming more and more obvious that there's a segment of the Republican Party whose main motivation in politics appears to be making laws that are an attempt to keep themselves from their particular dysfunctional behaviors. We saw it with Mark Foley, who actually introduced legislation to punish the kind of behavior he engaged in. And strongly anti-gay Republicans like Ed Schrock and Jim West have supported and even pushed anti-gay legislation as they sat quietly in their closets.

There's also "D.C. Madam" client Sen. David Vitter, who coauthored the Federal Marriage Amendment in order to "protect the sanctity of marriage." Hey guys — could you all work out your own personal issues on your own time?

Idaho senator arrested for lewd conduct in men's room

Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:54:36 -0600

As reported yesterday by Roll Call:

Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) was arrested in June at a Minnesota airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public restroom, according to an arrest report obtained by Roll Call Monday afternoon.

Craig's arrest occurred just after noon on June 11 at Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. On Aug. 8, he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct in the Hennepin County District Court. He paid more than $500 in fines and fees, and a 10-day jail sentence was stayed. He also was given one year of probation with the court that began on Aug. 8.

A spokesman for Craig described the incident as a "he said/he said misunderstanding," and said the office would release a fuller statement later Monday afternoon.

It's always a big misunderstanding with these Republicans, isn't it?

Update: FOX "News" conveniently omits Craig's party affiliation from its "news" article. Par for the course from the network that identified Republican pedophile Mark Foley as a Democrat.

Fundies freak out over Condi's pro-gay comment

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 11:20:14 -0600

From the American Family Association website:

The ceremony involved Secretary of State Rice and the swearing in of Mark Dybul, an open homosexual, as the nation's new global AIDS coordinator — a position that carries the rank of ambassador. An Associated Press photo of the ceremony also shows a smiling First Lady Laura Bush and Dybul's homosexual "partner," Jason Claire. During her comments, Rice referred to the presence of Claire's mother and called her Dybul's "mother-in-law," a term normally reserved for the heterosexuals who have been legally married. [...]

Sprigg says in light of the Foley scandal, "it's inexplicable that a conservative administration would do such things." He also notes that Rice's comments defy an existing law on the books protecting traditional marriage. "So, for her to treat his partner like a spouse and treat the partner's mother as a mother-in-law, which implies a marriage between the two partners, is a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act," the FRC spokesman states. [...]

Dybul, who was confirmed by the Senate two months ago but was just sworn in due to scheduling conflicts with Secretary Rice and Mrs. Bush, is the nation's third openly homosexual ambassador. The other two no longer hold their positions. According to news reports, in all three cases the men's homosexual partners held the Bible on which the oath of office was sworn.

It's hard to tell what they're more upset about: the "mother-in-law" comment or letting gay people touch the Bible.

It's started: 'Homosexuals have infiltrated the GOP'

Tue, 10 Oct 2006 10:57:29 -0600

Cliff Kincaid of the woefully misnamed conservative group Accuracy in Media:

House leaders permitted homosexuals to infiltrate and manipulate the party apparatus while they publicly postured as friends of family values and traditional marriage. [...]

[S]ecret Republican homosexuals are working behind-the-scenes to sabotage a conservative pro-family agenda in the Congress. They are acting more like Democrats than Republicans, if indeed they are Republicans. [...]

For the sake of honest and open government, not to mention protection of the children, the secret Capitol Hill homosexual network must be exposed and dismantled. But only Republican leaders can do that. Their failure to do so suggests that the network may go higher and deeper — and have more power — than even the New York Times article indicated.

Good grief, these guys are so predictable. (John Aravosis of AMERICAblog adds, "It reads better in the original German.")

Time, Newsweek cover the GOP implosion

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 16:54:26 -0600

Major stories this week in both Newsweek and Time about the GOP in free-fall. Time's cover story proclaims "The End of a Revolution":

Every revolution begins with the power of an idea and ends when clinging to power is the only idea left. The epitaph for the movement that started when Newt Gingrich and his forces rose from the back bench of the House chamber in 1994 may well have been written last week in the same medium that incubated it: talk radio. On conservative commentator Laura Ingraham's show, the longest-serving Republican House Speaker in history explained why he would not resign despite a sex scandal that has produced a hail of questions about his leadership and the failure to stop one of his members from cyberstalking teenage congressional pages. "If I fold up my tent and leave," Dennis Hastert told her, "then where does that leave us? If the Democrats sweep, then we'd have no ability to fight back and get our message out."

Meanwhile, Newsweek reports, "For the first time since 2001, the NEWSWEEK poll shows that more Americans trust the Democrats than the GOP on moral values and the war on terror."

The Democrats ate my homework...

Mon, 09 Oct 2006 10:36:38 -0600

The GOP strategic plan to win elections appears to boil down to this:
1. Panic the people - all terrorism, all the time
2. The Democrats ate my homework - blame somebody else for Republican failures.

The latest bizarre example of Tactic 2 comes from Utah's own Rep. Chris Cannon. This is Rep. Cannon's tortured logic to deflect responsibility for the Foley mess away from Republicans' failure to discipline Rep. Foley, a Republican:

"These kids are actually precocious kids," Cannon, R-Utah, told KSL Radio's "Nightside" program. "It looks like, uh, maybe this one e-mail is a prank where you had a bunch of kids sitting [around] egging this guy on."

In other words, blame the Congressional pages for Mark Foley's misdeeds. Maybe it's time to take the Governing Party to the woodshed for some lessons on personal responsibility? Your chance is coming in November - Rep. Cannon is up for re-election. His opponent in Utah's 3rd Congressional District is Christian Burridge.

Like a Cliff's Notes version of Republican corruption

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 10:30:19 -0600

The always excellent Glenn Greenwald on the strange perfection of the Foley scandal:

In that regard, this scandal is like the Cliffs' Notes version of a more complicated treatise on how the Bush movement operates. Every one of their corrupt attributes is vividly on display here:

The absolute refusal ever to admit error. The desperate clinging to power above all else. The efforts to cloud what are clear matters of wrongdoing with irrelevant sideshows. And the parade of dishonest and just plainly inane demonization efforts to hide and distract from their wrongdoing: hence, the pages are manipulative sex vixens; a shadowy gay cabal is to blame; the real criminals are those who exposed the conduct, not those who engaged in it; liberals created the whole scandal; George Soros funded the whole thing; a Democratic Congressman did something wrong 23 years ago; one of the pages IM'd with Foley as a "hoax", and on and on. There has been a virtual carousel — as there always is — of one pathetic, desperate attempt after the next to deflect blame and demonize those who are pointing out the wrongdoing. This is what they always do, on every issue. The difference here is that everyone can see it, and so nothing is working.

Deseret News letters on Foley, universal healthcare

Thu, 05 Oct 2006 11:39:32 -0600

Today's LTEs in the Deseret News include two about Foleygate and two that support universal healthcare.

The Deseret News' editorial also says Hastert should resign.