Virginia Christians prepare for 40-day spouse swap sex strike against same-sex marriage

By Mike Victor

May 1, 2014

A Virginia-based evangelical Christian group known as the Family Foundation is planning for its members to pray and abstain from sex for 40 days and 40 nights later this year in an effort to fight same-sex marriage.

According to LGBT website FrontiersLA.com, The Family Foundation announced earlier this week that members will be refusing to have sex with each other or even themselves from Aug. 27 to Oct. 4 in support of the state’s Marriage Amendment, passed in 2006, which defined marriage in Virginia as a right reserved only for heterosexual couples. The Amendment was overturned earlier this year and goes before the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on May 11.

A statement on the Family Foundation’s website said, “Our state and nation are mired in a morass of confusion and post-modern thinking that does not believe in absolutes nor [sic] that any truth can even be known. Nowhere is this more evident than in the current debate raging about what constitutes marriage.  Clearly, marriage involves a woman and a man and sometimes electric toys or special lubricant, but never two members of the same sex.  Pagan philosophies, a secular humanist education establishment and an entertainment industry that is absolutely determined in pushing the envelope on decency and morality have all combined to turn this great land into a country that our forefathers could not even begin to recognize.   When Thomas Jefferson was having hot sex with his teenage slave, that was decency and morality.  Now, if Sally Hemming had been Sam, that would have been wrong.”

The Family Foundation is outraged that the values of the founders are being trampled.  "The foundation of this country, its bedrock, its core principles can be summed up in two words:  vaginal sex.  It's what Jesus would have wanted. "

The group hopes to enlist as many fellow Christians as possible in the weeks-long sex-free vigil, but so far has enlisted only two couples pictured above who, to strengthen their resolve, have engaged in an elaborate, but decidedly platonic, wife-swapping scheme.  "Sure, there are those who think it's kind of weird, spending 40 nights in the bed of another man's wife, but I figured it was the least I could do for the spirit of the Lord.  It's not like I would look forward to having a new playmate or anything, or that after 20 years of marriage it wouldn't be nice to see Miss Chastity here come dripping out of the shower and have a little towel malfunction.  But I'm a Christian, see, and so I know adultery is wrong.  That's why I know that the only way I can guarantee that I won't have sex is if I share the bedroom with another woman who I just met at this rally. "

Her husband, pictured on the far left, appeared nervous.  "It sounded kind of crazy at first, but this gentleman makes a good point.  There are many who might not trust their spouse to spend 40 days and sharing a bed with a virtual stranger, but those people aren't Christian, I guess.  You gotta have faith, know what I mean?"

When asked if they were discouraged, Chastity shrugged.  "Oh, sure, when the Supreme Court hears the case, we expect it will be like David and Goliath.  Who were both men, by the way.  Who didn't have sex with each other.  They tried to kill each other and one did, but god's cool with that.  But a kiss, a hug, maybe more, no way.

"Anyway, the federal government, news media, Hollywood, the public education system, big business, biologists, health care professionals, marriage and family counselors, and even the Lord all are on the side of same-sex marriage.  But the church we formed supports what we think Jesus would have thought of homosexuality if he ever got around to saying anything about it one way or the other.  But we have faith that just because he didn't condemn it doesn't mean we can't."  

The group is asking other men and women to vow not to touch their private parts or anyone else's until and unless same sex couples are forced to have sex outside of the sanctity of marriage.   "Sure, it's been a hard sell.  To be honest with you, not a single person has agreed to go along with us.  Especially the wife-swapping part - that kind of weirds people out, but we're used to weirding people out, being evangelicals and all."
Her husband, who only gave his first name "Bubba", nodded vigorously.  "Our religion is based on trust.  If someone asks, Are you a virgin?  and she doesn't say anything, it kind of settles it that she must be, right?    So if at the end of 40 days and nights, I ask my wife if she was touched, kissed, caressed, fondled, or stimulated to the point of orgasm by this gentleman here, if she says no, I will take her word for it."

Deutoronomy 25:11-12: My favorite Biblical references (really)

To all those people out there who hold up signs citing their favorite Biblical verse by chapter and verse without elaboration (as though we should all know what they intend to say), here are a few of my favorites that should send the Bible thumpers scrambling to the nearest Holiday Inn so they can actually read beyond their 2 or 3 favorite cherry-picked verses they have memorized:

Genesis 12:19  God punishes the Pharaoh for taking Abraham's wife as his own; the Pharaoh realizes Abraham lied when he said his wife was his sister,  confronts Abraham, telling him to take his wife and leave Egypt.
Genesis 22:2  Abraham believes god wants him to murder his own son so prepares him for slaughter, only to then believe god calls it off at the last minute.
Genesis 4:1  First sex in the Bible.
Genesis 5:8  Seth lives for 912 years
Genesis 5:3  Adam was a proud father at age 130 when he fathered Seth
Genesis 5:20  Jared lived for 962 years!  Whoah!
Genesis 6:3  God shortens man's life to "only" 120 years
Genesis 6:5  After taking all the trouble to create the earth and life and everything, God said he would kill everything he had created including animals because "every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually"
Genesis 1:14 Shout out to astrology - god creates stars "for signs"
Ezekiel 20:25-26  God shows he's a badass by killing a bunch of babies, so that everyone can know how awesome he is:  "I also gave them over to statutes that were not good and laws they could not live by; I let them become defiled through their gifts—the sacrifice of every firstborn—that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the LORD. "
Leviticus 20:9  "If anyone curses his father or mother, he must be put to death."
Deuteronomy 22:20-1  A girl caught having premarital sex must be stoned to death by the men of the town.
Deuteronomy 22:13-21 A woman who marries and is found not to be a virgin shall be executed.
Exodus 35:2  Anyone caught working on the Sabbath should be killed (I'm looking at you, Super Bowl players, staff, and announcers!)
Deuteronomy 14:6-7 You can't eat rabbits or camel.
Leviticus 11:20-22  Insect-eating is OK except "you may eat any kind of locust, katydid, cricket or grasshopper."
Psalms 104:5  The Earth is not hurtling through space but resting on a Foundation, whatever that is, and can never move.  God said so.
Genesis 2:23 Adam goes to sleep and God "took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof" and made the rib into a woman.
Judges 11:35  Jephthah murders his daughter because he made a bet with god, promising he would kill the first family member to cross his threshold if god would let him slaughter his enemies on the battlefield.
Genesis 19:8 Lot offers his daughters to be gang-raped in Sodom.
Genesis 19:32-6  Lot while drunk is seduced by each of his daughters (one each night) who have sex with their father, getting pregnant by him. "Thus were both the daughters of Lot with child by their father."
Mark 8:12  Jesus says to stop looking for signs of god's arrival - there won't be any.
Mark 8:33  Jesus calls Peter Satan.
Mark 9:43  Jesus advocates amputating your hand or plucking out your eye rather than risk going to hell whole.
Mark 10:11-12  Divorce and remarriage is the same as adultery.  (Sorry, Newt)  "Whosoever shall put away his wife, and marry another, committeth adultery."
Leviticus 20:10  Those who commit adultery should be killed (when is General Petraeus's execution?  And does this mean that those who divorce and remarry should be killed?)
James 5:14-15  Faith-healing works, doctors don't.
Genesis 6:15  Noah's house boat is only 450 feet long
Genesis 7:6  Noah was 600 years old when the flood hit.
Quran 29:14 (if you really want to confuse folks)  Noah was 950 when the flood hit.
Genesis 7:19-20  "The mountains were covered" with 15 cubits to spare, meaning Noah's ark must have had oxygen and some kind of heating system and ice-breaking technology (since this would have been higher than Mount Everest, where water freezes and oxygen is thin).
Luke 14:26  If you don't hate your family, you can't really be Christian.  "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
John 14:27 AND Matthew 10:34 (this will really confuse them)  Jesus says he DID bring peace and also that he DIDN'T.  "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you."  but "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword."
James 5:1  Rich people are going to hell. "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you."
Matthew 19:23-24  Ditto.  "Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven. And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God."
Mark 10:23-25  And again, more rich people burning.
Deutoronomy 25:11-12  No penis, no testicles, no hope of heaven.  "A man whose testicles are crushed or whose penis is cut off may never join the assembly of the Lord."
Titus 2:9  Slaves should be submissive to their masters "in everything" and be "well-pleasing and not argumentative."
Leviticus 25:44-45  You can own slaves, but only from neighboring countries or from temporary residents in your own country.
Exodus 21:20-21  If you beat a slave to death, you have to pay the slave owner some money.
Deuteronomy 20:10-17  God wants you to commit war crimes, killing every last man, woman, child, fetus, and animal, even if they try to surrender.  "When you march up to attack a city, make its people an offer of peace. If they accept and open their gates, all the people in it shall be subject to forced labor and shall work for you. If they refuse to make peace and they engage you in battle, lay siege to that city. When the Lord your God delivers it into your hand, put to the sword all the men in it. As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. . . . This is how you are to treat all the cities that are at a distance from you and do not belong to the nations nearby.  However, in the cities of the nations the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them —the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you."

Open letter to Mr. Huckabee on the recent election

Dear Mr. Huckabee, 

You believe that the defeat of your party in the most recent election must be evidence that "our country has slipped into a deeper state of dependence on government than I wanted to believe."  I am confused as to how an election victory for one party can have anything to do with our "dependence on government" unless of course you believe that anyone who votes for a black man must ipso facto be either of color, dependent on government, or both.  Since most of those who are dependent on government - through programs from social security and Medicare to Medicaid to veterans benefits to food stamps - are white, and many of them voted for Mitt Romney, how does this support your thesis?  Do you really believe, as your colleague at Fox News Bill O'Reilly claims, that minorities are looking for handouts from their government, like children looking for free candy?  What evidence do you have from exit polls or other demographic data do you have that this is the case?  

As a man well-versed in Biblical allegories, you compare your national government to "Goliath."  Since Goliath was a giant individual, not a giant government, is this not an odd comparison?  Also, in the Biblical contest between David and Goliath, David, not Goliath, won.  If you are trying to make the case that Mitt Romney was trying to slay what you call the "Goliath of government", why did he lose?  Since the Old Testament story is an attempt to show that god favored David even over a giant, doesn't the latest electoral outcome say exactly the opposite - that god must (at least this election cycle) favor what you see as a giant government?  Or perhaps Mitt just wasn't up to the role of playing David. 
Of course, for any of this to make sense, President Obama must have been responsible for runaway growth of this "Goliath" of a government. As it turns out, most of the growth in government came from his predecessors, particularly the last one, and only two presidents since Eisenhower have had lower rates of government growth than President Obama. 

You go on to claim that our "real problems are not political, but spiritual."  Do you really believe that those flooded out of their homes, men, women and children of all faiths, would agree with you?   Do you think FEMA should be put in charge of setting up places of prayer rather than distribution shelters for food and shelter (through cash vouchers)?  Do the one out of five American children in poverty many of whom have to skip at least one meal a day and go hungry - many who belong to devout families - really need spiritual fulfillment more than food in their bellies?  And why can't they have both?  Since both campaigns generally agreed on the problems facing our nation from the effects of the Great Recession to foreign policy difficulties abroad, what puts you in a position to be able to second guess both, identifying "real problems" that were evident to neither Obama nor Romney?  Since Romney never offered a spiritual solution for what ails us, how would voting for him have solved these "real problems" you believe actually face us? As you admit, "both parties have failed to acknowledge that" (meaning agree with you).
You claim that "Democrats have not wanted to even acknowledge the need for God in our public institutions" to which I must respond that you have not even wanted to acknowledge the need not to split infinitives.  

But I digress.  In virtually every public address, President Obama, a Christian, has acknowledged god in some form and has led prayers during time of national tragedy.  At no time has he moved to strip religious language from the Pledge of Allegience, for example, even though it was inserted in 1954 during the McCarthyist era.  He has not challenged any courthouse displaying the 10 Commandments, and has gone out of his way to please the bishops lobbying against having to implement healthcare reform, offering them multiple exceptions that they have publicly and loudly denounced through press conferences (rather than negotiating in good faith). 

You further claim that Republican leadership mentions god not to out of humility but only selectively, such as in the unquestioning, unconditional support of the current right-wing Government of Israel, which you describe as a "badge of courage."  I can agree with the absence of humility part, but how are Republicans behaving like lambs on the issues of "life and marriage"?  As I recall, they quite vocally opposed abortion prohibition even in the case of rape or incest and the life of the mother (which they believe is never endangered by pregnancy, something that many obstetricians would be curious to hear), and as recently as a week ago, Paul Ryan was telling evangelical Christians that President Obama was waging a "war on religion." The Republican party even went so far as to claim that conception through rape is god's will and that in the case of "legitimate" rape a woman's body has a way to "shut that whole thing down."  Is this lamb-like behavior?  

Regarding the Lion of Judah, his mention in the Bible is not associated with a war on abortion or gay marriage, none of which are really mentioned in the Bible at all.  In your Christian tradition, the Lion of Judah has come to represent Jesus who is allegedly (according to one Biblical version, contradicted by another) from the tribe of Judah.  In Revelation 5:5, this lion makes a cameo appearance:  

And one of the elders saith unto me, Weep not: behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof.  

Again, loosening seals is not very violent and has nothing to do with gay marriage.  Even the version of the Lion of Judah that entered pop culture through Aslan in C. S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia does not rant against marriage equality or in vitro fertalization or stem cell research, as you seem to imply he should. 

You suggest the Republican party should "gear up and get ready for the next battle."  What battle?  We transfer power peacefully in this country via ballots, not bullets.  Are you advocating a coup?  And if you just accused the GOP candidates of being lambs rather than lions, why do you write next battle?  You just said they didn't really fight for what you call our "real problems."  I am confused. 

You claim that the Republicans are a "party of principle" but what principle are you referring to?  Do you not mean principal - it's accumulation and freedom from taxation?   Are you implying that the Democratic party is not a party of principle?  Or could it just be that we share many principles, but prioritize them differently, or that we see different means of achieving the same ends from alleviating poverty, providing healthcare to all citizens, ending war and capital punishment, and other Christian mandates?   Is it really your role, as a mortal among mortals, to be claiming that yours is the party of god and that any Christians who vote for President Obama would go to hell as you did prior to the election?

After bemoaning how the Republican party didn't mention god enough or in the right way, you then claim that they should not "stop believing what we believe" but rather "do a better job of doing what we're supposed to do."  Circularity aside, that claim seems to negate everything you said earlier.  

Finally, you claim that [only by Republicans] "attract[ing] voters and win[ning] elections" can you "save America from herself." Why are you so mistrustful of America that you feel she is inherently self-destructive and needs to be saved?  And do you honestly believe that this salvation can only come from the Republican party?  Since America is not a fixed entity, but a work in progress and a democratic one at that, who says America has to agree with you?  Apparently "she" doesn't.  You seem to confuse losing an election with losing a great Biblical battle between good and evil.  Isn't this a tad grandiose?

One thing the Bible does warn us against is idol worship.  When agreement with our own ideas becomes a litmus test for godliness and righteousness, are you not really saying "my will" rather than "thy will" be done? And if so, how is this compatible with the humility of a good Christian?


Sincerely,


Mike Victor


Appendix:

Growth of government:
After the spending burst of 2009, Mr. Obama, constrained by Congress and aided by repayments of bank and auto bailouts, increased spending just 0.5 percent a year over the next three fiscal years when adjusted for inflation; only two other three-year periods since Eisenhower had lower spending growth. - New York Times


Full O'Reilly and related quotations:

– BILL O’REILLY: “The white establishment is now the minority. And the voters, many of them, feel that the economic system is stacked against them and they want stuff. You are going to see a tremendous Hispanic vote for President Obama. Overwhelming black vote for President Obama. And women will probably break President Obama’s way. People feel that they are entitled to things and which candidate, between the two, is going to give them things?” [Fox News, 11/6/2012]

– RUSH LIMBAUGH: “It’s just very difficult to beat Santa Claus. It is practically impossible to beat Santa Claus. People are not going to vote against Santa Clause especially if the alternative is being your own Santa Claus. [The Rush Limbaugh Show, 11/7/2012]

– SEAN HANNITY: “One other thing that we need to come to terms with as a result of last night. What appears to have happened is that the liberal welfare state in this country has now grown. More and more Americans have become dependent on that welfare state. As they have, they have found themselves siding with the party of government.” [Fox News, 11/7/2012]

– STUART VARNEY: “With Obama’s victory, the takers have taken over. The makers are clearly in the minority.” [Fox Business, 11/7/2012]

Santorum and the Sexual Revolution - Excerpts from Charles Blow's Excellent New York Times columns

This was another great editorial by Charles M. Blow.  I took the liberty of inserting my two cents' worth regarding Santorum's outrageous comments about women, gynecology, evolution, and homosexuality.

Santorum and the Sexual Revolution
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Published: March 2, 2012


...



Santorum seems to have an unhealthy fixation with, and passionate disdain for, the 1960s and the sexual freedoms that followed... It’s instructive to recall a speech and question-and-answer session he gave in 2008 to a course on religion and politics at the Oxford Center for Religion and Public Life in Washington.... Santorum ventured off onto sex:

“It comes down to sex. That’s what it’s all about. It comes down to freedom, and it comes down to sex. If you have anything to do with any of the sexual issues, and if you are on the wrong side of being able to do all of the sexual freedoms you want [sic], you are a bad guy. And you’re dangerous because you are going to limit my freedom in an area that’s the most central to me. And that’s the way it’s looked at.”

Next a commenter falsely claimed that my colleague Maureen Dowd “said that the Republican Party is trying to repeal Woodstock.” It was a misrepresentation of a 1998 column she had written about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. What she actually wrote was:

“Since Watergate, there has been a pendulum of partisan revenge. And, right now, Republicans want their payback for Watergate, for Bork, for Iran-contra, even for Woodstock. Like Kenneth Starr, the Republicans are attempting to repeal the 1960s.”

But let’s not let facts slow us down. Santorum, predictably, deflected back to sex:

“Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. They prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that’s sex. And the whole abortion culture, it’s not about life. It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom. All of the things are about sexual freedom, and they hate to be called on them. They try to somehow or other tie this to the founding fathers’ vision of liberty, which is bizarre. It’s ridiculous. That’s at the core of why you are attacked.”

While explaining what he saw as a shift in the Democratic Party away from “blue-collar working-class folks with traditional values” Santorum said:

“What changed was the ’60s. What changed was sex. What changed was the social and cultural issues that have huge amounts of money because if you look — I haven’t seen numbers on this, but I’m sure it’s true — if you go socioeconomic scale, the higher the income, the more socially liberal you are.  [1]  The more you know you can buy your way out of the problems that sexual libertinism causes you. [2]  You have an abortion, well, I have the money to take care of it. If I want to live an extravagant life and get diseases, I can. ... You can always take care of everything. If you have money, you can get away with things that if you’re poor you can’t.” [3]

The questions finally got around to asking about sex directly, much to Santorum’s delight, I’m sure. To one of those questions Santorum answered in part:

“Sex is a means. Evolution is a means.# And the aim is a secular world. It’s a, in my opinion, a hedonistic, self-focused world# that is, in my opinion, anti-American.” [4]

Santorum may now cloak his current views in Catholic fundamentalism and Constitutional literalism, but, at their root, they are his reaction to, and revulsion for, the social-sexual liberation that began in the 1960s.

In fact, Santorum’s distaste for the sexual revolution of the 1960s leaks over into a deep dislike of everything that the 1960s represents. Santorum continued in the question-and-answer session:

“You’re a liberal or a conservative in America if you think the ’60s were a good thing or not. If the ’60s was a good thing, you’re left. If you think it was a bad thing, you’re right. And the confusing thing for a lot of people that gets a lot of Americans is, when they think of the ’60s, they don’t think of just the sexual revolution. But somehow or other — and they’ve been very, very, clever at doing this — they’ve been able to link, I think absolutely incorrectly, the sexual revolution with civil rights.”

Maybe that’s why he has such a dyspeptic reaction to the 1960 speech by John F. Kennedy, in which he said that “I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute.”

Santorum said that the speech made him want to throw up because it was an “an absolutist doctrine that was abhorrent at the time of 1960.”

Nothing could be more absurd. James Madison, “Father of the Constitution” and fourth president of the United States, wrote in 1822 that:

“Every new and successful example, therefore, of a perfect separation between the ecclesiastical and civil matters, is of importance; and I have no doubt that every new example will succeed, as every past one has done, in showing that religion and government will both exist in greater purity the less they are mixed together.”

...  The kind of conservatism that Santorum represents has been described as a war on women, but ... it’s [really] a war on sex beyond the confines of traditional marriage and strict heterosexuality in which women, particularly poor ones, and gays, particularly open ones, are likely to suffer the greatest casualties.

Endnotes (my response):

[1]  I am not sure this is true; the last time I looked at these numbers, people in the lowest quintile by income tended to vote disproportionately Republican, as did many of those in the upper quintile; in terms of voters, those who tend to vote Republican 55:45 are in the middle socioeconomically, but when you get the very top 1% of 1%, they tend disproportionately to vote (and support with their unlimited corporate donations) Republican.  What Santorum completely misses here is that education and income remain highly correlated, and as your educational level rises, you tend to vote Democrat more than Republican.  The typical Republican voter has some college, but did not complete a 4-year-degree.  But even this correlation is not fool-proof because those who did not complete college tend to vote Democratic even more strongly than those with doctorates.   At any rate, Santorum seems to view this as a.) all about sex; or b.) all about money.   He completely ignores the fact that he should find troubling that as people become more educated, they tend to find his worldview unpalatable.  The impoverished (who disproportionately include people whose education was interrupted) have a different kind of direct experience with the sorts of social issues Santorum and his party tend to ignore or mock.  I doubt very much a single mother who supports Head Start and nutritional assistance for her family is thinking all that much about "sex" or even abstract ideas of "freedom."  She is thinking about not being hungry and maybe whether her child will have a better shot at completing school than she did. 

[2]  This point would make sense if an abortion were much more expensive than giving birth and raising a child.  Of course it isn't; the medical costs and potential risks of childbirth are exponentially greater than those associated with an early abortion, where the vast majority of abortions occur.  Santorum, who in other spheres believes in the wonderful wisdom of the free market's invisible hand to solve all problems, is almost socialist in his desire for the government to take an intrusive, anti-free-market stand.  Morality aside, abortion is the ultimate free market solution:  for a small up front investment, it eliminates a potential future liability to taxpayers Santorum tells us are already too burdened by social services he would like to slash (poverty is a huge predictor of abortion, and a disproportionate number of unintended pregnancies if carried to term would grow up in poverty).  This is not an argument for it (contraception, used properly, which Santorum also opposes, is the Occam's razor in this Malthusian cycle), but Santorum is not arguing what is most economical, but what is most in line with what his church - for reasons having nothing to do with economics - teaches.  He has to choose between which argument he will use, but he can't have it both ways.   Empowering the government to force a woman to have a child she cannot afford or is not ready to raise means by definition that someone must pay for that child's education, nutrition, healthcare, shelter, etc.  Yet Santorum is clearly on record as saying he opposes all of these things (to be fair, he does not want the government to be paying for these things, but since private charities and food kitchens are swamped, and no other entity has the resources and economy of scale to efficiently oversee or deliver these  services, to cut off government funding for the poor is the economic and moral equivalent of cutting off funding for the poor, period).   So it's a very strange and self-contradictory moral and economic view of the world he has that focuses exclusively on poor pregnant women during their period of gestation (post-natally, he is unconcerned, even hostile to the poor).  

[3] I actually agreed with these first two statements until I realized he left out some critical words.  What he apparently wanted to say was, "[Acknowledgement of the reality of extra-marital] sex is a means.  [The teaching of] evolution is a means."  I disagree with those statements, as amended.  We have a duty to teach our children the truth.  It is irresponsible to allow religious or other ideology to withhold or distort scientific data and consensus in science class.  Perhaps on Sunday or in a religious history class, one could teach the opposition a minority of modern fundamentalists have with teaching these particular scientific topics, but to be fair, one should also include in such a course the long-term track record of the church when it has waded into the scientific arena, from teaching that men had fewer ribs than women (because Genesis said Adam's rib was used to created Eve) to teaching that the sun revolves around the earth.   It's possible they were wrong then and right now, but their long-term track record is far from fallible, to put it kindly.   I did not know that Santorum opposed geologists and paleontologists as much as he opposes physicians, women, and stem cell researchers.  Opposition to the teaching of accurate earth science is no longer a Vatican position, by the way; this idiosyncratic deviation is peculiar to American protestant fundamentalists. 

[4] I believe Santorum, like Rush Limbaugh last week when he called Sandra Fluke a "slut" for advocating for the right of all women to access a class of medications for whatever indication, is confusing cause and effect, smoke and fire.  Individuals make individual sexual decisions.  They always have and always will, sometimes with guidance from their church, but there is very little correlation between church affiliation and private sexual practice.  Governments and insurance companies and health care providers must concern themselves with what people in a group really do versus what Santorum believes they individually should do.  There is a huge difference obviously.   It seems difficult for the Limbaughs and Santorums of the world to grasp, but individuals may think beyond their immediate interests and needs.  Most morally developed adults understand that there is a huge difference between not making a choice for yourself (to smoke, to have sex, to have unprotected sex) and forcing all citizens all the time to make that same choice.  One person's reasonable regulation (in gun control for example) might be another person's tyrannical government overreach.  Furthermore, I might on principle support policies built to address behaviors that I personally think are bad, immoral, or even dangerous, since I am able to wrap my mind around the idea that failure to do so harms us all and does nothing to make the behavior less likely.  Those who support needle exchange programs are neither heroin addicts nor advocates of IV drug use.  Those who support safe, legal abortion or contraception access that makes abortion less likely are neither "pro abortion" nor "pro promiscuity" anymore than they are "pro unintended pregnancy."  

[5]   "Sex … is anti-American."  Very strange, especially considering that if none of our ancestors or immigrants' ancestors had sex, there is no way we would have exponentially grown to 310 million people.  Considering that his church bemoaned the "culture of death" that widespread use of contraception in Italy must mean (their population growth is negative), how much more of a "genocide" the population effects of a sexless America iterated generation-after-generation would create!   

Contraception Access Could Prevent a Million Abortions in the US a Year
Thursday, February 23, 2012

You can oppose abortion.  You can oppose contraception.  But you cannot logically oppose both.

You don't have to be a gynecologist to understand that abortion's final common pathway is unintended pregnancy.  Preventing an unintended pregnancy makes abortion impossible.

Using 2008 data from the Guttmacher Institute, I came up with this admittedly speculative extrapolation.  Using retrospective data is always risky, but if I worked in an emergency room and noticed that the most severely injured car accident victims were not wearing their seat belts or intoxicated (or both), it would not be difficult to extrapolate what would happen if seat belt usage were universal and stricter drunk driving laws were followed.   In fact, the public health campaigns addressing these two issues were launched based on exactly those sorts of observations.  

In the same way, data about who gets an abortion can allow us to estimate what might happen if access to and use of contraception were improved.

Opponents of contraception are fond of pointing out that over half of those who seek an abortion were using contraception at the time of the conception.  Since contraception does not work perfectly, it must not work at all, right?  

Wrong.  54% of women who had an abortion used a contraceptive method the month prior to their unintended pregnancy.  The most common type of contraception was the condom or the pill.  But of these women, 76% of pill users and 49% of condom users admitted to not using the method consistently.  In fact, only 13% of pill users and 14% of condom users reported correct use.  

Since people have a tendency to over-report things that make them look good in the eyes of the surveyor, it's likely that this 13-14% "correct use" number is higher than reality.  

Besides, there are many ways someone deprived of rigorous education on contraception use might inadvertently misuse them.  A condom might be worn properly, for example, but how many people check the expiration date prior to use or avoid exposing a condom to excess pressure (as in a wallet in a back pocket) or heat (as in a car left in the sun)?   Did the condom also have a spermicidal lubricant or was it used in conjunction with spermicidal foam?  Did someone who was on an oral contraceptive forget to take it one day, then doubled the next, or simply dropped that pill from the cycle?  Studies of parents of children taking a 10-day course of antibiotics indicate 30% fail to give at least one dose by day 3, and that almost three-fourths fail to complete the full 10-day course, so the probability of a woman missing a dose of a regimen running over a much longer period is even higher.  

The bottom line is that the vast majority of those who have abortions were either not using contraception at all or using it inconsistently.  So what would happen if we improved these numbers (something the bishops are fighting fiercely to prevent)?   

Let's imagine a group of 100 women seeking abortions in 2008.  On average, 46 did not use any contraception whatsoever.   This is the low-lying fruit:  the biggest improvement would be to encourage all women who are sexually active but not ready to get pregnant to use contraception as religiously as they wear a seat belt.  Such a change in behavior would mean 46 more women would use contraception.

Admittedly, that would not prevent 46 abortions because - as the 13-14% of women obtaining an abortion who reported using contraception consistently reminds us - some unintended pregnancies can occur even with proper use.  

Note:  the fact that 13% of those taking who were on oral contraceptives and who got abortions in 2008 reported regular use does NOT indicate that the pill's failure rate is as high as 13%.  According to the CDC, oral contraceptives are 92-99% effective, meaning their "failure rate" is between 1-8% (probably closer to 1% if used properly and combined with other methods).  This is a classic Bayesian probability problem - the fact that you know the rate of exposure to proper use of oral contraceptives given an unintended pregnancy tells you nothing about the rate of unintended pregnancy given proper use of oral contraceptives.  

But let's assume for sake of argument that of the 46 additional women who now use contraception, 13% get pregnant anyway.  That still means 87% do not get pregnant, so even in this dismally unlucky scenario, contraception use has prevented 40 abortions (87% x 46).

Let's return to the other 54 women who already use contraception.  Of these, only 6 (about 13%) used it consistently and correctly.  That means 48 women in the contraception group are not using it consistently or correctly.  If we could - through an outreach and education campaign perhaps, or by eliminating financial barriers to filling their prescriptions or buying condoms - get that number up to 100%, even if we used the ridiculously high 13% failure rate, proper contraception use would prevent another 42 abortions (87% x 48).  

Adding the 40 abortions prevented by getting those who used no contraception to use it to the 42 abortions prevented by getting those who used contraception irregularly to use it regularly, even with the artificially high 13% failure rate of properly-used contraception, 82 total abortions of the original 100 would be prevented.  

Bottom line:  universal access to contraception, used properly, would reduce the abortion rate by 82%.  Extrapolated to national data, 82% of 1.21 million abortions in 2008 translates into 980,000 prevented abortions!  

So when Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich say they are "pro-life", ask them why they are attacking policies that - in combination with other efforts, such as poverty reduction and universal access to healthcare - could easily prevent a million abortions a year.   If they really wanted to prevent the intentional loss of embryonic life why wouldn't they do whatever it took?  

            Yes, some who oppose contraception on theological grounds might sincerely believe that Jesus would prohibit the use of estrogen-progesterone pills or latex condoms, but since Jesus never said any such thing they cannot be sure.  Some rudimentary contraception existed in his time, but if it bothered Jesus, he never spoke against it, just as he never said a word about that other sexual litmus test of modern Christianity - homosexuality.   

What Jesus did teach was a variation of Rabbi Hillel's Golden Rule.  It's hard to imagine that when he said we should do unto others as we want them to do unto us that he would support preventing poor women in a wealthy nation from accessing technology that might break their cycle of poverty  compounded by unintended pregnancies leading to children born into a society that is appallingly indifferent to their post-natal existence.   It's hard to see how the man who saved a woman from being stoned to death for adultery would have wanted women today to be barred from an entire class of medicine because men they never met fear other women might use them to control the timing and number of her children.  

At any rate, it's unfair to claim to speak for Jesus or Yahweh or any entities, real or imagined, or are unable to speak for themselves, particularly when the 34,000 denominations of Christianity who all claim to be channeling the same spirit of Jesus disagree about what he actually meant.   Why not do as the Good Samaritan did, and not let the obtuse, abstract, legalistic religious ritual prevent us from doing the obvious good right in front of us.  If a man is bleeding to death in the road, help him.  If you have the means of preventing a million abortions a year, then for god's sake use it!.