Revulsed, but not surprised

You'll recall my recent entry about Republicans being petty and stupid, which I think was a very tame assessment of them. I think the stupidity of Buttars and Jindal especially, is so maladaptive and lacking of basic human empathy (opposition to science that prevents national disasters and extreme bigotry to normal people) as to be considered evil.

Yet, the Republicans never cease to raise the bar for harrowing amounts of doltish lunacy. Meet Dave Schultheis, Republican senator from Colorado. He thinks providing HIV testing to pregnant women, rather than being a necessary step towards the suppression of the disease, is a bad idea because it would promote promiscuity. However, the fun doesn't stop there...

“What I’m hoping is that, yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that,” he said. “The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior.”

Yes, he just said that bringing a child with AIDS into the world would be a suitable punishment for sleeping around. No real concern for the poor kid, but boy wouldn't it be a suitable punishment for the mother? Ah, family values.

This is reminiscent of when we released a vaccine for HPV, a disease that is responsible for 1 out of ever 4 cases of cervical cancer. Hard-lining religious kooks and their Republican mouthpieces opposed that one as well, also on the grounds that it would supposedly encourage promiscuity. That's right, they wanted to keep cancer as a detterrent for sex.

These people are batshit crazy.

We live in a world where you can have responsible sex with many different partners with almost certain safety, if you're employing all the protections available. Do it. If you're uncomfortable with even the amazingly small chance that something could go wrong in that case, work on your oral skills. There's no reason not to aside from paranoia brought on by silly notions about men in the sky, angels, and the evils a-dancin'. Sex is not a bad thing (in fact, it can be quite enjoyable). Educate yourself. Educate your kids.

There are, of course, other excellent ways to reduce your chance of pregnancy or contracting an std...

This cultish obsession that our various religions have with virginity was stupid enough to begin with, but if it's going to extend into an arena where we utilize children as pawns fodder in our culture wars to punish a mother for making mistakes (as if a disease that slowly kills her isn't punishment enough) it is unarguably time to send this rancid bit of ancient morality back to where it came from; it has separated us from our humanity at this point. Hell, it separated us from our humanity when we cast the first stone for paltry, imaginary crimes thousands of years ago...and here we are in the 21st century, dredging the ignorance of our ancestors into the present and voting for people who promise to continue doing so.

Really...I just can't even fathom this. Who but the devil himself could think that bringing a child into this world with a life-threatening disease, a child that will almost surely be orphaned in short order after the death of its mother from the same disease, is a fitting punishment for a single mistake? These people are monsters. Sadly, they're also your leaders.