No sex, please, we're conservative!
Majikthise reports here (from Daily Kos) on a Senate bill that would cut off federal funding for "sexual or erectile dysfunction". (Yes, Santorum's a co-sponsor -- surprise, surprise, surprise.) Do the moralists of the right have any understanding of human nature, any appreciation for modern medicine, any compassion at all for sexual difference? Well, no. They bash gays, even as we learn more and more about the nature of homosexuality, and now they're essentially going after anyone and everyone with a legitimate sexual problem that could be treated medically.
Welcome back to the Dark Ages. Notice how it's getting darker the longer these guys are in power?
Welcome back to the Dark Ages. Notice how it's getting darker the longer these guys are in power?
posted by Michael J.W. Stickings at
8:17 PM
5 Comments:
I have noticed, and it's even more frightening because this brand of ignorance seems to have a snowball effect. The longer the Bush adminstration keeps going, the more people join its movement and the louder they get.
There are American university students suing their professors because they find some of the mandatory material for their courses objectionable and against their beliefs (and therefore, they shouldn't be made to read them).
Yes, the world has become a scarier place, with the religious right-wingers being the ones contributing most to its decline.
Anyone up for a Renaissance?
By
Anonymous, at 11:47 PM
Frankly, I think liberals have contributed to some of the paranoia about sex. In some ways, the left and the right have met at the door of sexual prudishness. It seems to be politically incorrect these days to acknowledge that men find women sexually attractive--any expression of this is grounds for decrying the "objectification of women." Well, guess what--that's how the world works. I assume that gay people look at people as sexual beings too.
I'm not a booster of Hugh Hefner or the Playboy mentality and I certainly don't call for men going around making lewd comments about women. But let's also accept that sexuality (at least for men--obviously I can't speak for women) includes a large degree of lust. Outlying pornography, for example, is not going to make men stop lusting after women or seeing them as sexual "objects" if you will.
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Anonymous, at 12:18 PM
Indeed. Political correctness, once associated with the left (as when I was in college in the early-'90s), has been taken up with equal fury by the right.
I would add that both are efforts at social engineering. Futile efforts, given their attempts to control human nature.
By
Michael J.W. Stickings, at 5:29 PM
No, you may be right. I'm not sure how much money the federal govt. spends on such treatment, and perhaps a case could be made that it shouldn't spend any. But it must be acknowledged that sexual dysfunction is a serious problem for a lot of people. I agree that AIDS is a more serious problem and should be a higher priority, but the government shouldn't separate sexual dysfunction out from other illnesses just because it's sex-related.
The main purpose of my post was to show just how silly it is that certain senators are concerning themselves with such matters without knowing what they're talking about (okay, they do that a lot).
The private sector is certainly addressing the problem, but, as we all know, millions and millions of Americans don't have access to private health insurance.
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Michael J.W. Stickings, at 9:12 PM
I have to defend basic scientific research no matter how silly it seems on the surface. During the 60s and 70s, William Proxmire, the distinguished liberal Senator from Wisconsin sponsored what he called the "Golden Fleece Award" that was often directed at government-sponsored research that, on the surface, seemed frivolous or wasteful. I'm sure some such research is a waste of money, but it always struck me that attacking science just because you can't see an immediate need for it is, besides being anti-intellectual, shortsighted. After all, penicillin was discovered by accident. I'm not saying there should be no oversight on scientific research, but let's be careful.
Nate is certainly right about the crazy political correctness on both the left and the right. Is it something about the American character that makes people go off the deepend like this?
By
Anonymous, at 11:23 AM
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