Hypocrisy Alert: Trump Administration Pushes Abstinence-Only Education

Coincidence?  Not at all.

A serial adulterer who has boasted about sexually assaulting women occupies the White House thanks to evangelical Christians. So what are these "godly folk" pushing?  Abstinence only sex education which study after study have found NOT to work.  Indeed, industrial nations with science based comprehensive sex education programs have far lower teen pregnancy rates than the United States.  Likewise, states with the most comprehensive, fact based sex education programs have far lower teen pregnancy rates than deep red states in the so-called Bible belt which has the highest teen pregnancy rate and the highest divorce rate  - and the highest usage of Internet pornography - which suggests that evangelicals ought to be worrying more about their own sex lives (and that of their "dear leader") than those of others.  The idiocy and hypocrisy is off the charts.  A piece in the Washington Post looks at this batshitry (I have edited out the false term "social conservatives):

Abstinence-only sex education — long-championed by [Christian extremists] social conservatives — is reemerging as the preferred approach during the Trump administration, a political era in which there's increasing attention to the alleged past sexual activity of its leader.

[Christian extremists] Social conservatives at the Department of Health and Human Services say the current White House is more supportive of abstinence education than the Obama administration.

In addition to allocating millions of dollars to programs that encourage teens to abstain from sex, groups seeking Title X federal family planning funds are being asked to place a “meaningful emphasis” on “the benefits of avoiding sex” in their sex education and to avoid programs that “normalize sexual risk behaviors.”

But data shows that teens are having sex less and that the teen pregnancy rate has declined, arguably in part because of the more comprehensive sex education programs of the Obama era.

Births among Hispanic and black teens have dropped by nearly half since 2006, according to the CDC.

And the most recent report from the National Center for Health Statistics reported that the teen birthrate in the United States is at a record low, dropping below 25 births per 1,000 teen females for the first time since the government began collecting consistent data on births to teens ages 15 to 19.

Perhaps support for abstinence-only education is in part rooted in what is happening in the communities of [Christian extremists] social conservatives. New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof said:

“When evangelical kids have sex, they’re less likely to use birth control — and that may be a reason (along with lower abortion rates) that red states have high teen birthrates.

Nine of the 10 states with the highest teen birthrates voted Republican in 2016. And nine of the 10 states with the lowest teen birthrates voted Democratic.”

[T]he 10 states with the highest teen birthrates are: Arkansas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Texas, Kentucky, Louisiana, New Mexico, West Virginia, Alabama, Tennessee. President Trump won in all those states except New Mexico.

Despite the interest in teens' sex lives from some affiliated with [Christian extremist] socially conservative groups, others from those same organizations appear to have little concern about the sex life of the president they support.

Robert Jeffress, who also is one of Trump’s most high-profile faith advisers, told Fox News: “Evangelicals still believe in the commandment: Thou shalt not have sex with a porn star. However, whether this president violated that commandment or not is totally irrelevant to our support of him.”

Trump has failed to be a strong leader when it comes to morals, especially sexual ethics. In addition to reports about his infidelity, nearly 20 women have accused the president of sexual misconduct.

It is far past time that the deceptive term "social conservatives" cease being used by the media.  These groups and their followers need to be accurately called what they are, Christian extremists.  As for their claims of moral superiority, their loyalty to Trump underscores their utter hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy.  Give me a moral atheist any day over a "godly Christians."

The Consequences of GOP Policies: Racism, Religious Extremism, Poverty, Obesity and Incarceration

While the Republican Party holds itself out as the guardian of "American values" - as do the Christofascists who control much of the GOP's policies - when one looks at the consequences of the GOP's policies and agenda, the picture is pretty ugly.  Among the consequences/fruits are racism, religious extremism and bigotry, poverty, obesity and incarceration (this latter one is tied to the first, racism).  Yes, some of these problems are historic ones, but over all decent Americans over time have sought to lessen their impact and poisonous consequences.  That changed when the Christofascists hijacked the GOP.  A piece in the Daily Kos looks at these ill fruits.  Here are excerpts:

Evangelical Christians and their willingness to force their beliefs on the rest of us through vociferous political activism and promotion of Biblically based public policies are a huge problem for the future of the planet. . . . . They believe all other religions are false; that science is only good so long as it doesn't contradict a literal interpretation of the Bible, that the Constitution is a Christian document and all non-believers are going to hell. Therefore they vote faithfully for candidates who will govern accordingly. Republicans and even some Republican-lite Democrats, are only too willing to pander to this constituency.

The GOP's leveraging of white evangelicals into Republican votes fits right in to the divide and conquer playbook of the Southern Strategy, which was designed and implemented 40 years ago by Richard Nixon. This strategy of stoking the fires of ignorance and racism has delivered the southern states to the Republicans ever since. 

An internet search of pretty much any demographic data regarding the South, quickly reveals the harm this Southern Strategy has inflicted upon the region. In addition to being highly religious, racist and Republican, the region also suffers the blight of poverty, obesity, incarceration, and almost any other social malady you care to type into your browser. Of course these maladies exist in the other states, some in high ratios, but none rival the depth and intensity of the southern infection.

Evangelicals and racists have walked hand-in-hand for over two centuries. The region has had a strongly entrenched evangelical movement since the nation's founding, long before being referred to as the Bible Belt by American journalist and social commentator H L Mencken in 1924.

While the practice of Christianity, unlike racism, has redeeming qualities the evangelical practitioners have often been complicit in the holy blessing of slavery, lynching and institutional discrimination. Slaveholders justified slavery by citing the Bible: "slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling" (Ephesians 6:5), or "tell slaves to be submissive to their masters and to give satisfaction in every respect" (Titus 2:9).

The former Party of Lincoln has had its grips on the South since 1968 and no doubt owns the abject misery of the region. The maps and graphs below the fold reveal in stunning visual relief the desperate circumstances in which many of the citizens of the former Confederacy find themselves.

1. Southern states are the most religious: Earlier this month, Gallup released a survey based on more than 175,000 interviews that asked residents of each state how often they attend a weekly religious service. What they found was that the most religious states were in the South, which was home to all but one of the top 12.

2. Southern states are the most evangelical: Evangelical Christians are the base of the Republican party and of that group the Southern Baptists are the dominant sect in the region. 

3. Southern states have the most racist residents: Analysts at Floating Sheep, a website run by a group of independent cyber-geography researchers, found there was a spike of racist tweets on Twitter during and after President Obama’s 2012 re-election.

4. Southern states are controlled by Republicans: The Republican Party is the chef that stirs the pot of racism and evangelical religiosity in the south, and as you can see, where those ingredients are strong so is the GOP. This is no accident. This is the insidious result of "The Southern Strategy". 

5. Southern states have the lowest wages:  In 2010, Mississippi, Tennessee, and Arkansas had the largest share of people earning sub-povery wages, EPI [Economic Policy Institute] found.

6.  Southern states are the most impoverished: This is an obvious side effect of low wages.

7.  Southern states have the highest food stamp usage of any region: An obvious side effect of poverty. In fact, contrary to what Republicans would like you to think, of the 32 states that receive more federal dollars than they contribute, 27 of them are controlled by Republicans, which includes 15 southern states. (Ref:AATTP) 

8.  Southern states have the highest rates of teen pregnancy:  Also contrary to what the teen-mother-shaming Republicans want you to believe, teen pregnancies do not cause poverty, rather poverty causes teen pregnancy.  Teens who get pregnant tend to come from more disadvantaged families than those who do not become pregnant. Moreover, among pregnant teens, those who choose abortion tend to be more advantaged than those who opt to carry the baby to term.

9.  Southern states have the highest rates of obesity: Obesity is a risk for all groups of Americans, but is especially high among Americans with the lowest levels of education and the highest poverty rates

10.  Southern states have higher rates of heart disease and stroke:  Studies have consistently shown that people with low incomes and less education generally have higher rates of heart disease than their more-educated, higher-income counterparts.

11.  Southern states have higher rates of cancer mortality:  According to Dr. Samuel Broder, former director of the National Cancer Institute, "Poverty is a carcinogen". Research cited in the annual Cancer Facts and Figures 2011 released by the American Cancer Society, showed that poverty rivals both tobacco and obesity as a carcinogen.

14.  Southern states have the highest rates of incarceration:  Since the 1980s the attitude of many law and order types has been lock 'em up and throw away the key, "three strikes and you're out" that will solve the problem. But actually this policy of increased incarceration has actually exacerbated the problem of poverty, which has been shown to be the root of so many other miserable statistics.
The shift to tougher penal policies three decades ago was originally credited with helping people in poor neighborhoods by reducing crime. But now that America’s incarceration rate has risen to be the world’s highest, many social scientists find the social benefits to be far outweighed by the costs to those communities. 

“Prison has become the new poverty trap,” said Bruce Western, a Harvard sociologist. “It has become a routine event for poor African-American men and their families, creating an enduring disadvantage at the very bottom of American society.”

Among African-Americans who have grown up during the era of mass incarceration, one in four has had a parent locked up at some point during childhood. For black men in their 20s and early 30s without a high school diploma, the incarceration rate is so high — nearly 40 percent nationwide — that they’re more likely to be behind bars than to have a job.

There are non-southern states that pop in and out of the list of misery to be sure, some even controlled at least in part by Democrats. But the pattern is clear. This is no coincidence. These are the states that consistently show up either at the top of a bad category or at the bottom of a good one. These are the consequences of sustained Republican control.

Democratic leaders have not forcefully called out the GOP for their Southern Strategy and faith-based idiocy, possibly fearing offending moderate Christians. Well it is time to start offending people. Democrats need to put Republicans on the defensive by pounding on the disastrous results of Republican policies over and over and over again, instead of getting drawn into false equivalency debates on Sunday morning talk shows.

The GP and evangelical Christians are toxic to the nation's future.  Their dominance and any deference they receive needs to end.

Yet Another Study Confirms that the Bible Belt is the Porn Belt

One of the goals of this blog is to expose hypocrisy and the Christofascists and other self-anointed "godly folk" never disappoint in providing a treasure trove of hypocrisy that needs exposing.  Now, yet another study has found that the so-called Bible Belt is also the "Porn Belt" of America, meaning that the Bible Belt has the highest per capita number of porn searches in the country.  Deliciously, internet porn searching correlates wonderfully well with where Southern Baptists represent the highest percentage of local church bodies.  A piece in Patheos looks at the phenomenon- which ultimately causes wrongheaded public polices -  that needs to thrown in the faces of ranting Baptist pastors whenever they launch into homophobic rants.  Here are article excepts:

According to a new study, the more you say you literally believe in the Bible, the more you watch porn. At least that’s the inevitable fact-based conclusion drawn from the biggest study of internet Google porn searches by region.

In October, two Toronto researchers, Cara MacInnis and Gordon Hodson, published a study in which they used Google Trends to analyze porn searches. Individual search records are protected by privacy laws, but it is possible to compare the popularity of search terms across various regions or states, which is what they did.

Specifically, MacInnis and Hodson linked state level information from Gallup polls asking about religious and political attitudes together with a variety of sex and porn-related search terms… their findings are in keeping with information from other sources: Business professor Benjamin Edelman at Harvard found that states with more traditional views of sex and gender have higher rates of paid porn subscriptions—meaning people who are willing to put porn on a credit card…

Smut in Jesusland: “The honest truth is that we all have our failings, Christian or not, liberal or conservative. None of us live up to our best intentions or deepest values. What’s shameful is not the fact that people find sex arousing and seek it out, even when they feel compelled to do so on the sneak. The problem is hypocrisy and the way that it distorts public policies and parenting, causing real harm to real people. For over a decade, conservatives forced abstinence-only education on young people, insisting that hormone-ravaged teens could ‘just say no’ when they themselves can’t.”

This epic public health fail contributed to the United States having the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the developed world, with devastating economic consequences for young mothers and their offspring. Some thrive despite the odds; many do not. We can do better.

Denying young people information about their bodies doesn’t stop them from having sex. We know that. What it does is create a fog zone, a “haze of misperceptions, magical thinking and ambivalence” that puts teens at risk for sexually transmitted infections and surprise pregnancy. Teens are notorious risk takers. The army sends recruiters into high schools because at age 17 or 18 kids think bad things happen only to other people. Or they simply don’t think. Cognitive scientists tell us that the frontal lobe doesn’t develop fully until the early 20s.

Add to that a conservative, paternalistic “virginity code” that traces back to ancient times, layering shame, denial and secrecy around sexual exploration. Religious and cultural codes prizing virginity may once have helped to ensure that children were born only when parents could provide for them. But in today’s world, an antiquated purity myth can actually have the opposite effect…

10 Years Later, Where Is the Gay Marriage Disaster?

Us at an EV "CookOUT" event with another married couple

As they see themselves losing in court case after court case across the country, the Christofascists continue to come up with ever more insane arguments of how same sex marriage will destroy "the sanctity of marriage" and by extension civilization itself.  From Mark Regnerus' bogus and discredited "study" attacking gay parenting to claims that same sex marriage will somehow discourage straight couples, especially straight males, from marrying, the disingenuous batshitery gets ever more unhinged from objective reality.   Meanwhile, from the data available, states that have legalized same sex marriage have lower divorce rates and fewer teen pregnancies and single mothers - things the Christofascists like to decry - than do the states across the Bible Belt.  Indeed, the data suggests that gay marriage combats the ills the Christofascists claim to want to reduce.  A piece in Huffington Post looks at the data to date.  Here are excerpts:

It's been 10 years since same-sex marriage was legalized in Massachusetts. So, precisely what are the results of this deregulation? Anti-gay activists predicted disaster for "the family," but were always quite vague about how.

Of course, they may claim that 10 years is not enough time to gage the extent of the disaster, but surely trends should have already emerged. Exactly how much time is necessary?

In Massachusetts we don't see collapse of birth rates. The trend line has been downward, but that has been true of the entire country for almost 60 years. That trend will increase because we have an aging population. All this unrelated to marriage deregulation. There is a lot of good news in that trend line, however.

Teen birth rates have been falling. Actually, both teen pregnancy and single motherhood, which conservatives think are bad things, have been falling. They remain highest in states utterly opposed to same-sex marriage and lowest in states that deregulated spousal choice. In Massachusetts, teen birth rates are at the lowest levels ever recorded there; they have the second lowest teen-pregnancy rate in the nation. Out of the 10 states with the lowest teen pregnancy rates, nine of them recognize same-sex marriage.

Another no-no on the Right is single motherhood, so they should be praising Massachusetts, not damning it. There, the percentage of unmarried mothers is 34.6 percent compared to the national average of 40.8 percent.

Men and women in Massachusetts do wait a few years longer to marry than Americans in general, but as Pew Research notes, a higher median age at marriage correlates with "high shares of college-educated adults.... Indicating that highly educated individuals marry later in life." It also means they divorce less. In less-educated states, which tend to be ones most opposed to spousal deregulation, "adults are more likely than average to marry three or more times."

Whereas 5 percent of all U.S. adults have been married three or more times, the percentage in Massachusetts is just 2 percent. When it comes to divorce in general, the latest Statistical Abstract from the Census Bureau, for 2009, shows Massachusetts having the lowest divorce rate in the country. 

What has been true in Massachusetts has been true nationally. Marriages in states that regulate spousal selection according to gender are less stable.

As is always the case, the facts do not support the screeds of the Christofascists.  The real threat to marriage is the ignorance and stupidity embraced by the Christofascists as a mark of honor. 

World Vision - Caving to Anti-Gay Discrimination

World Vision describes itself as a Christian humanitarian organization that is dedicated to working with children, families, and their communities worldwide to help them achieve their full potential "by tackling the causes of poverty and injustice."  In addition to providing sponsorships for children, World Vision provides emergency assistance to children and families impacted by natural disasters and civil conflicts, and it work with communities to develop long-term solutions to alleviate poverty.  It states that it does all of this for "all people, regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or gender."  On Monday, World Vision announced that for the first time, it would hire employees in same-sex marriages if the marriages had been legally performed.  That's when the Christofascists went utterly berserk and attacked World Vision and threatened to cease funding and severe affiliation.  Within two days, World Vision reversed its new policy and made clear that the discrimination free agenda it promises doesn't apply to gays.  Think Progress looks at this stunning reversal - and the hypocrisy involved:  Here are excerpts:

World Vision, one of the largest humanitarian organizations on the planet, made two surprising announcements this week. On Monday, the evangelical Christian organization announced that for the first time, it would hire employees in same-sex marriages, then on Wednesday, it reversed that decision. Here’s how World Vision President Richard Stearns and Board Chairman Jim Beré explained the reversal:

In our board’s effort to unite around the church’s shared mission to serve the poor in the name of Christ, we failed to be consistent with World Vision U.S.’s commitment to the traditional understanding of Biblical marriage and our Iown Statement of Faith, which says, “We believe the Bible to be the inspired, the only infallible, authoritative Word of God.” And we also failed to seek enough counsel from our own Christian partners. As a result, we made a change to our conduct policy that was not consistent with our Statement of Faith and our commitment to the sanctity of marriage.

We are brokenhearted over the pain and confusion we have caused many of our friends, who saw this decision as a reversal of our strong commitment to Biblical authority. We as that you understand that this was never the board’s intent. We are asking for your continued support. We commit to you that we will continue to listen tot he wise counsel of Christian brothers and sisters, and we will reach out to key partners in the weeks ahead.

The outcry from conservatives after the original announcement Monday was swift and severe. The Family Research Council decried the decision in its daily email Tuesday, describing it as a “rebellion” against Christ and a “very public divorce from biblical truth.” Tony Perkins made it clear that employing gay, lesbian, and bi people who are married was a dealbreaker for his family’s support of World Vision.

The message from these conservatives is clear: discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation is a higher priority than humanitarian work. An organization that serves the needy can only be supported if it promises it will never provide a salary to to someone in a same-sex marriage. That pressure was enough for World Vision to cave.

But this is a telling admission about conservatives’ intentions. . . . . No [anti-gay]discrimination? No support. . . . Evangelicals and Pentecostals made it clear this week, however, that they will not consider any compromise when it comes to extending jobs to Christians who are also gay, lesbian, or bisexual.

Meanwhile, of course, evangelicals have the highest divorce rate, the highest teen pregnancy rate and the highest obesity rate (heard of the sin of gluttony?).  These people are truly despicable and utter hypocrites to boot.  The world will be a better place when conservative Christianity becomes a dead religion. 

Atheists Divorce Less Than Christians

With the ongoing hyperventilating by the Christofascists over the series of federal court rulings striking down same sex marriage bans and deranged claims that God will smite America for "embracing homosexuality," it is worth revisiting a story from last year which again documents that it is the godly Christian folks themselves who are the gravest threat to marriage.  As noted before, the Bible Belt has the highest divorce rate, the highest teen pregnancy rate and the highest obesity rate (gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins, not that the godly folk seem to have noticed).  But even more damning for those who whine about the "sanctity of marriage" is the fact that godless atheists divorce less frequently than evangelical Christians.   Here are highlights from The New Civil Rights Movement:

An Evangelical Christian pollster finds that atheists commit less crimes, divorce less, and are better educated than their fellow Christians. “It is obvious that you do not have to believe in a higher power in order to live a moral and successful life. Quite the opposite,” the Knoxville News‘ Al Westerfield writes of the study, adding that “the groups with the highest crime rate, the poorest marriages and the lowest education continually strive to force their beliefs on the nonreligious. And the politicians pander to them. Why else would they pass laws to put religion in the schools and on courthouse facades? And then they wonder why the godless could possibly be upset.”

“According to a Barna Research Group report, fundamentalist Christians have the highest divorce rate, followed by Jews and Baptists,” Westerfield writes: 

The godless are tied with Catholics and Lutherans for the lowest divorce rate. It seems that some groups that claim to follow the Bible most strictly are not putting their money where their mouths are. The godless who are thought to be without morals seem to take their vows more seriously.

According to a Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey, the least-educated Americans are Jehovah’s Witnesses, followed by black Protestants and fundamentalist Christians. The most highly educated are reformed Jews, followed by Unitarian Universalists and the godless.

Some groups seem to like their flocks ignorant so that pastors’ interpretations of God’s edicts are not questioned. Other groups prize scholarship and achieve more in their lives here on Earth.

In fact, a review of worldwide studies found that criminality and religion go hand in hand. The countries with the most religious people have the highest crime rates, highest sexually transmitted diseases and the highest teen pregnancy rates.

This is also true in the United States. The more religious a state’s population, the higher the crime, STD and teen pregnancy rates.

Indeed, it would appear that if we really want to increase morality and reduce crime and many other social ills, the best thing we could do is reduce the number of fundamentalist Christians.  P.S. Yes, the image above is a bit mean, but the hypocrisy of these "godly folks" drives me to distraction. 

Who Is To Blame For America's High Teen Pregnancy Rate?

One of claims the Christofascists put out constantly in their opposition to gay marriage rather than admit that the true motivation is motivated purely by religious based bigotry is to same that children need a mother and a father.  In the straight world, however, America is doing a pretty poor job of seeing that children are born to two parent families where parents are emotionally and financially ready for the responsibilities of parenthood.  As a column in the New York Times points out:

. . . “about half (51 percent) of the 6.6 million pregnancies in the United States each year (3.4 million) are unintended” and “the U.S. unintended pregnancy rate is significantly higher than the rate in many other developed countries.” Among teenagers in high-income countries, those in the United States have the highest rates of pregnancy . .

Who is to blame for this unfortunate and embarrassing reality?  I lay the blame squarely at the feet of the Christofascists and their puppets in the Republican Party who (i) oppose reality based sex education in our schools in favor of a fantasy based abstinence only approach, and (ii) seek to close down organizations like Planned Parenthood which provide contraception services and se education counseling, abortion services being only a tiny percentage of their activities.  Most other advanced nations have comprehensive sex education and grasp the reality that teens are going to have sex no matter what the godly folk want to believe in their alternate universe.  One need only look at data that shows that teen pregnancies are the highest in the Bible Belt (and that evangelical Christians have the highest divorce rates).  The Christofascusts' approach to sex education is as nonsensical as the advice the nuns gave my former wife in Catholic school in New York City: "if you have to sit in a boy's lap in a crowded car, put a copy of the New York phone book between you."  The column goes on to offer other solutions to this problem caused by puritanical views and America's sick definition of what it means to be a man:

This, even though young Americans are not necessarily the most sexually active youth of developed countries, according to a previous Guttmacher report. That report pointed out two important issues. First, “less contraceptive use and less use of hormonal methods are the primary reasons U.S. teenagers have the highest rates of pregnancy, childbearing and abortion.” Second, “more sexual partners, a higher prevalence of infection and, probably, less condom use contribute to higher teenage sexually transmitted disease rates in the United States.”

Most want fewer unplanned and unwanted pregnancies. And, most want fewer women to have to face the often wrenching decisions about what to do about such pregnancies.

There are some rather simple ways to move in this direction if we can agree to be less puritanical and more practical. We could, for example, begin teaching young people to value themselves in a way that contextualizes the initiation of sexual activity as a thing fully within their control and not so easily manipulated by peer and societal pressures. 

Furthermore, we must provide thorough and unimpeded sex education — in the home and at school — about how to engage in sex safely and responsibly. And, we must provide a full range of reproductive services — prophylactic and contraceptive as well as post-pregnancy. Here we are moving in the wrong direction. A Guttmacher report released last week found that more abortion restrictions were enacted in the last three years than in the previous decade.

Furthermore, much of the discussion about single-parent families and births outside of marriage is focused too heavily on young women and is simply a form of sex shaming that blames them for not being proper guardians of chastity. The shaming itself is a shame, and often inflames the pathology of patriarchy in our culture. 

We teach boys, overtly and implicitly, that sexual potency is a marker of masculinity and that empathy and emotional depth are purviews of a lesser sex. The ways we force boys to adhere to a perilously narrow reading of masculinity become a form of “oppression all dressed up as awesomeness,” as Lisa Wade, an Occidental College sociology professor, put it last month in Salon.

Boys are not taught to value themselves as fully human, but only as conquerors of everything — women, the workplace, the world. And men who are incapable of valuing their own humanity are incapable of fully valuing the humanity of a love interest.

We can address our societal problems, but to do so we must first address our societal issues. 

Will any of these common sense solutions be implemented?  Not if the Christofascists and their political whores in the GOP have anything to say about it.   Instead we will see more denial of objective reality and modern knowledge as these people cling to a Bronze Age world perpetuated by unthinking acceptance of the Bible.  Another informative article notes this: 

It's no coincidence that the states with the highest rates of sexually transmitted infections are also the same places where young people are taught to simply not have sex.

Judge Refuses to Drop Order Allowing Morning-After Pill Over the Counter Sales Sales

In what seems to me to be one of Barack Obama's dumber moves, his administration is a appealing a judicial ruling to allow that would allow the sale of the "morning after pill" over the counter to women of all ages.  If one truly wants fewer abortions - as both Obama and even the fetus lovers/child haters of the far claim to want - making the morning after pill as widely available as possible should be a no brainer.  For the far right, of course the argument is that such sales would encourage promiscuity and never mind that there would be fewer abortions.  But WTF is Obama's excuse?  He certainly won't win any far right votes and, worse yet, no scientific data supports restricting the sales and thereby almost guaranteeing more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions.  The judge in the case rightly has no patience with the Obama administration's pathetic arguments for restrictions and has made his impatience clear.  Here are highlights from the New York Times:

A federal judge on Friday stepped up his criticism of the Obama administration, accusing the Justice Department of making “frivolous” and “silly” arguments in its attempt to delay making the morning-after emergency contraceptive pill available to women and girls of all ages without a prescription. 

Judge Edward R. Korman of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York ordered last month that the drug be made widely available and said that raw politics — not scientific evidence — was behind efforts by Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of health and human services, to block easier distribution to young girls. 

On Friday, he denied the request by government lawyers to suspend his ruling while they appeal. In the process, he lashed out again at Ms. Sebelius in unusually harsh terms, questioning her credibility and integrity. 

“If a stay is granted, it will allow the bad-faith, politically motivated decision of Secretary Sebelius, who lacks any medical or scientific expertise, to prevail — thus justifiably undermining the public’s confidence in the drug approval process,” Judge Korman wrote. 

The issue of how broadly to distribute the morning-after pill is a politically charged one that puts President Obama’s administration at the center of a clash involving some women’s rights groups, conservative opponents of abortion and defenders of scientific integrity. 

In Friday’s ruling, Judge Korman said that the government’s appeal of his order was nothing more than an attempt to “vindicate the improper conduct of the secretary.”

The judge repeatedly accused the government of operating in bad faith and said the process of denying broad distribution of the drug had been “corrupted by political interference” for years. He said he did not believe that ordering Ms. Sebelius or the F.D.A. to re-examine their decisions would make any difference.

He also rejected the government’s argument that women might be confused about the drug’s availability if it was made available to everyone without a prescription and then later restricted because the government won its appeal. 

Judge Korman called that argument “largely an insult to the intelligence of women.” 

America has the highest unwanted teen pregnancy rate in the developed world for one reason:  for too long ignorance and religious idiocy has prevented safe and effective preventive methods from being widely available.  The far right's "abstinence only" sex education has proved to be disastrously ineffective and it is time that science and modernity prevail.  If the Christofascists don't like the drug, then don't buy it.  It's that simple.  Once again they want to force their sick, misguided beliefs on everyone.

Federal Court Morning-After Pill Ruling Riles Christianists

America continues to have a far higher teen pregnancy rate than other developed countries for a simple reason: American sex education programs and access to contraception is opposed by the Christofascists who live in a fantasy world where they believe that "abstinence only" sex education is the only approach that can be allowed.   Sadly, too many politicians including in the Obama administration are afraid to take on this batshitery.  Meanwhile, the Bible belt has the highest teen pregnancy rate (and the highest divorce rate).  A federal court ruling has struck down the ban on sales of the so-called morning after pill to women under 17 and has reignited the convulsions and spittle eruptions among the "godly Christian" crowd who seemingly would prefer more pregnancies - and ultimately more abortions -  than otherwise would need be the case.  Combined with their lack of any concern for children once they are born as evidenced by their support for draconian GOP cuts to programs for poor children, it demonstrates the hypocrisy of the Christofascist crowd which might just as well have "Modern Day Pharisee" tattooed on their foreheads.  A story in the Washington Post looks at the court ruling.

A federal court ruling Friday requiring the government to make the morning-after pill available to females of any age without a prescription reignited a politically fraught debate that has stretched for more than a decade, vexing two administrations.

In a 59-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Edward Korman in New York offered a scathing rebuke of the 2011 decision by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to bar over-the-counter sales of the pill to girls younger than 17. Sebelius had overruled a recommendation from the Food and Drug Administration, which had found the emergency contraceptive was “safe and effective in adolescent females” and could be used properly by young women without consulting a doctor.

The judge ordered the FDA to lift the age restrictions within 30 days. The Obama administration has not said whether it will appeal the ruling.  Korman called Sebelius’s decision “politically motivated, scientifically unjustified, and contrary to agency precedent.” 

Women’s health advocates and major medical groups were quick to praise Friday’s ruling, saying it would help prevent unwanted pregnancies and remove unnecessary hurdles that often prevent teenagers from getting the pill in a timely manner. 

Meanwhile, antiabortion activists called the decision short-sighted, saying it could lead to more unprotected sex among teenagers, while also lowering the number of sexually active teens who are likely to discuss such issues with their parents or a doctor. 

Plan B is classified by the FDA as an emergency contraceptive and greatly reduces the chance of pregnancy if taken within 72 hours after intercourse. It differs from abortion drugs such as RU486, which is intended to terminate a pregnancy that already has been established.

Rather than condemning the decision, if Christianists truly want to lower abortions, they ought to be welcoming the ruling.  The fact that they are not shows that their real issue is a religious based obsession that sex is dirty, etc.  Teens will have sex no matter what  these fantasy world dwellers want to believe and the best way to prevent abortions is through better sex education and wider access to preventive measures such as Plan B.  These folks aren't really "pro-life," they are anti-sex.

Teen Pregnancy Rate Highest in Rural (Conservative) Areas

Just as the evangelical Christians who blather the most about the "sanctity of marriage" have the highest divorce rates of any religious grouping in the country, so too rural - translate Republican - areas have the highest teen pregnancy rates.  Obviously, the children of the Bible beaters are not heeding their parents' supposed beliefs on chastity until marriage and the abstinence only sex education course so favored by the Christofascists.  And then there's the lack of availability of contraception and women's health clinics in these areas where they Christofascists seek to drive away programs that would provide meaningful means to reduce unwanted pregnancies.  The Des Moines Register has coverage on the findings of a new study.  Here are excerpts:

Nationally, the birth rate for U.S. teens has plunged to record low levels, but a new analysis shows that a disproportionate share of teen births are in rural communities.  In 2010, the birth rate for girls ages 15 to 19 in rural counties was 43 per 1,000, nearly one-third higher than the rate for metropolitan counties (33 per 1,000), says a report released Thursday.

"The prevailing stereotype is that teen parenthood is primarily an urban and suburban phenomenon," says Bill Albert, chief program officer for the Washington, D.C.-based non-profit. In fact, "the landscape of teen childbearing is more open spaces and fresh air than gridlock and high-rises," he says.

The results indicate that "the rates are far, far higher in rural areas compared to other parts of the country," he says. That suggests a greater need for efforts directed at helping rural teens avoid too-early pregnancy and parenthood.  Among findings from the analysis:

- Between 1990 and 2010, the birth rate among teens in rural counties declined by 32%, far less than in major urban centers (49%) and suburbs (40%).

- Rural counties account for one in five teen births; only 16% of teen girls live in rural counties.

- The teen birth rate is higher in rural counties than major urban centers for all ethnic and racial groups

What's behind the high rural teen birth rate? One factor is that even with all of the improvements in birth control methods, availability "lags far behind availability for teens living in urban and metro areas,"

Once again the lesson is clear:  if the Christofascists were serious about reducing teen pregnancies and abortions, they would support comprehensive sex ed programs and making contraception widely available.  Instead, they whine about the unborn while perpetuating the problem and typically not giving a damn about children once they are actually born.   Pretending in one's delusional mind that teens aren't having sex simply doesn't make it so.

The Corelation Between Religiosity and Obesity, High Divorce Rates, and Teen Pregnancies

Click image to enlarge

Gallup has a new report on religiosity by state and not surprisingly, other than Utah and Oklahoma, all of the most religious states are in the Deep South.  Meanwhile, the least religious states clustered in the Northwest and in the Northeast.  In a related report, Gallup also found that the highest rates of obesity, lack of health insurance coverage and struggles to subsist were correlated to the most religious states.  First these findings on levels of religiosity (see the chart above as well):

Overall, 40% of Americans nationwide were classified as very religious in 2012 -- based on saying religion is an important part of their daily life and that they attend religious services every week or almost every week. Thirty-one percent of Americans were nonreligious, saying religion is not an important part of their daily life and that they seldom or never attend religious services. The remaining 29% of Americans were moderately religious, saying religion is important in their lives but that they do not attend services regularly, or that religion is not important but that they still attend services.

Eight of the top 10 religious states are in the South -- basically comprising the entire Southern belt from Georgia and the two Carolinas on the Atlantic coast through Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi, to Louisiana and Arkansas in the west. The states outside the Southern belt are Utah -- with its strongly religious majority Mormon population -- and Oklahoma, which straddles the border between the South and the Midwest.

The 12 least religious states comprise the entirety of New England -- Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut -- along with the three most Northwestern states in the union, Alaska, Washington, and Oregon, plus the District of Columbia, Nevada, and Hawaii.

As for social malaise correlating to the most religious states, there are these highilights:

Texas residents continue to be the most likely in the U.S. to lack health insurance (25.5%) in 2012 and those in Massachusetts remain least likely (4.1%).

One in four Mississippi residents report lacking enough money to buy the food they or their families needed at times in the last 12 months -- more than any other state in 2012. North Dakotans were the least likely to struggle to afford food, at 9.6%.

A majority of American adults in all 50 states are either overweight or obese in 2012. West Virginia residents are the most likely to fall into one of these weight groups (69.3%), while Coloradans are least likely (55.1%).

Obesity rates remain highest in many Southern and Midwestern states. Western and Northeastern states still boast the lowest obesity rates in the country. Diabetes and high blood pressure rates follow the same geographic pattern.

As this blog has noted frequently, states in the Bible Belt also have the highest divorce rates and the highest teen pregnancy rates.   Obviously, there is a major discontent between claimed religiosity and actual behavior.  Some might call the phenomenon rank hypocrisy.

Rick Santorum's Moral Delusions

With Michele Bachmann now out of the GOP presidential nominee race, Rick Santorum has taken Bachmann's place as the craziest and most untethered from reality of the candidates. Yes, "craziest" is a relative term since most of the GOP contenders are crazy. But like Bachmann, Santorum is obsessed with gays and sexuality in general and is only too willing to fan the flames of bigotry in the hope that the nastiest elements in the GOP will reward him with their vote. The reality that facts do not back up his claims is irrelevant to Santorum. A column in the Chicago Tribune trashes Santorum for his lies and advocacy for marginalizing those who do not conform to his own twisted religious beliefs. Here are highlights: .

Why is Rick Santorum running for president? Because America is in trouble and he knows why. Faith and family are under attack. "Moral relativism," he warns, is breeding "aberrant behavior." Gay rights advocates are bent on "secularization." Liberals have brought about a "decaying culture."

Santorum insists that gay marriage will destroy the family, "the very foundation of our country." Lamenting the scandal of pedophile priests, he wrote in a Catholic publication: "When the culture is sick, every element in it becomes infected. While it is no excuse for this scandal, it is no surprise that Boston, a seat of academic, political and cultural liberalism in America, lies at the center of the storm."

Santorum takes it for granted that religious belief, at least of the Christian variety, is a powerful force for moral behavior. That's not apparent from looking at this country.

But where is the evidence that the developments cited by Santorum are producing harmful side effects? In the past couple of decades, most indicators of moral and social health have gotten better, not worse. Crime has plummeted. Teen pregnancy has declined by 39 percent. Abortion rates among adolescents are less than half of what they were. The incidence of divorce is down.

It turns out that religiosity does not translate into good behavior, and disregard for religion does not go hand-in-hand with vice. Quite the contrary. Consider homicide, . . . . Of the 10 states with the most worshippers, all but one have higher than average homicide rates. Of the 11 states with the lowest church attendance, by contrast, 10 have low homicide rates.

Teen pregnancy also tends to follow a course precisely the opposite of what Santorum preaches. Almost every one of the most religious states suffers from more teen pregnancy than the norm — while the least religious ones enjoy less.

What impact does gay marriage have on how kids handle sex? Massachusetts, the first state to legalize it, has less teen pregnancy than the country as a whole. Connecticut, Iowa, New Hampshire and Vermont, which have also sanctioned same-sex unions, are also far better than average.

Does gay marriage undermine the health and stability of heterosexual marriage? Not so you can tell. Massachusetts has the nation's lowest divorce rate. Iowa and Connecticut are also better than most. Vermont and New Hampshire are about average. In the Bible Belt, by contrast, marriages are generally more prone to break up.

In fact, in his indictment of tolerance, individual conscience, sexual freedom and secular morality, he [Santorum] is not telling truths but spinning sanctimonious fairy tales. American culture is not sick, and Santorum is no healer.

Will Obama Sell Out to the Bishops on Contraception Coverage ?

While Barack Obama - at least temporarily, and I'm not holding my breath as to how long the newly found spine will last - has shockingly shown backbone and said he will stand up to efforts by Republicans to rewrite the automatic spending cuts that will kick in in January 2013, there are fears that he will show no such backbone in standing up to the Catholic bishops who want to gut requirements that health insurance plans cover free contraception. As noted in a post yesterday, the USA has a embarrassingly high teen pregnancy rate compared to any other developed industrialized nation, the reason being, of course, that contraception is not freely available to many women and that failed Christianist backed abstinence only sex education is still too widely used in many areas. A post in Religion Dispatches looks at Obama's likely sell out to the bitter (and generally porcine) old men in dresses. The result, if this happens, will be more unwanted pregnancies and more abortions. Here are some highlights:

If the Administration does the Bishops' bidding, employers could choose to exclude from insurance coverage the free contraception, mandated by HHS guidelines issued under the Affordable Care Act, based on "religious conscience," even if the employer isn't a church.

Kristen Day issued a statement predicting that the administration would indeed decide to expand the exemption, so that even nominally religious employers could refuse to cover contraceptives. Note the confidence, from her statement: The Administration has no intention of forcing Catholic institutions to provide insurance coverage for services that are directly in opposition to their moral beliefs. It does not make any sense from a public policy perspective and it certainly is not smart politically to alienate Catholic voters.

[P]ro-choice advocates worry that Day's confidence (however out of step her views are with rank-and-file Catholics) is well-placed. They say they expect imminent action from the Obama Administration to broaden the exemption beyond churches and other houses of worship. That action could come as early as tomorrow[today].

David Nolan, a spokesperson for Catholics for Choice, told me today, "Obama's definitely listening to the bishops. . . . . The archbishop, Nolan emphasized, does not represent American Catholics, but rather is "the leader of 271 active bishops, and that's who he represents."

Catholics for Choice has launched a campaign urging its supporters to call the White House and express that "Catholics overwhelmingly reject the bishops’ views on contraception" and that it "is discriminatory to deny these women and men access to this important provision simply because the institution where they work or the school they attend is religiously affiliated." The ACLU has launched a similar campaign, arguing that religious freedom "does not mean that we get to impose those beliefs on others."

[I]f Obama does allow them to declare victory, it will set a dangerous precedent for the "religious liberty" claims of certain religious figures to stand in the way of people who do not share their religion, and in this case, even their co-religionists who challenge the leadership's orthodoxy. Like Catholic women over the age of 18 who are just as likely to have used contraception as the general population. All 98% of them.

Rather than kissing the bishops' very broad asses, Obama ought to be looking for ways to have those who were involved in sex abuse cover ups criminally prosecuted.

Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell Seeks Funds for Failed Abstinence-Only Sex Education

Never mind that numerous studies have documented that abstinence only sex education programs do not work and, in fact, often lead to higher teen pregnancy rates. Bob "Taliban Bob" McDonnell could care less that such programs are a blatant waste of public funds. Nope, acting I suspect on the orders of Victoria Cobb and the faux Christians at The Family Foundation, Taliban Bob wants to pursue funding for more ineffective and religious based sex education programs. If the Christo-fascists are happy, who cares if the programs actually work or not. As for Victoria Cobb's comments, from years of experience, if Ms. Cobb's lips are moving, she's lying. One might as well rely on an Ouija board rather than any data cited or claimed by The Family Foundation. as The Virginian Pilot has coverage on McDonnell's wrong headed pursuit of such funding. Here are some highlights:
*
Abortion-rights groups Tuesday denounced Gov. Bob McDonnell's decision to seek a federal grant for abstinence-only sex education while shunning funds available for comprehensive pregnancy and disease-prevention instruction.
*
Virginia's Health Department recently applied for a $1.27 million federal grant for supplementary abstinence instruction funds.
*
"Given Virginia's economic situation, wasting $400,000 of taxpayer money for an ineffective program is not a good use of the commonwealth's limited resources" wrote Jessica Honke, the group's policy director.
*
"The simple fact is that young people deserve honest information, not political ideology, in their health classrooms." The Family Foundation of Virginia defended McDonnell's choice.
*
State Sen. Ralph Northam, a Norfolk Democrat and a physician, said abstinence should be the goal but said he is disappointed McDonnell chose to disregard the chance to acquire federal dollars with more flexibility of use.
*
While abstinence is the only guaranteed way to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases, Northam said, "the reality is with teenagers their hormones come into play, and abstinence-only doesn't always work."
*
"We should at least teach our teenagers, I believe, all aspects of family planning and all the options that are available," Northam added. "There should be a comprehensive plan to sex education that strongly encourages abstinence-only, but it needs to be comprehensive."

Teen Birth Rates Highest in Most Religious States

Yet another study indicates that the efforts of the professional Christians and conservative Christians do nothing to lower teen pregnancy rates and that abstinence only sex education obviously doesn't work. Indeed, the higher the supposed religiosity of a state, the higher the teen pregnancy rate. In some ways the findings make sense: ignorance and a refusal to deal with real world reality and objective facts result in teens who do not make use of birth control opportunities and marry far earlier than in states with higher levels of education and progressive views. Bible Spice Palin's own daughter is a case in point. One has to wonder when the Christianists will accept the fact that teens WILL have sex before marriage and that effective birth control education is a must. Here are some highlights from MSNBC:
*

U.S. states whose residents have more conservative religious beliefs on average tend to have higher rates of teenagers giving birth, a new study suggests. The relationship could be due to the fact that communities with such religious beliefs (a literal interpretation of the Bible, for instance) may frown upon contraception, researchers say. If that same culture isn't successfully discouraging teen sex, the pregnancy and birth rates rise. Mississippi topped the list for conservative religious beliefs and teen birth rates.

*

Joseph Strayhorn of Drexel University College of Medicine and University of Pittsburgh offers a speculation of the most probable explanation: "We conjecture that religious communities in the U.S. are more successful in discouraging the use of contraception among their teenagers than they are in discouraging sexual intercourse itself."

*

Strayhorn compiled data from various data sets. The religiosity information came from a sample of nearly 36,000 participants who were part of the U.S. Religious Landscapes Survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted in 2007, while the teen birth and abortion statistics came from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

*
For religiosity, the researchers averaged the percentage of respondents who agreed with conservative responses to eight statements, including: ''There is only one way to interpret the teachings of my religion," and ''Scripture should be taken literally, word for word." They found a strong correlation between statewide conservative religiousness and statewide teen birth rate even when they accounted for income and abortion rates.

*

And guess which states have the lowest teen pregnancy rates: Connecticut, Vermont, Massachusetts and New Hampshire - states with gay marriage.

Red States Have Highest Teen Pregnancy Rates

It looks to me that the heavily evangelical Deep South states need to spend less time gay bashing, obsessing over gay marriage, trying to inflict their theocratic agenda on the rest of us and worrying about what law abiding LGBT citizens do in the privacy of their own bedrooms and pay more attention to the fact that delusional abstinence only sex educations do NOT work. Here are a few highlights from Yahoo News:

*

Mississippi now has the nation's highest teen birth rate, displacing Texas and New Mexico for that lamentable title, a new federal report says. Mississippi's rate was more than 60 percent higher than the national average in 2006, according to new state statistics released Wednesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The teen birth rate for that year in Texas and New Mexico was more than 50 percent higher.

*

The lowest teen birth rates continue to be in New England, where three states have rates at roughly half the national average, which is 42 births per 1,000 teen women.

*

Some experts have blamed the national increase on increased federal funding for abstinence-only health education that does not teach teens how to use condoms and other contraception. They said that would explain why teen birth rate increases have been detected across much of the country and not just in a few spots.

The Real Cost of Abstinence-Only Sex Education

In light of John McSenile's selection of Christianist high priestess, Alaska Governor Sarah Plain, as his running mate, a new column in the New York Times is most timely. Since Palin and the Kool-Aid drinking base of the Republican Party believe in abstinence-only education - which is in keeping with their mindset of believing that merely not mentioning something will make it go away - it is important to look at the true cost of these religion based programs in terms of their ineffectiveness not to mention the millions of dollars being wasted. The statistics are appalling (click the chart above for a larger copy) and truly make all Americans look like a bunch of moronic idiots. This sad statistics are yet one more product of the failed Bush/Cheney regime which has put religious views before science time and time again. It is truly time that rational adults retake control of this country and banish the religious zealots back to the wilderness. Here are some column high lights:
*

Sarah Palin has a pregnant teenager. And, she’s not alone. According to a report published in 2007, there are more than 400,000 other American girls in the same predicament. In fact, a 2001 Unicef report said that the United States teenage birthrate was higher than any other member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S. tied Hungary for the most abortions. This was in spite of the fact that girls in the U.S. were not the most sexually active. Denmark held that title. But, its teenage birthrate was one-sixth of ours, and its teenage abortion rate was half of ours.

*

If there is a shame here, it’s a national shame — a failure of our puritanical society to accept and deal with the facts. Teenagers have sex. How often and how safely depends on how much knowledge and support they have. Crossing our fingers that they won’t cross the line is not an intelligent strategy.

*

Parents don’t like it either. According to a 2004 survey sponsored by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, 65 percent of parents of high school students said that federal money “should be used to fund more comprehensive sex education programs that include information on how to obtain and use condoms and other contraceptives.”

*

We need to take some bold steps beyond the borders of our moralizing and discomfort and create a sex education infrastructure that actually acknowledges reality and protects our children from unwanted pregnancies, or worse.

*

“International evidence suggests that high-quality sex and relationship education that puts sex in its proper context, that starts early enough to make a difference and that gives youngsters the confidence and ability to make well-informed decisions helps young people delay their first sexual experience and leads to lower teenage pregnancy levels.”