Talking about women talking about virginity loss with Abby Kincaid. Also, the ACLU vs. abstinence-only in Mississippi and more lies about health care reform.

 

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Links in this episode:

Female comedians on aging

Mississippi using tax funds for religious abstinence-only programs

More on Mississippi case

Condom worshippers!

Euthanasia lies

Byron York stokes fears about health care

Chris Matthews airs the lie

Arthur Laffer thinks you’re stupid

 

On this episode of Reality Cast, I’ll be interviewing Abby
Kincaid about Deflowered, a project about losing your virginity.  Also, an investigation into the
religious freedom issues of the no no square, and anti-choice lies about health
care, and this time they’re trying to control not just when you give life but
how you die.

 

I almost don’t want to link this discussion between a bunch
of really funny women of Hollywood about getting older, because it’s so
depressing.  But being comedians,
they have a good attitude about it, because they can make jokes.

 

• old
  ladies *

 

Let’s just hope this isn’t a moving trend, or soon love
interests will be required to be played by women that are not old enough to
vote.

 

**********

I won’t lie. 
The greatest thing about hitting the internet, listening to audio and
video and researching the segments for this is how completely off the wall
funny some of the things that the anti-sex crew will say or do.  And this just say no rally hosted by
Mississippi’s Department of Human Services’ Abstinence Before Marriage program
made me laugh out loud. 

 

• aclu 1
  *

 

In case that wasn’t perfectly clear, the cheerleaders said,
"Stop, don’t touch me there — this is my no, no square."  Which is one of those statements that
brings up more questions than it answers. 
If women have a no-no square, what do men have?  The forbidden pole?  And how do you work that into a chirpy,
mindless cheer?  So many
questions. 

 

The big question isn’t all that funny, and it’s the one that
the ACLU is asking the Mississippi Department of Human Services.  Why on earth do they think that it’s
even remotely appropriate to have a blatantly religious program funded by
taxpayer dollars, one that spreads misinformation about condom use to
boot?  Because that’s what’s going
on.

 

• aclu 2
  *

 

That’s Shawna Davie from the ACLU Reproductive Freedom
Project.  Watching the news video,
you don’t really get a great idea of how completely awful this rally was in
terms of both having illegal religious endorsement by the state and also just
plain lying to kids about measures they can take to keep themselves safe.  Luckily, we live in an era where you
can just go to the ACLU’s website and look the original video that Stuart
Productions gave them yourself, and it’s quite revealing. 

 

First, you have the religious content.

 

• aclu 3
  *

 

Seriously, it even looks like a church altar inside this
rally.  And you even get a sermon.

 

• aclu 4
  *

 

Remember, this is being done with your tax dollars. This is
expressly forbidden in the Constitution, using federal taxpayer money to fund
what is essentially the promotion of fundamentalist Christianity, both in
content and in form. 

 

That’s one issue with the whole struggle for reproductive
rights that tends to get overlooked in general, and that’s how much this is
about the freedom of religion that’s enshrined in our First Amendment.  We focus a lot on accuracy in
information, women’s rights and all that, and we may even point out that women
of all faiths use contraception and abortion, and that’s all very
important.  But at the end of the
day, it’s important to remember that abstinence-only education, limits on
contraception access, and bans on abortion are all attempts by certain
religious groups to have their dogma endorsed above others by the government. 

 

But it’s not just about promoting naked religious dogma
using our tax dollars.  It’s also
promoting scientifically unsound nonsense to kids, lies that could lead to them
getting sick or pregnant.

 

• aclu 5
  *

 

It’s interesting how abstinence-only proponents have come to
focus on hating condoms so thoroughly. 
They’ve really decided that beating back the evil threat of latex has
become a number one priority. 
Jessica Valenti has been tracking it, and now the strategy for pushing
abstinence-only is to a) lie about the content of the courses and b) focus on
the evils of condom usage. Leslie Unruh of the Abstinence Clearinghouse has
taken to calling pro-choicers condom worshippers and Valerie Huber of the
National Abstinence Education Association calls comprehensive sex education
"condom-only", which makes no sense at all.

 

Meanwhile, condoms are still 98% effectiveness with perfect
use and 85% effectiveness with typical use.  Calling your vagina a no-no square has not been shown to work
as a barrier to HIV, gonorrhea, syphilis, Chlamydia, or eager sperm.

 

*********

 

insert interview

 

*********

 

 

 

Boy, the mainstream media has decided to run with every BS
anti-choice lie imaginable in a bid to kill health care reform.  On an earlier podcast and in my RH
Reality Check column, I talked about how abortion is being used as a scare
tactic, even though there is not and will not be any such thing as taxpayer
funded elective abortions.  And now
the anti-choice nuts are moving onto their other, less sexy attempt to control
your most personal decisions and raising a stink about the end-of-life
provisions.  They’re upset that the
health care bill is likely to include access to free voluntary counseling about
your options, and they don’t want you to have options. So of course, they’re
going to lie and claim that the government is grinding up the elderly for dog
food. 

 

• end of
  life 1 *

 

Of course this rumor is completely ridiculous.  I wouldn’t be surprised if this was
something floated secretly by the insurance companies that are desperate to say
or do anything so they can continue taking your money and refusing your
coverage in peace.  What they’re
exploiting is a provision in one version of the bill that would make senior
citizens who want to write a living will to have the right to free counseling
and services to do so, if they request it.  Look, the government isn’t interested in forcing you to use
expensive services you don’t want. 
This is an entitlement, a response to a stated need.

 

But anti-choicers are great at scaring people by waving
their hands and obscuring issues of choice.  Which is what they fully intend to do with this. Byron York
just up and promoted this lie on Fox News. 

 

• end of
  life 2 *

 

Here’s the reality: Anti-choicers actually want to get
between you and your doctor on this issue, because they want there to be a
blanket no to living wills, no to the right to pull the plug and die in peace,
no right to say no to heroic measures and instead go to hospice to die in
peace.  They don’t want you to have
the choice about how you die anymore than they want you to choose how to
conduct your private sex life.  And
they resent the government extending people the right to choose how they want
to die.  And so they’re lying about
what’s in the bill, and getting a big assist from insurance company defenders
who will use any tactic imaginable to kill health care reform.

 

But don’t believe a word of any conservative who is suddenly
acting concerned about you and your continued breathing and moving.  They’re falling all over themselves to
defend the status quo of health care, where people die every day because they
don’t have insurance, or they do have insurance that won’t pay for their health
care, because they found some small print somewhere to weasel out of saving
your life.  They don’t want you to
live.  They just don’t want you to
be able to choose how to die once living’s not really an option.  That’s what the Terri Schiavo thing was
about, and that’s what this is about. 
Sometimes anti-choicers like to imply they’ve figured out the secret to
keep you from ever dying, but I’m here to tell you that they haven’t. Everyone
goes at some point, but this is a matter of whether or not you get to decide
how you go.

 

Unfortunately, Chris Matthews is giving air time to the
lie. 

 

• end of
  life 3 *

 

You aren’t going to get visits.  Repeat: you will not get visits.  This is about allowing people who want to write living
wills, who ASK if they can get help. The reason that they’re putting it in now
isn’t because they think a lot of younger people want the service.  It’s because a lot of elderly people on
limited budgets want the service but can’t afford it.  Under this, the government will help them.  If they want it.  If they ask.  No knocks on the door. 
Period.

 

Not that this will stop the lies, of course.  Conservatives are remarkably good at
pushing people’s buttons about sex and death and shutting down rational thought
altogether.

 

************

And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, I don’t want the
government running the courts or building the roads either edition.  Here’s Arthur Laffer, who we’re
supposed to believe is a serious economist with lots of brains and stuff, on
universal health care. 

 

• medicare
  *

 

Okay, obviously, Medicare and Medicaid are already run by
the government.  But I can’t stand
these swipes at the Post Office any longer.  I love the Post Office.  You give them a letter and they mail it and it gets where
it’s going for cheap. I can neither find nor afford Fed Ex, and I’ve easily had
100 times more headaches with Fed Ex and UPS for getting packages, since they
want you to drive 20 miles out of your way to pick them up if you weren’t home
at 2 in the afternoon when they tried to drop it off.