Related Links

How the media misinforms on contraception

“My Husband Is Not Gay”

Pastor is attracted to men, but refuses to live as a gay man

Susan Patton can’t even handle admitting the realities of child molestation

Rush Limbaugh, rape denialist

Dumbest gotcha ever

Greatest “pro-life” argument ever

Transcript

On this episode of Reality Cast, a researcher from Media Matters will discuss conservative myths about contraception. The Christian right tries a strange new tactic to replace pray-away-the-gay, and rape denialism continues to get its hooks into conservative pundits.

I’ll be discussing this further during the interview, but here’s a sample from the Media Matters video summarizing the right’s war on contraception.

• contraception *

In reality, as was clearly stated in the Supreme Court decision, this was about contraception, not abortion. The Court found that with contraception—and only contraception—suddenly your boss has a right to let his religious belief dictate whether or not you got coverage. It had nothing to do with abortion, or anything but contraception. Listen to the interview and then check out the video in show links!

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For many years, conservative Christians, trying to square their claim to love everyone with their hostility to gay rights, backed something called gay conversion therapy, which claimed that you can somehow “fix” gay people to make them straight. Since then, the psychological establishment has come out hard against gay conversion therapy, decrying it not only as useless but counterproductive, because it can lower self-esteem, which is the opposite of what real therapy is supposed to do. And now even major pray the gay away organizations are admitting that they were wrong and you can’t quote-unquote “fix” gay people, because sexual orientation is not a disease but, you know, an orientation.

But sadly, none of this means that the Christian right is about to give up on the fantasy that every man, no matter how little sexual interest her has in women, should be married to one and making babies. And yes, I said men, because while lesbians do get their share of denunciation from the pulpit, the lion’s share of panic over homosexuality is aimed squarely at men who have sex with other men. The new trend, therefore, is not to tell gay men that they can be “cured” of homosexuality. The new trend is for gay men to accept that they may want to have sex with men, but to marry women anyway and try to live the straight lifestyle. Naturally, TLC has a new show about this, focusing on the Mormons that first came up with the idea of wanting sex with men but marrying women out of duty. It’s called My Husband’s Not Gay. Even though the point is that he is, but is choosing not to act on it.

• TLC 1 *

The fact that this is a solution pushed mostly or exclusively for gay men is telling. It’s hard to imagine many straight men being convinced that they should take one for the team by marrying someone who openly tells you all the time they’d rather be sleeping with someone else, but are sucking it up and touching you as a duty to God. Demanding that women take on gay men as charity case husbands is just one more way conservative churches tell women they’re worth less. I worry that some of them feel like they should be grateful that anyone wants to marry them, which is one of the many ways women are taught to have low self-esteem. Of course, homophobic conservatives also think gay men are worth less, so much so that they’re arguing that it’s better to pretend you’re straight than to be who you really are.

NPR interviewed Allan Edwards, a Presbyterian pastor who is doing the same thing, even though, from what I can tell, the gay-but-dutifully-married-to-a-woman thing started with the Mormons. He and his wife Leeanne, who is expecting a baby, tell a similar story you often hear of the Mormon couples, of a marriage where there’s friendship but not much hope for passion.

• TLC 2 *

You see these narratives a lot. And that’s what makes this a bit hard, because you do believe that there’s affection and friendship there. But here’s the thing: Most of us can have friendships, even close ones, with people we’re not sexually attracted to while also having the opportunity to pursue sexual relationships with people we’re actually attracted to. This supposed solution of marrying straight women to gay men just means that two people instead of one person is being denied that. But the way that Allan and Leeanne Edwards rationalize that away is distressing.

• TLC 3 *

Sorry, but it’s just not the same. There’s a huge difference between not getting everything you want and never getting anything you want. Yes, being monogamous means you occasionally meet people you think are hot and setting that aside for your partner. But most of us are willing to make that deal because we enjoy sex with our partners. So it’s like skipping a snack now so you can have dessert later. But what these two are selling is closer to skipping a snack now so you can eat a piece of cardboard later. This entire gay-but-married thing is an attempt by the Christian right to get around past accusations that they want to stifle people or put them in the closet by saying, no, we are open and not hiding anything. But the stifling is still going on. Worse, this method requires sacrificing a satisfying sex life not just for one, but two people for every gay person they guilt trip out of the quote-unquote “gay lifestyle.”

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Interview

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The anti-feminist panic attack on the right appears to be continuing without a hiccup into the new year. The feminist argument about sex and sexual assault is finally penetrating into the public consciousness, and it has conservatives in a panic. The feminist argument about sexual assault is that it’s not because women choose sex or because men are lustful beasts who can’t be stopped when provoked, but it’s an act of dominance over women. And that women have every right to have as much sex as they want with as many men as they want without getting raped. While conservatives aren’t pro-rape or anything silly like that, I would say that a lot of them are deeply attached to the idea that women somehow bring rape on themselves by being sexual. Or that it’s not really rape if you’re a sexual woman. Basically, conservatives want to keep arguing that the problem isn’t rape but women having sex, and they are in a full-blown panic that this line might actually be less persuasive than it used to be.

Susan Patton, the so-called Princeton Mom, got her start telling women to try to get married in college but now has really blossomed into a full-blown rape apologist who appears only to be brought onto TV anymore to basically imply that you have it coming if you have sex with men willingly. Or, in this case, she was brought onto Fox News to denounce teaching kindergartners basic sexual assault prevention. After denying outright, with no evidence, that sexual assault is as common as the stats say it is, Patton denied that there’s any value to specifically teaching kids how to be aware of sexual predators, because god forbid, that’s a kind of sex ed.

• rape 1 *

This was too extreme even for some of the folks at Fox News. After all, we’re talking about here is telling 5-year-olds to report it to a teacher or parent if an adult or older kid wants to touch them in an inappropriate way. And no, this isn’t just “manners” and sexual assault isn’t a matter of not having good manners. On the contrary, a lot of sexual predators know how to exploit your good manners against you. They know that having good manners often means being unwilling to talk back to adults or being afraid to say no bluntly instead of softly or being afraid of being a tattletale. That’s what these classes are for, to tell kids there are some situations where it’s okay to forget your manners and to scream or tattle or tell someone to leave them alone. But such is the unwillingness to accept the realities of sexual assault that Patton would rather have kids be put in danger because they don’t have the proper education than admit that there’s a problem.

Rush Limbaugh, also a reliable purveyor of the angry conservative id, just went into straight denial mode recently on his show.

• rape 2 *

This is pure projection. No feminist has ever said all moaning is pain or fear. Limbaugh is the only person here saying that all moaning is the same thing, that it’s all consent. That is, of course, a blatant lie. All of us know that what is called a “moan” can sometimes mean pleasure but also can mean fear or pain. Most of the time, we can tell the difference, which is why feminists are rightfully skeptical when an accused rapist claims that a woman’s moans of pain or fear or confusion sounded like pleasure to him. Yeah right, buddy. But hey, even if you were legitimately confused, that’s no excuse. If you can’t tell, then it’s time to stop and ask. But, in order to defend accused rapists, Limbaugh has backed himself into pretending that all moans mean pleasure 100 percent of the time. Which means that, if someone kicks him in the knee and he moans in pain, we have to assume he wanted it, I guess. Since all moans are moans of pleasure.

Of course, outright denial is just one method. Another, more insidious and subtle method, is to try to water down feminist ideas so that they are basically meaningless. For instance, a lot of feminists call it “slut-shaming” when you say that women deserve bad things to happen to them, including sexual assault, if they have sex willingly. This is threatening to many people on the right who think they should be able to try to control women’s sexual behavior through shame and fear. But Kennedy Montgomery of Fox News tried the dumbest attempt at a gotcha ever when it came to the term “slut-shaming.” There’s a proposed law that would require publicly traded companies to share how much more their CEOs make than the basic employees at companies, a bit of useful transparency for unions and investors to have. But Montgomery was against it and tried to steal feminism to denounce it.

• rape 3 *

Nope. Telling a CEO of a publicly traded company he has to be transparent with the people who give him money or labor in exchange for making millions of dollars is not the same thing as telling a woman that she brought rape on herself by having sex. Just not even close. Being able to have sex without being raped or abused is a right. Being able to make millions of dollars without any accountability to people who actually give you the money and labor so that you can be so rich is not a right. Big difference. Huge.

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, God won’t let us kill people because we kill embryos instead edition. How’s this for a “pro-life” argument? Televangelist Jim Baker says we’re bad at war now because we legalized abortion.

• Baker *

There’s so much wrong with that argument that there’s no need to debunk it, but I do want to highlight that it’s considered legitimate, in so-called pro-life circles, to claim that God punishes us for abortion by making us less efficient at killing actual living, breathing people.