Quick–More Lipstick!

As Mike Pence has doggedly pursued his “Look, Ma…I’m really a moderate!” remake, I’ve heard several people describe the effort with that old saying about putting lipstick on a pig.

Problem is, no matter how much Revlon you slather on that porker, it’s still a pig.

During a meeting attended by a variety of health agencies last week, when the subject of health outreach at Black Expo came up, attendees were told of a new directive issued by the Governor’s office. No agency receiving state funds may distribute condoms. That prohibition includes–but, as we lawyer-types like to say, is not limited to–Black Expo.

According to the Staff person delivering this news, this edict was justified by the fact that “only married people should have sex.” (And I guess they’ll have to buy their own condoms.) Evidently, no one in attendance suggested an obvious fix–that anyone receiving a condom be made to submit an affidavit to the effect that 1)he is married; and 2) he will use it only when having sex with his wife.

Pence is obviously unaware of a 1972 Supreme Court case (Eisenstadt v. Baird for my fellow nerds) directly on point. The Court said unmarried people have the same right to possess contraception as married ones. But then, our Governor is still insisting that Marbury v. Madison, the case that established judicial review, was wrongly decided.

Of course, Pence doesn’t look to the law for guidance anyway. He looks to his bible and like Micah Clark, he reads it literally.

16 Comments

  1. Pence and Clark are two of those blind men I referred to in my comments on “Fortunately, Most Christians Aren’t Like Micah Clark”, Ballard is blind man number three. Meanings in the Bible, as in Constitutional Amendments, are open to interpretation. Rather than being viewed as guidelines to making logical, common sense decisions and actions, they are used to control by the party with the most money. The world is not flat and gravity holds radical right believers on the ground along with the rest of us.

  2. i suspect the true reasoning for this change is another attack on planned parenthood, which distributes condoms.

  3. Why are the republicans in this country so focused on the sex and bedroom of every American?

  4. Apparently these tools don’t think very highly of their omnipotent God, as they continually insinuate themselves as its Sergeants at Arms.

  5. I wonder how long it’s going to take before people realize that if you want to decrease the number of abortions, you increase the quality of family planning and availability of birth control methods. When enough people want something, prohibition won’t decrease its availability–a lesson this country should have learned in the 1920s. These folks think that repression is the answer: prohibit abortion and prohibit family planning and birth control. That’s just not rational.

  6. Those folks who wish to decrease the number of abortions should want to prevent unplanned pregnancies. That, of course, means better access to contraceptives for all of us, married, unmarried, rich, poor…all of us.

  8. I don’t understand what the Republicans are doing. They want to stop abortions but they’re limiting access to birth control. Women and girls at all costs must carry their pregnancies to term, but when they have the children and need welfare and food stamps, they’re lazy, immoral sluts living on the taxpayers’ dime. The only thing I can take from this is that women are not supposed to have sex unless they are married and then for procreation purposes only; under no circumstances should they be enjoying it because that’s for men only.

  10. Wow, what unanimity of opinion. You all sound like echoes of each other.

    The directive simply prevents state funds from being spent on condoms. It doesn’t make condoms illegal, or prevent other groups from handing them out. At least one-fourth of the state population is Catholic, and they cannot be forced to fund activity they consider directly counter to their religious beliefs.

    Pence’s decision avoids another mess – in Indianapolis, it is illegal for anyone other than a physician or a pharmacist to give or sell a condom to someone under the age of 18. Look it up in municode.

    Were it up to me we would pay people to be sterilized and give condoms out for free, so don’t give me your white liberal NPR-loving skepticism. The state is right in not stepping into murky waters.

  11. The headline on the front page of todays’ Star says “80,000 Kids Are Hungry”. Why am I “forced to fund activity” I “consider directly counter” to my beliefs, when our community immorally funds billionaires and their sports teams with tax money and has no money for hungry children? As most American Catholics use and approve of birth control, I don’t see why a few free condoms being passed out to adults should require blocking by a few people who claim to be religiously offended by this practice.

  13. I don’t understand how folks who say they want government to stay out of our business can then insist on government prohibitions and mandates for our bedrooms and our bodies.

    If abortion is such a huge problem, contraception is the answer.

    As others noted here, it’s regrettable that our government spends millions on sports facilities (to which I object), but our government can’t invest much less to protect against unwanted diseases AND pregnancies AND children whose parents can’t afford to feed them or who abuse unwanted children.

    We’d save millions in medical costs for sexually transmitted diseases, for Medicaid, and millions in various welfare costs
    if condoms were provided to all who needed them. (Religious objectors need not take advantage of them.)

    As John Gregg said last year, the problem isn’t planned parenthood when it’s in EVERYONE’s best interests to avoid UNPLANNED parenthood.

Comments are closed.