The Mass Panic of the Moral Majority
From an excellent article today on AlterNet:
Don’t panic, but if your child is a college student, she or he is likely to be having lots of casual sex with a random string of partners. That’s according to Dr. Joe S. McIlhaney Jr., founder and chairman of the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, TX, who recently warned Washington Times readers and parents of the “sexual chaos” on college campuses today. Similarly, Loyola College in Maryland theology professor Vigen Guroian compares college to a sex carnival in a January article for ChristianityToday.com titled “Dorm Brothel.”
Their exaggerated rhetoric and fear-mongering strategy seem designed to inspire a moral panic. Sociologists define a moral panic as mass hysteria generated by exploiting people’s worst fears, often for the sake of an underlying political agenda.
Great. So, if we can just define everything that Bush does from here on as “moral panic”, perhaps more people would be able to understand how unreasonable it is to be against same-sex marriage and safe sex education in schools.
Since I’ve arrived back in Scotland, I have seen first-hand why there are so many sex education shows on television late at night and why some people are so adament about teaching proper sex education in schools. The teenage pregnancy rate here is ridiculous, so it’s no wonder why the school board will be teaching oral sex as an alternative to vaginal and anal sex… and it’s no wonder why some parents have taken matters into their own hands by writing their own safe sex manuals!
If the US government honestly thinks that abstinence-only sex education is actually going to work, they are deluded. The only thing it’s going to do is revert American society back to a higher teenage pregnancy rate and a higher HIV/AIDS infection rate. Bush is trying to create a nation of uneducated fools. Fools that will listen to his moral rhetoric and react in sheer panic. America is a nation of fear… and only the well-educated non-deluded citizens are able to smell the fear. I personally believe that the US government is currently in the process of producing a deluded nation in order to introduce them more comfortably to the notion of a theocracy… Bush’s true primary agenda.
September 29th, 2005 at 3:46 am
The teenage pregnancy rate in the UK is quite frightening and in a way self-perpetuating. The children of teenage mothers will often become teenage mothers themselves.
I’m glad our children receive sex education in school. My 15 year old son came home with a box of condoms from a sex education class. It does make it a lot easier for us as parents to talk to him about sex when the groundwork has already been done by someone else.
September 29th, 2005 at 10:46 am
Favorite pertinent quotes:
“It is easy to take liberty for granted, when you have never had it taken from you.” - Dick Cheney
“There comes a time when deceit and defiance must be seen for what they are. At that point, a gathering danger must be directly confronted. At that point, we must show that beyond our resolutions is actual resolve.” - Dick Cheney
“America is a Nation with a mission - and that mission comes from our most basic beliefs. We have no desire to dominate, no ambitions of empire. Our aim is a democratic peace - a peace founded upon the dignity and rights of every man and woman.” - George W. Bush
“Politicians brought the Nazis to power and started the war. They are the ones who brought about these disgusting crimes, and now we have to sit there in the dock with them and share the blame!” - Karl Doenitz, German Admiral, at Nuremburg - 5/27/46
“Hitler didn’t want to do things my way. I wanted things done legally. After all, I am a lawyer.” (4/24/46)…. “The mass murders were certainly not thought of as a consequence of the Nuremberg Laws, [though] it may have turned out that way.” - Wilhelm Frick, Minister of the Interior, Nuremberg
“The indictment knocked me on the head. First of all, I hand no idea at all about 90 per cent of the accusations in it. The crimes are horrible beyond belief, if they are true. Secondly, I don’t see how they can fail to recognize a soldier’s obligation to obey orders. That’s the code I’ve lived by all my life.” (11/1/45) - Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations for the German High Command
“… It is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country.” - Hermann Goering, Nuremberg
“For diplomacy to be effective, words must be credible - and no one can now doubt the word of America.” - George W. Bush
“We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” - Dick Cheney
“I am the right.” - Geroge W. Bush
September 29th, 2005 at 10:54 am
You might enjoy the following link:
http://www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/posters/preggersvictory.asp
September 29th, 2005 at 10:55 am
And this one:
http://www.whitehouse.org/initiatives/posters/pregnant.asp
September 30th, 2005 at 3:47 pm
I remember learning about sex as a child. My mother bought me two books, “Whats Happening to Me?” and “Where did I Come From” both by Peter Bayle. (still have those books). Now… grant it those books didn’t teach me oral sex or things like that but neither did a teacher. I mean I really believe teaching oral sex as an alternative is going too far. Teach safe sex, teach abstinence but a classroom is not the place for explaining oral sex (at least not by a teacher) I am not so sure any sex ed needs to be taught in school. Shouldn’t parents be responsible for teaching certain things?
September 30th, 2005 at 7:51 pm
officlife, sex *is* taught in schools… just not by teachers.
October 2nd, 2005 at 1:54 pm
Hence the reason, I said (at least not by the teachers)