The Bush administration is pushing its religious agenda by limiting reproductive freedom.

Prescription for Controversy: Bush Endorses Move To Curtail Access To Birth Control

In the final months of his administration, Bush is trying to force through a draft regulation that will “deny federal funding to any hospital, clinic, health plan or other entity that does not accommodate employees who want to opt out of participating in care that runs counter to their personal convictions,” the Washington Post reported yesterday. In other words, if a pharmacist doesn’t want to fill a birth control prescription, he doesn’t have to.

Advocates of this regulation, of course most coming from religiously-based organizations, are painting this as an anti-discrimination measure - ensuring that people who oppose contraceptives and abortion do not have to go against their religion in order to work for a hospital or health care entity. The report cites to “numerous cases in which health-care workers had to violate their consciences by providing birth control pills and other controversial medicine and conducting controversial procedures.

This concern over discrimination and religious liberty is the Religious Right’s continual strategy to push its very narrow viewpoint on the rest of the country. But this time it is quite clear, even to medical experts and scientists, where this regulation stems from.

As Sandhya Bathija from AU says “Let’s hope pressure from Congress puts an end to what is hopefully one of the last of Bush’s ridiculous “faith-based” schemes.”

Nice one from Crooks and Liars:

In discussion of McCain’s painful fumbling over why health insurance covers Viagra but not birth control, The Situation Room panel…debate the position between a rock and a hard place that McCain finds himself, eager to win over those feminist Clinton supporters but hesitant to speak out against that mainstay of the Republican platform: restricting women’s reproductive freedom. [...]

CAFFERTY: Well, you know, the answer is Viagra is used to treat a medical condition, erectile dysfunction. Birth control is a lifestyle choice. And that’s why insurance companies don’t reimburse for it unless pregnancy represents a danger for the woman. And then there’s a gray area where you can do a negotiation.

Excuse me? I know that most men don’t have a huge well of knowledge on the workings of a woman’s body…but I think that in absence of knowledge, it might be smarter to avoid definite declarations like that. Oral contraceptives are absolutely used to treat medical conditions [...] And since when is the life of a woman to be considered a “gray area” for negotiation? But there’s no gray area about a man’s desire to get it up, nor any consideration to the consequences of what happens when he can? Jack, you disappoint me.

But the reply is simply: let’s just say why McCain’s comments are right in line with the ‘publicans: because sex for any reason besides procreation is BAD, and there’s no real reason for a woman to have an orgasm unless she’s also willing to “fully commit” to pregnancy and childbirth.

And we all know where such a line of bullshit comes from…

But, of course, that’s a “religious belief,” so we can’t criticize it…

Registrar Who Won’t Serve Gays Because of Religious Beliefs has Illegitimate Child

Lilian Ladele recently won a suit against Islington Council alleging discrimination after she was punished for refusing to do her job and perform civil partnerships for same-sex couples. A judge ruled that Ladele was within her rights to deny service to homosexuals as a staunch Christian. However, it has now been revealed that Ladele is also a single mother to a child, now 27, born out of wedlock. So Ladele is so firmly Christian that she can’t possibly marry same-sex couples, but not so religious as to remain chaste until married. Presumably God will forgive the sin of extramarital sex but not the “sin” of joining two people together in a loving relationship. The discovery that she has an illegitimate son could cast suspicion on some of the testimony she gave at the discrimination tribunal. The tribunal wrote: “Ms Ladele is a Christian. Her unchallenged evidence was that she holds the orthodox Christian view that marriage is the union of one man and one woman for life to the exclusion of all others and that marriage is the God-ordained place for sexual relations.” “She told us that she believed this to be contrary to God’s instructions that sexual relations belong exclusively between a man and a woman within marriage.”

Ah, yes, moral xians…

Sorry, but this stuff always cracks me up…

Catholic school principal caught in public gay threesome

The principal of a New York Catholic school was arrested Sunday after being caught naked with two other men on a vacant property. “Two men got out and met a third person on the side of my house,” nearby resident Rich Pacheco told WCBS, “and they went on that property and that’s when I called 911.” 41-year-old Gabriel DeJesus, who heads Sacred Heart School for the Arts in Mount Vernon, is currently being investigated by the New York Archdiocese. Officials said that he “has been a well-regarded educator,” and he was still serving as the school’s principal as of Monday. DeJesus would only say that he “made a mistake” when asked for comment.

The only mistake I can (maybe) see here is that you had sex in public.

Well, that, and being catholic (definitely).

But gay threesomes? Go nuts, dudes! (Pun intended.)

Well, it’s been a while, but you’ll all be relieved to know that The American Family Association has found another subject to boycott: McDonald’s. Why? TEH GAYS! Those evil, subversive hummersexuals have infiltrated all that is holy and truly Amurrican-the Big Mac, the Quarter Pounder, the Sausage McMuffin, the Adam’sApple Turnover and anything Supersized! How’d they do it? Brace yourselves, ugly words ahead…tolerance and, dare I say it? Diversity! McDonald’s donated $20,000 to the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Yowsers!

From here, this apparently means that

McDonald’s, as a corporation, [is] refusing to remain neutral in the culture wars. McDonald’s has chosen not to remain neutral but to give the full weight of their corporation to promoting the homosexual agenda, including homosexual marriage.
Full weight? Does the AFA think that $20,000 check was supersized with a few extra zeroes before the decimal point? Mickey D’s probably throws out $20K worth of grease a day.
AFA is upset at McDonald’s for refusing to condemn Vice President of Communications Richard Ellis’s decision to serve on the Board of Directors of the National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce (NGLCC). AFA President Donald Wildmon said the situation is “strange” because “it’s the family that McDonald’s appeals to — children’s playland, you know, all the little toys, all of that. And they are promoting a lifestyle that would utterly destroy the traditional family.”

Yeah-destroying the traditional family-one clogged artery at a time!

McDonald’s has come back at the AFA with this statement:

We treat our employees and our customers with respect and dignity, regardless of their ethnicity, religious beliefs, sexual orientation or other factors. We support our employees’ personal involvement in organizations of their choice.

In other words, if our customers and employees want to hold the cheese or hold the lettuce, what they want will not upset us. Oh wait, that’s Burger King…Maybe the Burger King and Ronald McDonald are secretly a couple!

I highly recommend a reading of Chris Kelly’s rollicking Huffington Post article McDonald’s Makes Jesus Cry, which is where I first read the news. Hat tip to alexatheist over at NoGodBlog.

Here’s a fun link to read some of the responses to the AFA boycott ad, but I didn’t see any nearly as funny as the ones Chris Kelly mined.

And another funny item I came across when doing some searching on this post: apparently the AFAOneNewsNow site has a filter which auto replaces the word”gay” with the word “homosexual”. And it ends up with some unfortunate results, such as sprinter Tyson Gay being renamed Tyson Homosexual. See here.

Now, I don’t really eat at Mickey D’s all that much, but I think I’m Lovin’ It tonight! How about you?

The Cat-o-lick folks in Australia are getting special treatment with laws made just for them against anyone causing “annoyance” to pilgrims attending Catholic World Youth day next week. These laws came just a day after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd called on all Australians to show the Pope “respect” during his visit.

Protesters plan an “annoying” anti-pope fashion show which violates the new laws and “could attract a penalty of up to 5,500 dollars, prompting one designer last week to come up with a T-shirt reading “$5,500, a small price to pay for annoying Catholics.”

Anti-Pope fashion parade held ahead of Australian visit

“They are not from Milan,” acknowledged Rachel Evans, spokeswoman of the NoToPope group, as T-shirts featuring slogans such as “The Pope is wrong, put a condom on” were displayed outside the New South Wales state parliament.

Other shirts, which are selling for 20 dollars (19 US), read “Pope go homo”, “There is no God” and “Does the history of your church annoy you?”

Among the most graphic was one featuring Benedict XVI standing with arms outstretched but with pointed, red devil ears and a tail superimposed on the image under the slogan “Chief homophobe”.

NoToPope, a coalition including Christians, atheists and gay groups, was protesting at new regulations giving police power to stop conduct that “causes annoyance or inconvenience to participants” in World Youth Day.

Link to full story

First, a shout-out to the Ron-ster for updating this site and damning all of our souls to hell. Thanks, Chief…

Builder of Planned Parenthood project in Portland pulls out: Walsh Construction didn’t want to deal with aggressive anti-abortion protesters

[...] When Planned Parenthood of the Columbia/Willamette signed on as the anchor tenant, Walsh said, he called builders in other cities who had dealt with aggressive anti-abortion activists. He was told that protesters had gone as far as staking out contractors’ homes. “It’s disruptive and very threatening,” he said. “I just didn’t want to put my family through that.” [...] Bill Diss, one of the organizers of the local protest, said the effort is designed to remind the businesses involved in the project whom they’re working for. He called Planned Parenthood a “killing center” that targets young girls, teaching them about sex and masturbation, which he called “the gateway drug to lust.” “They’re up in North Portland targeting young black girls to get them into a life of sex,” said Diss, a science teacher at Portland’s Benson High.

Teaching girls about masturbation? The gateway drug to lust? Say it ain’t so! (I’m assuming that boys can jerk-off as much as they want. But girls?)

And the fact that this dildo’s a science teacher cracks me up even more.

Yes, let’s stop promoting birth control to young people. As we all know, abstinence-only programs are really the best…

Go, Bill Diss! Teach those young people! Show them what’s what!

I ran across this while doing a search for something else,and I thought it was quite comical, and is a fitting follow-up to my last post. Not only is God answering prayers for special favors to win golf games, and football games, etc, he is now got his own sex toy advice hotline! No wonder he can’t save people from all these natural disasters, disease, famine, abuse, neglect, etc. He’s much, much too busy with other things, like Joy Wilson’s sex life.

The Joy of Christian Sex Toys

NPR.org, March 21, 2008 · Joy Wilson went looking for something to spice up her marriage without compromising her Christian beliefs.

Finding nothing, she founded her own “sin-free” sex toy business. Book22.com caters to the Christian community with books, toys and occasional advice. The name refers to the Song of Solomon, the extended love poem that forms the 22nd book of the Bible.

Wilson says that after the birth of her first child, she had trouble rekindling her desire for intimacy. She and her husband went looking for marital aids, and found that Internet searches for products as tame as massage oil led to sites with pornographic images. “I was really surprised that it was that bad,” she says.

She and her husband talked it over and decided that there must be a way for conservative people to add a spark to their romantic lives. She says their site steers clear of certain types of sexual activity that they believe are unholy. And they carefully consider which new products to add.

“We pray about things before we add them to our site,” she says. “We live our lives very openly in front of Jesus, so we just kind of pray for direction about which way he would have us go, and I have to be honest with you — he’s really surprised us. … Almost our whole entire ’special order’ page has come about from that.”

Wilson says she and her husband are blessed with good health, but that God has shown them that other couples might need help from a particular toy.

On our blog, an open thread: Sex toys as a Christian ministry.