3.28.2006

[Politics] Savage Love - Straight Rights

There was an addendum to this week's Savage Love, Dan Savage makes a good point and people should take note:


Straight Rights Update: Earlier this month Republicans in South Dakota successfully banned abortion in that state. Last week the GOP-controlled state house of representatives in Missouri voted to ban state-funded family planning clinics from dispensing birth control. "If you hand out contraception to single women," one Republican state rep told the Kansas City Star, "we're saying promiscuity is okay." On the federal level, Republicans are blocking the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception and keeping a 100 percent effective HPV vaccine—a vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of women every year—from being made available.

The GOP's message to straight Americans: If you have sex, we want it to fuck up your lives as much as possible. No birth control, no emergency contraception, no abortion services, no life-saving vaccines. If you get pregnant, tough shit. You're going to have those babies, ladies, and you're going to make those child-support payments, gentlemen. And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

What's it going to take to get a straight-rights movement off the ground? The GOP in Kansas is seeking to criminalize hetero heavy petting, for God's sake! Wake up and smell the freaking Holy War, breeders! The religious right hates heterosexuality just as much as it hates homosexuality. Fight back!


Think about it, if you sit back and let them outlaw Gay Rights, Women's Rights are next, and then Straight Rights. Its time for a backlash, hard and sound and swift. This year vote those fuckers out (whether they be left or right, there are a few Democrats who need it as well).

6 comments:

AllThingsSpring said...

Republicans are blocking the over-the-counter sale of emergency contraception and keeping a 100 percent effective HPV vaccine—a vaccine that will save the lives of thousands of women every year—from being made available.

And if you get HPV and it leads to cervical cancer, well, that's too bad. Have a nice funeral, slut.

== You know, this particular issue has had me completely incensed since I heard it. We have a virus that causes or is very strongly correlated in almost all cervical cancers. Studies indicate that this vaccine is effective as hell. This is virtually the CURE for cervical cancer. That's 500,000 women a year diagnosed worldwide, 250,000 of whom will die from it. In the United States thats 15,000 women a year, about 4100 who will die (ref). This vaccine pretty much eliminates that. A QUARTER MILLION WOMEN'S LIVES COULD BE SAVED EVERY YEAR. And these motherfuckers want to ban the vaccine because they think it might encourage women to be promiscuous. As if having sex outside their narrow moralizing worldview means you deserve a slow, painful death. That's their idea of being pro-life. That's their idea of the moral high ground. Do these assholes have any idea how horrible it is to lose someone you care about to cervical cancer? Your wife? Your daughter? Your grandaughter or niece? Your friend, your neighbor? If these pricks were talking about Polio or Smallpox instead of a sexually transmitted virus, public opinion would burn them alive. These people do not have enough moral authority to fill a thimble.

AllThingsSpring said...

I should add that this targets Human Papillomavirus HPV-16 and HPV-18 that cause an estimated 70 percent of cervical cancer cases.

My understanding is that this vaccination would be given to both young men and women. It would be important to vaccinate men as well, both to stop the potential spread of HPV to unvaccinated women, and also due to penile cancers that are assosciated with these strains of HPV. New studies of vaccine also show great promise in protecting against HPV-6 and HPV-11, which are major causes of genital warts.

Avindair said...

"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." These words were uttered by Judge Aaron Satie -- as a wisdom, and warning. The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged."

-- Jean Luc Picard
The Drumhead

...and you know how much I loathe TNG. So if I'm quoting that, you gotta know I'm honked-off by what I see in this country.

celesathene said...

The hypocrisy is what I loathe the most about these people. Pro-life, pro-capital punishment, Christian (aka love thy neighbor...do not judge lest ye be judged, etc), anti-equal rights (gay marriage)...

It's just ridiculous that they allow themselves and the people who follow allow these pricks to pick and choose.

In some ways, I could better accept their blocking of the HPV vaccine IF they also were up in arms about condoms and Viagra/Cialis/Levitra etc, etc. But you never hear about the worries that single/divorced middle aged are going to be promiscuous because they can get it up again. I'm guessing it's because those middle aged men are the ones in power using such drugs to bang their mistress.

Cervical cancer is one of the worst ways to die. As the cancer progresses, it slowly blocks off the ureters causing a build up of toxins normally removed by the kidneys via urine. It's called uremia and it is a lingering, painful death we can do little about.

Pernox said...

Dan Savage said earlier in his column that a study had shown that right-wingers are kinkier than lefties. Must be because of that repressed dynamics/self-delusions shit they do.

Anything that can prevent diseases such as HPV are a good thing and should be given to everyone, equally, at the gov'ts expense.

AllThingsSpring said...

news.bbc.co.uk

Looks like good results coming from the Phase III trials of the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine (Cervarix). That one is targeted at young women only and protects against HPV-16/18. The Merck vaccine (Gardacil) is also in or has finished with Phase III human trials and that one also protects against HPV-6/11. Sounds like they want to bring it to market sometime this year. (ref)