You’ve probably heard that Texas will soon require that all 6th grade girls be vaccinated against HPV, which causes cervical cancer. I’m surprised that a conservative state like Texas is taking the lead on this, and by a Republican governor no less. Needless to say, many fundies would rather let their daughters die of cancer than admit that they might actually be interested in sex.

Here’s what the Fundie Research Council has to say:

On Friday, the controversy surrounding mandatory HPV vaccinations reached a new peak when Gov. Rick Perry (R-TX) issued an executive order requiring girls who enter the sixth grade in 2008 to be immunized. Perry’s action short-circuited an issue that was currently before the legislature. Rather than allow elected leaders to debate the bill and vote, Perry bypassed the legislature altogether and imposed his will on the state’s parents, many of whom object to being sidelined on an issue that directly affects their children’s health.

First of all, the governor of Texas isn’t an “elected leader”? I know that the executive branch isn’t supposed to make the laws, but this statement is downright disingenuous.

Second, if it were just a matter of their own children’s health, I would agree with the fundies. The government shouldn’t mandate things like that. However, with vaccines, you need to have the majority of the at-risk population immunized, or they don’t work. If enough fanatical Christians withhold the vaccine from their daughters (and in Texas, there are a lot of fanatical Christians), that puts everyone else’s children at risk.

The 20th century was an amazing example of the power of vaccines. We eradicated smallpox (except in the unlocked freezers of the Soviet Union), virtually eradicated polio, measles, and countless other plagues. The life expectancy in the year 1900 for somebody born that year was approximately 49 years. The life expectancy for someone born in 1997 was approximately 76 years (according to this table). Much of that amazing improvement is due to vaccines. Fundies like the Dark Ages so much that they want to return to the lifespans of the Dark Ages.

Preventing cervical cancer is a critical public health goal; however, HPV is transmitted through sexual contact, making it much harder for schools to justify mandating the vaccine as a requirement of public school attendance.

Fundies belong in a sideshow. They’re amazing creatures. Not only can they pull ideas out of their ass, they can talk out of both sides of their mouth at the same time. That’s more amazing than the bearded lady!

In this case, we’re used to hearing the fundies decry the high rates of teen sex. Then at the same time, they say that there isn’t enough teen sex to justify the vaccine.

I love picking on Bill Johnson and his indecent “American Decency Association”. It’s a third-tier fundie pressure group that thinks too much of itself. It has small-dog syndrome. You’ve seen those little yippie-dogs (chihuahuas, pekinese, etc.) that think they’re masters of their domain. They bark a lot. They think they’re scaring you, but the only thing you’re afraid of is stepping on them by accident.

Bill Johnson graced my inbox with his disapproval of some of the Super Bowl commercials: Super Bowl Ads 2007—Safe for Family Viewing?

Compared to years past, there were fewer sexually explicit ads during the Super Bowl. However, during this night of prime-time family viewing, there certainly were several ads not fit for family consumption.

You can be sure old BJ set his Tivo to record the game, so he could watch these commercials over and over again. So he could report on them, of course!

I have not seen these commercials, so I am forced to take BJ’s word on how disgusting they are. Nevertheless, I shall endeavor to provide comments.

Snickers candy bars — The most disgusting ad of the night. Two mechanics are shown working under the hood of a car. One takes out a Snickers and sticks one end of the candy bar in his mouth. The other mechanic leans over and begins eating the Snickers from the other end. The two meet in the middle and the image gives the illusion of an erotic kiss between the two men. In the version aired during the Super Bowl, the two men are disgusted that they had kissed and counteract it by doing something “manly”. In an alternative ending to the ad, not shown last night but available on Snickers’ web site, a third mechanic comes up after the “kiss” and suggests group, male sex. Stating: “Is there room for three on this love boat?”

That just sounds like a stupid idea for a commercial. Maybe the actual commercial managed to be funny. Will it sell candy bars? Who knows? Is it offensive? Maybe to some people. However, remember that mild homophobia has been a classic comedy device for decades. Does BJ get upset every time Bugs Bunny kisses Elmer Fudd on the lips? Or is he too busy being upset at the implied concept of man-on-rabbit sex to even think about the homosexual aspect?

My gawd! That’s it! Proof of the homosexual agenda! Proof that after them homos get their gay marriage into law, they’ll push for inter-species marriage! BJ knows it’s true! He saw it in a Warner Bros. “documentary”! (Don’t worry, BJ. Elmer Fudd is a true Christian. He never lets Bugs get beyond first base.)

Go Daddy.com — Another ad using sex to sell is GoDaddy.com. This corporation has made it a practice the last few years of airing Super Bowl ads featuring tasteless, highly erotic displays of barely clad women. Their ads blatantly advertise nothing about their product, but Go Daddy must hope viewers will remember the company by associating it with their sexual ads.

This is how Newsweek described the GoDaddy ad: “Another crass, stupid ad featuring juggy women spraying each other with champagne. The intellectual basis for these ads seems to be that men like [breasts]. Basically, this is a company that thinks so little of its clientele that it believes our loyalty can be bought with nothing more than a flash of cleavage. Enough already.”

Certainly GoDaddy needs to ask themselves if that is how they want to present themselves. Some feminists might be offended.

But was it too dirty for TV? No. BJ needs to get over his hangup about scantily-clad women. What’s wrong, BJ? Are you afraid that subconsciously you might be heterosexual?

Chevrolet — went from a wholesome, all-American ad during the first quarter to a vulgar, sexualized ad during the second. This ad featured two women in a Chevy vehicle stopped at a city traffic signal. A supposed bum comes up to wipe off the car, and when the female driver rolls down her window to give him some cash, he takes it in his teeth ala a male stripper, and begins taking off his clothes. Suddenly dozens of men surround the car, stripping and moving erotically. Several disgusting shots are shown of men in bikini underwear.

Wait. Now BJ seems to be afraid that he’s gay. I think I see his problem: He’s afraid that he might be sexual. Don’t worry, BJ! There’s an operation that you might be interested in. As an added bonus, it will qualify you to work in a harem! And don’t worry about it affecting your marriage. I’m guessing that you don’t wear the pants in your family anyway.

Through a proxy, of course. I guess God and Satan are like the U.S. and U.S.S.R. during the Cold War—too afraid to fight each other directly, so they do it through Vietnam, Korea, and crappy TV shows.

This news comes to us via the Baptist Press article North Greenville Univ. alum appears on ‘American Idol’.

Chris Sligh, a former student at North Greenville University in Tigerville, S.C., made it to the next round of “American Idol” auditions in Hollywood after passing the first round Jan. 30.
[…]
Sligh sang several times at special occasions on the university campus while he was a music student at North Greenville, including leading worship in chapel and performing in ensembles and choirs.

I don’t have to be fake-psychic Sylvia Browne to make a prediction here, because unlike Browne’s babblings, this prediction will come true: If Sligh wins American Idol, the fundies will claim that it is God’s will. Because Sligh is so holy, God wants him to win, so Sligh can spread God’s message to more people.

The funny part happens if Sligh doesn’t win. You won’t hear a peep out of the fundies. What’s wrong, fundies? Doesn’t God have enough talent to win on a reality show? Or does it mean that Sligh is actually a Godless sinner who has not truly accepted Jesus Christ as his personal lord and delusion?

Baptist Press has released a long, omnibus article that summarizes all of this week’s “threats” to “real” marriage. In their article MARRIAGE DIGEST, they try to overwhelm us with all of the imminent perils. Let’s look at some of them and see how scared we get, shall we? This is more fun than a haunted house at Halloween! (but not nearly as scary as those fundie “hell houses”)

Dateline: Israel

Hey! Don’t mention dates! That’s how these homos met! Anyway, here’s some Baptist Press “wisdom”:

Israel registered its first “gay marriage” Jan. 29, two months after the nation’s highest court issued a landmark ruling for homosexual couples.
[…]
The November decision by the Israeli Supreme Court ordered the country to recognize “gay marriages” from other countries, such as Canada and Spain.

Don’t you love the scare quotes? They use it every time they talk about gay marriage. It acts as a signal to their sheeple so they know what to be afraid of. (BTW, I picked up the term “scare quotes” from Fundie Watch. If you aren’t reading it, why the hell not? Out of the entire blogosphere, it’s the blog that comes closest to this one in tone and temperament. The Watcher is my evil twin. Or maybe he’s the good one and I’m the evil twin. No, wait. We’re both evil!)

Although the ruling didn’t allow same-sex couples to get “married” within Israel’s borders, it nonetheless put the country at odds with other nations such as the United States and Great Britain, neither of which recognizes foreign “gay marriages.”

How does that put Israel at odds with the U.S.? Israel doesn’t marry gays, and the U.S. doesn’t recognize gay marriages (Massachusetts notwithstanding). Their statement doesn’t even make sense! Didn’t these nitwits ever take a composition class in college? Oh, that’s right. They all went to Baptist colleges, where all they learn is how to read the “approved” Bible passages and ignore the inconvenient ones.

Despite Israel’s conservative image, homosexual activists there have won significant legal and political battles in recent years. For instance, homosexuals in Israel can serve openly in the military. America’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy prevents such open service, with U.S. military leaders saying open service would harm morale and cohesion.

Yet Israel doesn’t seem to have significant morale and cohesion problems, thus putting a lie to the whole excuse.

Dateline: Hawaii

Democrats in Hawaii’s legislature are hoping to pass a bill this session that would legalize same-sex civil unions, putting the state alongside Connecticut, New Jersey and Vermont. Democrats control both chambers. Civil unions grant same-sex couples the legal benefits of marriage.

Holy crap! (In case you’re wondering what holy crap looks like, I once took a dump that looked like the Virgin Mary. I thought about bronzing it and selling it on eBay, but I decided that it had work to do in the sewer system, saving the albino alligators’ immortal souls. That and the fact that I didn’t want to reach my hand into the toilet.)

As I was saying, holy crap! “Same-sex civil unions” gets past the fundie gaydar! They actually accept that term with out scare-quoting it.

Also, did you notice the subtle tarring of Democrats? The message is “Don’t be like those homo-loving Democrats. Only the Republican party is approved by your church!”

Conservatives call civil unions “marriage by another name” and say they’re another step toward the decline of the family.

I don’t know if it’s another step, but I know what the first step is: Fundies committing adultery at rates at least as high as non-fundies. Considering the number of fundies and the rates of adultery, more families are ripped apart by that than by any side effect of legalizing gay marriage (and as near as I can tell, if Adam and Steve down the street get married that it will in no way cause Ward and June to divorce.)

Dateline: Connecticut

Connecticut Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell signed a same-sex civil unions bill two years ago, but she said Jan. 26 she’d veto a “gay marriage” bill if it passed the state legislature. Such a bill likely will be introduced this session.

I wonder if she did the air quotes when she mentioned gay marriage.

Dateline: Wyoming

The Wyoming Senate Jan. 31 passed a defense of marriage act by a vote of 21-8 that would prohibit recognition of out-of-state “gay marriages,” AP reported. The bill now goes to the House. More than 40 states already have such a law.

I wish I could make fun of this statement, but it’s quite sad. More than 40 states have recently enacted discrimination laws. Not anti-discrimination laws, as was the trend in the 1960s. Discrimination laws. Welcome to the fundie future.

Baptist Press reminds us to hate locally and think globally, in their article Rankin urges 43 new missionaries to ‘look, love & live’ for Christ:

While walking in a small town in Thailand years ago, Richard Blount spotted some Buddhists entering a temple and sensed his first heart-tug for missions.

“I witnessed several Thais … bowing down, lighting incense and praying to a big, gold Buddha,” he recalled. “I thought how fruitless, these people seeking hope in an idol. It was then that God began to burden my heart for the Thai people.”

Buddhism is one of the most peaceful religions on Earth, yet these fundies somehow think it’s their right to take that away from these people and teach them the ways of one of the world’s most violent religions?

Blount and his wife Linda were two of 43 new Southern Baptist missionaries appointed Jan. 31 at Immanuel Baptist Church in Highland, Calif.

Forty-three just from one church?! The planet is doomed!

Rob Zinn, senior pastor at the church, thanked all the missionaries for following God’s call to the mission field.

“Trust me when I say that the Kingdom of God is grateful for your obedience,“ he said. [emphasis added]

Now this is getting sick. God is the ultimate top, and the missionaries are all bottoms!

“Yet, there is one thing [you] all have in common,” he said. “Someone touched your life with the witness about Jesus Christ

Apparently they were touched by God’s whip, too. Now the dominatrix behavior of the nuns in Catholic schools makes more sense!

One missionary, born a Hindu in Bangladesh, shared during the service how another missionary impacted his life when he had no other way of hearing the Gospel.

Did he impact it with a switch or a cat-o-nine-tails?

“From that day I became a follower of Jesus,” he said. “Afterward, God used [my wife and me] to share and lead many people to Christ in Bangladesh as well [as] in the United States.”

I thought S&M was a form of safe sex. Apparently it can lead to reproduction. It makes more missionaries!

The couple now plans to share the Good News with people in South Asia.

I wish these pinheads would stop using the phrase “good news”. News is something that happened recently. The Jesus fiction is 2000 years old. That’s only “recent” on the geological time scale of billions of years. Oh wait, they don’t believe in billions of years! Well, I guess their story isn’t “news” by their own definition!

More than 17,000 South Koreans attended a missions event to learn how they can impact global evangelism.

NOOO!! Leave Korea to the Moonies! They’re batshit crazy, but at least they don’t start wars!

Jesus also commanded His followers to love, Rankin said.

[…] Christ quickly added that they also should love their neighbor as they love themselves.

You can love your neighbor. You just can’t love your neighbor’s wife. I read that on a stone tablet somewhere.

Believers also must live out their faith in Christ wherever they go, Rankin said. Jesus taught His disciples to embrace a new lifestyle.

Oh, now we’re back to the kinky stuff! I didn’t know Jesus was a member of “the lifestyle”!

Baptist Press reports Tornado damages 4 dorms, chapel at Fla. conference center:

A tornado touched down at Florida Baptists’ Lake Yale Conference Center at 3:30 a.m. Friday, Feb. 2, causing extensive damage to its North Camp area as a series of storms tore across central Florida in the early morning hours.

So why is it that every time a natural disaster hits some place they don’t like, fundies claim that it is God’s wrath for immoral behavior? But when a similar disaster strikes them, there is no word about God’s retribution?

What’s good for the gay is good for the gander.

Here’s more wisdom from Tony Perkins of the Fundie Research Council: an article titled Spiritual State of the Union. He references an article in the Washington Times (a Moonie newspaper, BTW). Here’s a paragraph from the Times article:

Believers are many: 82 percent of the respondents believe in God, while 13 percent believe in a “universal spirit or higher power.”

So 82% specifically believe in God, but if you include all superstitious folk, the number rises to 95%. I find that sad and depressing.

Most people might be pretty happy if 82% of the population agrees with them, but fundies are not most people. Good old Tony Perkins can only see the 18%. Here’s what he has to say in his commentary:

While it seems like good news that 82% of Americans “believe in God,” that doesn’t always translate into support for public policies consistent with His law on issues such as abortion, morality, homosexuality, and marriage.

It’s not supposed to translate! Public law cannot be based on Biblical law. This is the problem we’re facing. These fundies don’t understand one of the core principles of our country’s founding.

Maybe we should adopt Biblical law for one year. By the end of the year, all of the fundies will have been stoned to death for violating the laws of Leviticus. (My guess is that most of those will be from adultery) (See the Letter to Dr. Laura for a refresher.)

But the Church must continue to stand for Biblical Truth—on that America was founded and only on that will she be sustained.

Once again, he’s repeating the lie about America being founded on the Bible. He also asserts that the only way for America to survive is to adhere to his narrow interpretation of Biblical doctrine. That’s another lie.

Notice he says “the Church”? That means his church. Your church, if you have one, isn’t included. And if you don’t have a church, you’re not included.