Just in case you thought that the country was finally moving in the direction of sanity, here's something I managed to miss in all the post-election excitement:

The Bush administration has appointed a new chief of family-planning programs at the Department of Health and Human Services who worked at a Christian pregnancy-counseling organization that regards the distribution of contraceptives as "demeaning to women."

That's kind of like having a vegetarian in charge of beef distribution.

I am just dumbfounded by these people who consider birth control to be a problem. Obviously improved accessibility and affordability of birth control is what we need in this country with so many un-planned and unwanted pregnancies.

This holier-than-thou man will be in charge of distribution of hundreds of millions of US taxpayer dollars. What's it going to go to? Contraceptive prayer?

If you want to get a sense of the misogynistic attitudes supporting this appointment, check out what some freepers are saying. Plenty of tinfoil hats to go around there.

And if that's not enough, the Bush Administration is now pushing abstinence-only programs for adults.

Now the government is targeting unmarried adults up to age 29 as part of its abstinence-only programs, which include millions of dollars in federal money that will be available to the states under revised federal grant guidelines for 2007.

The government says the change is a clarification. But critics say it's a clear signal of a more directed policy targeting the sexual behavior of adults.

So let's get this straight. The Republicans are against regulating companies that dump pollution into the air and water. They're against regulations that might impact the megaprofits of drug companies and credit card companies. They're against regulations to improve auto safety and mileage (and thus our dependency on foreign oil).

But they want to regulate sex?

How crazy is all this?

About author

media girl also blogs at other places.