It's my 100th post and it's about Sex!

.... No this is not a Penthouse Forum post.  Your not going to find out anything about my secret sexual desires or what I like to do in the privacy of my own room.  It is about my disgust with the current attacks on the availability of healthy sexual information to our children.  The Utah Legislature is in session.  45 days of the year the Utah Legislature does everything they can to act in their own interest and against the interest of the Utah population.

Gayle Ruzicka - The very face of Evil

Representative Bill Wright (R) introduced HB 363 on the docket with the intent of banning all discussion of contraception, homosexuality and sexual practices from the public school health and sex eduction programs.  This should be seen as an assault on our children because it is exactly that!  Even the BYU Health Services Department has come out against this bill.   

Cougar Hall, assistant professor and school health adviser at Brigham Young University told the committee that Utah current law is very conservative. He said he supports abstinence education 100 percent, but there needs to be some information out there for students at risk.

"It is immoral to withhold life-saving information from segments of our population because it doesn't fit our value system," Hall said.~ Deseret News

Bill Wright used his granddaughter as a prop to defend his bill saying:

"She represents the innocence of those we are really talking about," Wright said. "This is not an important part of our curriculum. … It is just basically something out there that takes away from the character in our schools and takes away from the character of our students."

....

"I think we are intellectually dishonest when we teach pregnancy prevention in our classes and do not teach the only sure pregnancy prevention," Wright said.

My daughter Jessica (Liberal Blogger Kate) pointed out the misogyny in this tactic saying that only a girl could represent the innocence lost by sex.  He did not bring in a grandson because using a young boy as a prop would not have the same effect.

Mr. Wright is a Dairy Farmer by trade.  I don't say this to mock is chosen profession but to mock his credentials as a health educator or someone who would set health education policy.  To this end, Mr. Wright is  advocating withholding information from children and to rely on the failures of the past.  Parents do not really educate their children about sex.  Most of them are as qualified as Mr. Wright, or the woman with her hand up his back, Gayle Ruzicka; to provide real world sexual information to children.  Just because you have had sex, does not make you an expert.  Our children should be educated about their bodies and how they function mechanically and psychologically.  Our goal for our children should be not just having safer sex but developing a healthy attitude toward sex.  They will eventually have sex and we need to raise them in an environment where they can have good sex.

If you take Mr. Wright's comments and view them in the daylight your will realize how absurd they are.  We teach math in progressive steps.  Counting, Basic Addition, Subtraction and so on.  We do not expect them to open up a Trigonometry book and start solving the problems.  The same goes for their bodies.  Bad sexual information leads to bad decisions and bad sex.  I wish I had the information I know now when I was a teen and even in my 20's.  I feel like I was robbed to some degree of many additional years of good sex.  As much as I now know, I still find that I have some general misconceptions about sex.  If I am left to educate my children on my own those misconceptions could be passed on as bad information.

We have progressed, as humans, beyond the bronze age but for some reason we continue to cling to attitudes and practices from that era.  I don't know what Mr. Wright and the Puppet Master Ruzicka have to gain by denying quality information to children.  Why is denying the truth a virtue?  In response, I am linking two websites that are a great jumping off point for sexual information.  The first is Go Ask Alice from Columbia University and the second is Kinsey Confidential from Indiana University.  I think it is time somebody tells Gayle Ruzicka to shut up and sit down.  Let's provide our children with good information with an acknowledgement that the older they get the less they need us and the more independent their decisions become.

Should we Limit Expression that Causes the Rabid Right to Get their Panties in a Wad.

I had a brief (no pun intended) conversation with my Facebook friend Thomas on the fact that there are few American Artists who's work is compelling, edgy, and that tells a story.  In fact, the object of that conversation is posted below:

I responded to the post with this comment:

If we had artists like this they would be censored and their works hidden from public view. Maybe not at the hands of the government but by way of right wing hysteria.

And the following morning this story is featured on Fox 13:



This is exactly the same "Right Wing Hysteria" I was talking about.  I remember, while I was a college student, the Salt Lake City Public Library had some nude paintings on display. The ridiculous outcry was all over the news including one mother who was completely distraught because her little boy was having nightmares over the paintings.  The ilk of the Knitting Needle Mafia have instituted plastic covers for magazines in our grocery stores to censor what they deem inappropriate material.

There is the rub... it is what they deem inappropriate.  As the video indicates the law is clear as to what can be determined pornographic and a woman wearing the equivalent of a bikini is does not rise to that level.  Nor does the word SEX on the cover of Cosmopolitan.

So it is the ads in the mall, the magazines in grocery store and what is next the art in our museums...



I enjoyed the hosts final comment:

I don't think it is up to anyone to tell me what art I am and am not allowed to see.

The point of this post is that if we allow the fundies, the pious, the superstitious, and the rabid right to control the media they also control the message.  Watch this video that discusses the outrage over the Atheist bus ads in Fort Worth Texas.  Note how fauxrage over the freedom of expression will drown out a minorities message:



The bus system will likely stop carrying this type of ad and the Mayor of Fort Worth has threatened to change the makeup of the board if they don't agree with him.  They take away an outlet for those who are non religious to engage in what is really a benign and in offensive message.

John F. Kennedy said:

The artist, however faithful to his personal vision of reality, becomes the last champion of the individual mind and sensibility against an intrusive society and an officious state. The great artist is thus a solitary figure.....

If sometimes our great artists have been the most critical of our society, it is because their sensitivity and their concern for justice, which must motivate any true artist, makes him aware that our Nation falls short of its highest potential. I see little of more importance to the future of our country and our civilization than full recognition of the place of the artist.

If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.

And as such we should resist restrictions of expression whether the art is commercial, the art is edgy, or the art is just beautiful.  Restrictions of expressions of points of view that are not your own is tyrannical.  This is certainly not what the First Amendment is about.  But if you are a fundamentalist I guess the First Amendment was inspired by God to protect your point of view only.

"As a Thief in the Night" - The Utah Theocracy Regains Power

For 4.25 years Utah enjoyed some progressive thought. Under Governor Jon M. Huntsman we saw a relaxing of our liquor laws and support for civil unions. If it weren't for his economic policies and the idea that the government could be run like a business....he would look like a Utah Democrat. Now by definition and actions a Utah Democrat looks like a Moderate Republican in any other state.

Huntsman's legacy was marred when he resigned to take the Ambassadorship in China and he left the state to Gary Herbert. Herbert, a not very smart mean spirited ultra conservative voice and lackey of the Eagle Forum. I know this sounds harsh but under Huntsman Gayle Ruzicka and the Eagle Forum had significantly reduced influence. However, Herbert, who would not have ever been elected governor, needs her support to win the special election this year.

Unfortunately, the rise of power for Herbert also means a rise to power for Gayle Ruzicka. Now you might think that the curmudgeon has lost his mind or that I am subscribing to conspiracy theories...Take a look at this video posted by Chino Blanco on his Youtube Channel:



I am not sure if the significance of this video occurred to Chino Blanco when he posted it but I watched with a knot in my stomach as I saw the obvious work of the Knitting Needle Mafia. My instincts were confirmed at 1:11 into the video when the evil Empress Darth Ruzicka approached the chair and was greeted with a two handed clasp or honor.

Okay, it is true that Utah's STD rates are lower than the national average but the current trend is a near doubling of cases or STD's over the last five years. It is so concerning that pediatricians and primary care physicians are speaking out. According to the Utah CDC teens are more likely to get chlamydia than the seasonal flu. Girls are infected at 2:1 ratio over boys. If we don't have educational intervention with measurable outcomes we will soon be chasing the trend.

According to Paul Rolly of the Salt Lake Tribune the whole sorted affair went down like this:

Ruzicka pulled out all stops last weekend to muster her Eagle Forum forces to pressure legislators to slam the door on Urquhart's sex education bill before it could ever rise to the level of public debate on its merits.

Thanks to Ruzicka's Eagle Forum, the bill died in the Senate Education Committee on Monday. Ruzicka and her minions didn't need persuasive argument to kill the bill. They didn't need facts. They didn't even need to be on the right side of the issue. All they needed was a tool to dig a grave in which to bury the bill. And the perfect tool they found was Sen. Curtis Bramble, R-Provo, chairman of the Education Committee.

Gayle Ruzicka is the mother of 12 children all of which were educated at home. I don't understand why she feels she has an obligation to tell me or any other parent how we can choose to have our children educated. Her track record as a parent is not spotless. She is not the shinning example of benevolence and love that we might look to for our leadership. The fact is she is a bigot who counts as her friends Senator Chris Buttars and Senator Curtis Bramble. None of which have ever been burdened with the facts, logic, critical thinking or a real desire to serve the interest of the Great State of Utah.

I am a believer that it is time to start standing up for reason. That is why I believe that more than complaining about topic on my blog it is time for a call to action. I encourage those who are ill-served by Senator Bramble to call for his resignation. I also suggest local formation of phone trees to get combat the knitting needle mafia and email's to your local representatives to let them know where you stand. Gayle Ruzicka has shown that a minority interest can get a disproportionate share of the influence by being the squeaky wheel. I am willing to stand up, to lobby, to support candidates who are willing to vote for issues based upon the facts not ideology. It is time for disciples of reason to come out of the shadows and take control from theologues in the legislature. This is not an event....it is a process...one if delayed represents further harm to our children and our citizens.