Okay South Jordan... I told you so! Dave Alvord is not good for South Jordan!

I would like to remind of you a couple of posts from the past:

http://itsacurmudgeonslife.blogspot.com/2013/09/david-alvord-is-bad-for-south-jordan.html

and this one:

http://itsacurmudgeonslife.blogspot.com/2013/10/sexism-just-another-reason-david-alvord.html

A couple of things to note.  

• Neither Federal or State tax dollars are spent on abortive services.  Let's acknowledge this.  
• This letter goes out on the heels of Herbert's ill advised order to defund Planned Parenthood.
• The letter is not good public policy nor does it represent one of the most educated voter bases in the State of Utah.  It is grandstanding.  
• This is a veiled attack on Planned Parenthood.  It is very clear.  Even the comments on the Facebook post make it clear his actions and the actions of the South Jordan City Council are not represented of either fact or the majority of its constituents.
• It is heartening to see the number of citizens who not only oppose this policy but are taking the mayor to task over it.

He also makes the claim that the city should be interested in abortion because it is a matter of public safety.

Really?

The same David Alvord who refused to participate in a public safety program to install An Automated External Defibrillator (AED) in his dental office. Even though this public safety program, which he was required to participate in by law, would potentially save a life.  Oh wait... we are only interested in potential life.  He has one in his office now.  Do you know why?  Because it was donated by the Fire Department.

David Alvord, now, wants to stand guard at every woman's vagina to make sure they don't show their own autonomy.  He wants to put money toward something that has been legal since before he was born.  He indicates, later, that he wants to address legal abortion because every has unintended consequences.  That unintended consequence is autonomy.  A woman does not need the approval of a man to enjoy sex and to choose when and if she wants to be a mother.  The unintended consequence of his refusal to put an AED in his office might be... the death of someone he could really have saved

He says he feels this is a way to directly influence something he has little influence on.  This is misguided at best and represents the misogyny so prevalent in South Jordan. If he wants to reduce abortions he should support comprehensive sex education in schools.  He should support ready availability of birth control to all of his citizens. He should support STD testing.  All of those have been shown to reduce abortions. All of those services are 97% of what Planned Parenthood does.  The rest of what they do is paid for by private donations.  They are paid for by those who support a woman's right to choose.  

He doesn't though.  This policy is not about what is effective it is about his next election and imposing his religious world view on everyone he comes into contact with.  The city council is complicit and guilty as well.  They are sending the wrong message.  It is a message that one of the most affluent cities in the state is determined to hold women as property.  If she has sex that is non-procreative she will suffer for it. She should suffer for it!  Why?  Because god said.  

David Alvord has a history of misogyny and sexism.  I have documented that above but let me help you out with this screen shot:

 And then he thought this was funny.  You know in the same way a high school kid quotes lyrics to make is point... out of context.

The City of South Jordan can directly effect good public policy.  As I suggested above that is by petitioning the legislature to approve fact based, science supported, comprehensive sex education.  It can work with Planned Parenthood to reduce the number of abortions through a sex positive information based program.  Instead David Alvord is a the lead of misinformation campaign in the city.  The facts escape him.  In fact he admits he is ignorant to the facts.  Does that stop him?  No! Facts have never swayed him.  I'll say it again!  David Alvord is wrong for South Jordan. 

If you want to make your voice on the matter heard... Planned Parenthood is holding a rally on August 25th!  Here is the link: 

Stand with Planned Parenthood 

You may have been born that way... but it was your choice!

I recently posted this article on Facebook: http://www.occupydemocrats.com/a-nun-brilliantly-exposed-pro-life-hypocrites-with-this-hard-hitting-quote/> It is an article in which a nun calls out the conservatives in this country with this quote:

"I do not believe that just because you’re opposed to abortion, that that makes you pro-life. In fact, I think in many cases, your morality is deeply lacking if all you want is a child born but not a child fed, not a child educated, not a child housed. And why would I think that you don’t? Because you don’t want any tax money to go there. That’s not pro-life. That’s pro-
birth. We need a much broader conversation on what the morality of pro-life is.”

 Now the article is clearly about the way we treat children who are poor and disadvantaged once they are born. The article is not about abortion. The conservatives in my feed couldn't help but make it about that.  You can read the entire thread here:

https://www.facebook.com/kqdudley/posts/10207627350105610?comment_id=10207659129900085&notif_t=feed_comment_reply 

David, a 20 something white Mormon male who lives in Provo, UT, entered into the discussion. What caught my attention was his application of Mormon theology.  I am very familiar with his mind set here.  I had just forgotten how twisted it can be.

In regards to the moral and up righteous, I was recognizing or trying to recognize that there are people of variable moral focuses.  My point when using those words was that pretty much no matter what, if a woman who is raped and impregnated, of her own choice, decides to go through the pregnancy and raise the child, no one is going to come up to her and say "You are a terrible person, how dare you do what you just did, it was morally wrong for the following reasons:" because they would have no reasons.  If you can come up with one please, go ahead and tell me.  As for fertilization and conception, that is focused primarily in both my knowledge of biological science and religious belief.  I believe that we were all spirits before we came into this mortal life.  I believe we Volunteered to come into this mortal existence because it was only through experiencing mortality and being able to choose between right and wrong that we would be able to become more like our Heavenly Father, the father of our spirits.  I believe that when conception occurs, when the ova and sperm cell combine, that that new cell which is now as capable of becoming an adult human being as a baby outside of the womb, is given to one of my spirit brothers and sisters who still lies beyond the veil.  That body, though it be a single cell, is theirs, and just for us the moment it dies there goes all future chances for mortal experience in this life for them, they don't get another body.  This is why the "It would be better if they don't get born in a terrible situation" argument doesn't work with me.  I believe the(y) Volunteered, knowing full well what they were getting themselves into, to be put in that body.

Mormons believe we were all spirits in a pre-existence.  The number of bodies are finite and were all conceived by a heavenly father (god) and a heavenly mother.  It also could be a father and several mothers because polygamy is still alive and well in the afterlife. They are conceived mechanically the same way you and I were conceived by our parents.  They gestate in the same way humans do now.

If a child dies in childbirth or in the womb it is considered to have lived its life.  It has one chance to get a mortal body.  That is it.

Here is where the theology becomes concerning:  Mormons believe that we all choose to come to earth and to get a body.  We knew, in some cases we would be born into challenging situations. Those might be:

• to a mother that was raped
• it might be in desperate poverty
• that might be with a physical or mental disability
• that might be with "same sex attraction"

It matters not the plight... we chose it!  This belief disconnects your average Mormon from empathy and divorces them from any responsibility to fix anything outside of their sphere.  It also allows them to dogmatically cling to "god's law" without considering the harm or potential harm the the theology may cause. 

What Mormon's fail to see is the disconnect in believing the above and the application of "free will" in this life.  The life you chose was pre-determined.  You knew you would be born to a woman who was raped.  Therefore she had not choice but to be raped.  The male who raped her had no choice.  If they hadn't been complicit in their destiny you wouldn't be able to realize your own. They fail to see how it leads to "this life must be endured" mentality instead of "this life should be lived."

It is easy for David to regurgitate these teachings.  It is much more difficult for him to think critically about what they really mean.  This is the pernicious nature of Mormonism.  It divorces the believer from critical thought... because that is the only way it can survive.  It does that at the expense of the human condition and ultimately harms our humanity.  

Hold on to your rights...the Legislature is in session!

For the last decade or so I have followed the Utah State Legislature while it is in session. Every year we get a new 340 or so laws and resolutions. However we rarely see any removed from the books. For example, in Utah Fornication is a Class B Misdemeanor. What does that mean? Technically pre-marital sex is a crime. Now they have acknowledged they have not enforced this law for years but they have a moral imperative to keep it on the books because pre-marital sex is immoral.

Private Clubs and the Zion Curtain

This year the hot button issue is our ridiculous liquor laws. Let me stop you before you are inclined to point out to me that we are not the only state with silly liquor laws....Just because someone else is doing it does not mean that we should. Here in Utah the control of liquor is more than a public health issue it is a moral issue. The state legislature is controlled by an overwhelming group of Teetotalers. Folks who have not consumed alcohol in their lives and their knowledge of alcohol consumption is based upon their religious and moral objections to it. The LDS church has a strong moral objection to any consumption of alcohol. Most of our legislators are LDS. It is not the public health portion of the argument that causes folks to want to deny your free choice to consume, in a bar, an alcoholic beverage. It is the religious moral objection. There is a moral imperative and that translates into a crusade and if you don't get on the wagon you will be ran over by it.

We have a private club system here in Utah and I believe we are the only state that does. We relegate alcohol sales to liquor stores that are closed on Sunday and Election Day (as well as all other state and federal holidays). What we know is the Private Club system is no more successful at stopping underage drinking than our Liquor stores. The liquor stores are about revenue. In a state where we try to privatize everything including some emergency services and prisons, we have state run liquor stores(socialism?). Why? They really do not stop or slow the flow of alcohol but they do produce revenue because all alcohol is taxed and marked up at a ridiculous rate. That money goes to pay for the expensive retail buildings and state employees (most of whom get health benefits and retirements that all retail sales folks would love to have).

Now the President of the Senate, Michael Waddoups, wants to have all drinks mixed in a back room or behind a barrier and out of the view of children because it will tempt the little lads and lasses into drinking, under age. There has been much said about this in the local Salt Lake Tribune Public Forum. My favorite points have been:

1. Over Eating is as dangerous as drinking and can have the same deadly effect. We should make sure our children do not witness obese people eating and enjoying their food as the may become obese.
2. Tavern owners should have armed guards protecting the alcohol and making sure no one is seen enjoying themselves (this is sarcasm of course)
3. Our liquor laws are driving away jobs. Companies decline to locate here because there is a perception you cannot get a drink. Tourism suffers because folks choose Colorado instead of the greatest snow on earth.

There has been no documentation that any of our current controls curb alcohol abuse. In some cases our laws have been determined unconstitutional. However, tavern owners and retailers are hesitant to aggressively challenge liquor laws because the Alcohol Control Commission has a history of being heavy handed and vindictive.

I am of the opinion that liquor laws should have controls that reduce opportunity of under age drinking. Good ID laws are effective. I also believe we have a public health concern regarding over consumption and drunk driving. However I do not think any of our current archaic controls resolve any of the above problems. Liquor stores, as I said before, are about revenue. Private clubs are about making it difficult for all who want to drink. The Zion Curtain is about shielding the faithful and those who might be lured away from the temptation and offensiveness of drink.

Abortion and Sex Education!

I am not going to spend a lot of time on this hot button issue. It is noteworthy that in this country there has not been a significant change to the issue since Roe V. Wade. I am a liberal and a firm believer that a woman should have the right to choose and that this country's male dominated political system has no business determining what her reproductive rights should be. I am not pro abortion. I don't think anybody is.

Our legislature has announced it will not seek further bans on abortion, this year, because it knows the expensive legal fight in poor economic conditions will be unpopular. It has proposed that a legal defense fund be set up to pay for a future legal fight, maybe next year.

Most adults reading this post know how human life originates. However, in this state, we reject any comprehensive sex education that teaches our youth about the use of birth control or barriers to disease contraction. We prefer the abstinence only approach believing that the parents of the children should be the ones to determine their level of education. Unfortunately this method is flawed on several accounts:

1. Studies have show that abstinence only education is no more effective at preventing unplanned pregnancy than comprehensive sex ed.
2. Teens who engage in abstinence pledges have premarital sex at the same rate as Teens who have had comprehensive sex ed but fail to use any type of disease barrier at a higher rate than their educated contemporaries.
3. We know from the 80's that "just say no" is a great slogan but a poor public policy.
4. Parents are not doctors or nurses or otherwise educated on public health issues and pass on urban legends to their children.
5. Education is important because my Daughter may date your son. I don't know what you have told him and you don't know what I have told my daughter. Conversely you don't know what they have learned from their friends.

I believe the Salt Lake Tribune's opinion on this matter is correct. Educate teens and parents and we will dramatically reduce the instance of abortion.

http://www.sltrib.com/opinion/ci_11474583

I think we are on the precipices of a new era in politics; one were science and fact not religious piety and superstition will set public policy. I am also a firm believer that is how we stay free. I am hoping more folks "just say no" to laws that are written to limit rights in the name of morality but have no real effect on the problem or make the problem worse by putting it behind a Zion Curtain.