Never Right

Yesterday I read a story in the news about a group of 5th graders who were caught, and charged, for having sex in an unsupervised classroom. One of the most sickening stories you can read, and yet it sounded vaguely familiar. I think it was about a year ago that there was a nearly identical story in the news. Anyway, I forwarded the story on to some friends and it lead to some conversations. In one such conversation, a friend and I got around to talking about the controversy in Texas as they debated whether or not all pre-teen girls should have to take an HPV vaccination.

It baffles me that anyone would be against a vaccination that helps pre-vent cancer, but there was the right-wing claiming that the vaccination promotes promiscuity. They think this because if you provide health care that can prevent a sexual transmitted disease, well then kids will just be that much more likely to have sex. And sex is wrong, so if a few girls die and that scares more girls out of having sex, well then that’s the right thing. This is completely insanity. Teenagers have sex, and now it’s even more prevalent among pre-teens. A vaccine that can prevent cancer or providing condoms doesn’t encourage sex. Just as a seatbelt doesn’t encourage car accidents. We give our police officers bullet proof vests, not to encourage them to get shot, but to protect them if it happens.

I just can’t understand their reasoning, and that bothers me. Is it that they lack confidence in their parenting? Do they not trust their kids? Are they just trying to parent everyone else’s kids? Is it okay to just bitch slap these people? Maybe their sex lives are so bad, they’re afraid they’d be jealous if their 17 year olds were getting some good lovin’.

It’s not like I don’t care if kids have sex. I have six nieces and nephews, not counting my friends’ kids that I consider nieces and nephews. And I tried to make a deal with my niece, that she wouldn’t date till she was 35 or I was dead, whichever happened last. Scaring the shit out of them won’t prevent kids from having sex, arming them with as much information as possible is the best way to ensure they make smart decisions. How the right-wing hasn’t figured this out yet, baffles me. They have to know this. They’re smart enough to steal a Presidency, twice. Smart enough to con Americans into giving billions of dollars to their churches, the NRA and nascar. (Word underlined “nascar,” and wants me to capitalize the entire word, I won’t acknowledge that) They have to be smart enough to understand education. So assuming they are smart enough for that, means they’re just trying to manipulate America.

Maybe we’d just be better off if we kept the Right from reproducing.