[Previous entry: "Rise of the Creative Asshole"] [Next entry: "I Can See Your House From Here"]
09/21/2004: "You can't spell "Chastity" without "tit"."
As my good friend Michelle Malkin kindly points out on her web site,
Phyllis Schlafly had a birthday over the weekend. The miserable old bitch
turned 80, by the way.
Ms. Schlafly's ongoing war against feminism, secular humanism, and general
sanity has provided us with some of the most bizarre quotes in history.
Here are just a few of my favorites:
"Sexual harassment on the job is not a problem for virtuous women"
"Feminism is doomed to failure because it is based on an attempt to repeal
and restructure human nature."
"How did you get to work last week, how many people rode in the vehicle
with you, how many minutes did it take you, and what time did you leave
home? Is this question designed to facilitate Al Gore's plan to eliminate
the internal combustion engine?" [Schlafly on the 2000 census. The same
question also appeared on the 1990 census.]
"Sex education classes are like in-home sales parties for abortions"
It would be nice if we could just dismiss Phyllis as deranged old crank,
but, sadly, her various crusades have had a huge impact on America (It was
Schlafly who, in her 1964 book A Choice Not an Echo, first argued
for taking the Republican presidential nomination away from the "Eastern
liberal establishment" and running a conservative). If you don't think so,
just compare teenagers of my era (1976 - 1982) to the ones of today.
I, like my peers, spent most of my adolescence trying to get laid. Today's
teens seem to be exerting all of their time and energy in the opposite
direction. Who would've thought, 25 years ago, that young people would
ever have to work hard at not having sex? To me, that's like
hearing someone say "I struggle, every day, not to win the lottery."
Today's teens, in fact, work so diligently at not getting laid that
they've actually come up with tools to aid them in not doing the nasty.
These tools include chastity rings and chastity pledges.
I'd have no problem with all of this mumbo jumbo, if it actually prevented
unwanted pregnancies and STDs (you know, the way condoms do).
Unfortunately, it doesn't
A study of 12,000 teenagers conducted at Columbia University found that
88% of those who made a chastity pledge went on to have sex before
marriage. They were also 20% less likely to use a condom than teens who
hadn't taken the pledge.
Happy birthday, Phyllis.
