An $18,000 Condom-minimum?
October 01, 2012 - Monday
Life, liberty, and the pursuit of... birth control? Apparently, those are the certain unalienable rights endowed by this administration. To hear the Obama campaign tell it, a lifetime supply of contraception is why the Founding Fathers went to all the trouble of overthrowing tyranny in the first place. In fact, this sense of sexual entitlement is so entrenched in Team Obama that it actually created a line of e-cards slamming Governor Mitt Romney for believing that taxpayers shouldn't have to finance another person's libido. Under ObamaCare, "no cost birth control" is just one of the 2,700 pages of bad ideas that became law. The President would have women believe that Romney would be returning America to the 1950s by repealing the policy--when in reality, he'd be returning things to the way they were last year before the government started treating fertility like a preexisting condition.
Enter a new series of campaign e-cards, which surpasses even the "Obama Wedding Registry" in poor taste. The campaign is encouraging students to forward this message to their parents, "Dear Mom, Mitt Romney says he would repeal the Affordable Care Act. So here's a quick question: Can I borrow $18,000 to help pay for my birth control?" Obviously, if your daughter needs $18,000 worth of birth control, you have far more serious issues to deal with than the cost. At that level of promiscuity, she'd probably need the $18,000 to pay for all the children she'd be raising or the diseases she'll be treating. The concept of the cards is so outrageous that conservatives created a website for people to post mock replies like "I'm sorry, are you buying a car to bring it home in too?" Or, my personal favorite: "Answer your phone! Dad."
As the pundits on HotAir pointed out, most big retailers sell a month's worth of contraception for $9. "That works out to $108 a year. The young female sending this e-card would need to live 166 years to use up that supply." The first problem is the dishonesty over the price. The second is that our President is actively pushing an ideology of unrestraint on our kids. As far as he and other liberals are concerned, people are as entitled to sex as they are to food and water. Unfortunately, that ideology comes not just at our expense but at society's. FRC's own research shows that the more people engage in sexual relations before marriage, the more harm it does to marriage. With each encounter, the risk of divorce--and all of its social consequences--increases.
Then, of course, there's the tiny matter of who benefits from this policy. In this case, it's none other than Planned Parenthood, America's largest abortion provider. To understand how absolutely horrifying that is, check out our brand new publication from Jeanne Monahan, FRC's Director of the Center for Human Dignity. Her booklet, What Everyone Should Know about Planned Parenthood, should compel every taxpayer to send President Obama an e-mail of his own, demanding an end to the organization's federal funding.
Military Rubs Assault into the Wound
Our troops do a remarkable job protecting us--but who's looking out for them? Too few, if the latest reports on sexual assault are any indication. In the wake of several high-profile scandals, more Americans are asking why these cases of military rape and abuse have gone unreported--and more importantly, unaddressed. Last week, 20 plaintiffs filed suit in federal court for emotional and physical injuries they suffered in a military system that they believe condones rape. These 20 represent just a tiny fraction of the thousands of victims whose mistreatment threatens the safety of our whole force.
The evidence of misconduct continues to pile up for what some have called "the invisible war" in our military, implicating everyone from decorated veterans and brigade commanders to training instructors. In a matter of weeks, allegations surfaced of high-ranking officers engaged in bigamy and forcible sodomy. At Lackland Air Force Base, sexual abuse was such a problem (42 recruits reported being harassed or harmed) that the branch transferred command to a woman in hopes of clamping down on the epidemic. Although the media is focused on the male-on-female assaults, last year Newsweek highlighted what it calls the "secret shame" of the force, which is that men are increasingly raping other men.
For Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, this is just another black eye on a military that is already dealing with unprecedented suicide rates, religious liberty fallout, and the integration of open homosexuality. While this issue certainly predates President Obama, the administration hasn't exactly fostered an environment of high moral standards. In many areas, the military--like all of society--is in a crisis of conduct, which is having tragic consequences on the entire culture and our force. As FRC has said repeatedly, when you lower one standard of conduct--whether it's deemphasizing religion or encouraging the military's sexualization--it inevitably leads to a lowering of all such standards.
An America for Jesus
This weekend, I met up with the Value Bus in Pennsylvania at the America for Jesus prayer rally in Philadelphia. The two day event focused on our nation's need to return to its founding principles. I joined a number of my friends like Bishop Harry Jackson, Dr. Herb Lusk, Dr. Jim Garlow, and many others in praying for our country and the upcoming election. In addition, I led the nearly 10,000 gathered at Independence Mall in praying for President Obama, in particular that his eyes would be opened to the truth of the need for protecting our religious liberty. Hundreds signed the iPledge2Vote.org commitment to pray, prepare, and participate in this important election. Yesterday morning, I took a similar message to the folks at Family Worship Center in Lansdale, challenging them to not only take the pledge to vote but choose to make America a nation under God again.