That Crouse's problem is with the utopian idea that women can have sex without consequences.

Only women, huh? Funny that.

Prevention First: What a no brainer.

Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America is worried young women may have sex without consequences. Apparently her idea of God and hell is most inadequate. If she doesn't trust her religion to punish people, she no doubt hopes that unintended pregnancy will.

I once served on a school committee the purpose of which was to decide what sort of sex education should be available in the school district where I lived. This committee, which was made up of volunteers, was completely disrupted by a woman volunteer who did not want any sex education at all. Everytime we would try to discuss a realistic approach, this woman would become hysterical and say that we were trying to override her right not to have her child involved. When we were finally reaching a rather moderate consensus that would allow parents to opt out their children, she began screaming that some other boy had shown her son a condom in the hallway of his school and that having sex education for other children would influence her child.

Nothing can disguise the fact that these nutcases want to impose their will upon the children of others. They want to tear down the wall of separation and have a right-wing Christian theocracy and the right impose realtime authoritarian hell upon everyone else.

Oh, come on. You know perfectly well that the legislators aren't representing the majority of the people or even pretending to. A tiny minority of right-wing Evangelicals worked for 20 years to put a disproportionate number of people in office, and now we're reaping the whirlwind. This has been reported on extensively right here on Salon.

They don't care. They aren't our representatives. Treating them as if they are, as if they will listen to our reasoned arguments, is doomed to fail.

Why on earth would the President be worried about "showing himself outside the mainstream"? He's not running for office. He quite literally doesn't care what Americans support.

Is this woman trying to reduce support for these bills? I think she's going about it the wrong way. "Don't support these bills! They'll allow sex without consequences!" And the public says, "Sounds good, thanks! Sign me up."

OK, Janice. You've got me there. I really do believe that women--of legal age and sound mind and willing spirit--ought to be able to have sex when they want, how they want, and with whom they want. Isn't that what men have been doing for centuries? As long as said women are not coming over to my house and commandeering the bed, who am I to decide when sex is appropriate?

So you approve of rape then? As long as it's equal opportunity it's ok?

For more than the past decade the pro-choice community has been speaking out in support of access to affrodable contraception and comprehensive sexuality education as a means for preventing unintended pregnancies and abortion. However the "so-called' pro-life movement continues to wrap "family planning" and contraception in the abortion issue.

Democrats and Repulblcians need to keep talking about contraception and comprehensive sexuality education as a pubic issue every time the abortion issue is mentioned in campaign debates. Then and only then will voters see how out of step the pro-life agenda really is.

The Californiaia assembly and senate just passed a bill which requires public school sexuality programs to be medically accurate, thus will eliminating "Abstinience Only" programs from the public schools.

If you've paid attention over the years to conservative messaging about sex, that it should only be practiced within the confines of marriage, you will realize they believe sex is for procreation and nothing else. If you don't want a child you don't need contraception because you aren't having sex. Unless, of course, you are an ordained minister or a priest; then you can do whatever you want to whomever you want.

Both the pro-choice and pro-life movements try to connect them. Pro-choicers see the right to an abortion as a necessary aspect of a woman's right to control her body, while pro-lifers tend to see contraception as being almost as bad as abortion.

But now we see a huge majority of Americans supporting unfettered access to contraception by school-age children. As we already know, most do not support the unfettered right to an abortion (they support waiting periods, parental notification, prohibiting third trimester abortions, etc.).

Unfortunately there appears to be nobody in public life who feels like the average American. The ones who make the noise are polarizers. There is consensus position that nobody is articulating.

"There's a utopian view that women ought to be able to have sex any time they want to without consequences -- that's the bottom line of all these bills," Janice Crouse of Concerned Women for America told the AP.

I could dwell on that thought for quite awhile! I can't think of any reason why this goal would be a negative, UNLESS one at base thinks sex is bad and we should always have to risk punishment for it - such as children. Yeah, I know, it's obvious, but it still surprises me when people say it so baldly!

I have an idea. Remember in the last election, when Republicans used "cultural issues" such as gay marriage to emphasize how different the Democrat position is from that of "Ordinary Americans?" What did they call those, "wedge issues?" Well, I hardly want to pull attention away from the disaster that is Iraq, but this is something that could and probably should be emphasized in the upcoming election. Abstinence only sex ed is not the will of the people, it's not accurate, and it is a breech of the separation between state and religion, because it wouldn't exist without powerful conservative Christians pushing it. And, unlike gay marriage, which doesn't effect the lives of those who are against it at all, except in terms of offending their sensibilities, if it came about, as some in power wish, that our liberal open access to birth control was lost, the effects on our society would be absolutely shameful and disastrous.