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Read other letters about this article
One couldn't make this stuff up.
Claud Allen's lack of impulse control is the concrete manifestation of the fundie/conservative mindset. These people can't control themselves, and that terrifies and shames them. They simply assume--perhaps to make themselves feel better--that because THEY can't keep it in their pants, or stop viewing pornography/drinking/cheating on their spouses/whatever, that the REST OF US must not have any control either.
Look at so-called "covenant marriages." Why do you need a covenant? Marriage IS the covenant! What did you think it was, an opportunity to play "queen for a day" if you're a girl, or a chance for some socially-sanctioned nookie if you're a boy? (For me, personally, yoking myself to Mr. Trench for life was all about the cake.)
I'll bet that goes double for abortion, that long-reigning Depravity Du Jour. I mean, whatever you think about the morality of abortion, who in their right mind, really, would use abortion as a form of birth control? Can you just imagine what the number of repeated surgical assaults on a uterus they seem to be envisioning would do to it? And, at at least $400 a pop, it's kind of expensive. But, you know, pay the girl and her family enough money, and you can forget how your drunken fratboy son and heir fucked up. Wish that fetus away into the cornfield. Then make sure no one else can do the same.
And don't even get me started on the similarities to extreme fundamentalist Muslim attitudes toward women, who must be punished for simply being temptations and hidden from view. And apologies if I'm belaboring what appears to be an obvious point, but it needs to be repeated over and over again: We are being forced to give up our right to make adult decisions, judgments, and occasional mistakes simply because certain middle-aged men and women in positions of power have less moral intelligence and self-discipline than most six-year-olds.
