LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY mysticknyght)

Trojan has a new teevee commercial and Amanda is upset, rightly so, that CBS and Fox won't run the ad. It's kinda neat, since most of us men are pigs anyway:

The problem with the ad as far as the networks are concerned? It doesn't emphasize disease prevention enough. If the focus of a contraceptive ad is pregnancy prevention, all the fundigelicals get lit up.

Where Amanda gets it wrong is the motivation for keeping an ad like this off the air:

The good news is that the gloves are off. The networks are cowering because they’re scared to death of anti-choicers writing in and bitching about the idea that sluts should escape their due punishment for having sex. Make no mistake, this is not about the fetuses. Not even the most crazy anti-choicer can convince himself that condoms kill babies. The idea of preventing unwanted pregnancy—and therefore preventing abortion, actually—is the source of the angst. Once more with feeling: It’s not about the babies, it’s about punishing women for having sex.

Most of this is true, but Amanda's conclusion is that it's OK for men to have sex, but not for women. The idea that it's OK for a man to use a condom to avoid getting the clap is acceptable, because he's deciding when to have sex. If a woman demands that a man use a condom so she doesn't get pregnant, the man's control is out of the picture. This is a classic example of a secularist applying a skewed view to religious folks.

Fundigelicals don't want anyone to have sex. This is a lot bigger than simple misogyny. One of the basic tenets of Christian belief is the notion that we should suffer and sacrifice on earth, so we then get our heavenly rewards. If people are having sex, whether it's straight, gay, or solo, they're not sacrificing. If people are happy on earth, they don't have anything to look forward to in the afterlife. If there's nothing to look forward to, we don't need preachers, ministers, priests and/or pastors to reassure us that things will be better in heaven.

This is one of the reasons why Dominionists are able to fly under the radar: Secular liberals like Marcotte don't see past the more-obvious attack on reproductive rights. This isn't about abortion. The movement behind this is Orwell's "Junior Anti-Sex League." Dominionists need people to be miserable to succeed. Happy people aren't going to be willing to live by Leviticus. If there's a good chance you'll get the clap or worse from having sex, or you'll knock up your girlfriend and totally disrupt your lifestyle, you'll be more hesitant to have sex. If all it takes is a rubber machine in the men's room to remove these obstacles to happiness, nobody in their right mind is going to listen to Father or Pastor on Sunday morning.

There's a certain amount of logic in letting a blogger like Marcotte run with these issues from a strictly secular perspective, but it's important to not lose perspective.