The Blowfish Blog

[Greta Christina] The John McCain Sex Scandal

Sorry for the inflammatory headline. No, I’m not going to talk about John McCain’s purported affair with lobbyist Vicki Iseman. There’s not enough evidence, and in any case, I just don’t care all that much.

No. The scandal I’m talking about today is John McCain’s record on issues having to do with sex.

Which is, in a word, scandalous.

Let’s break it down, shall we?

John McCain’s record on birth control and abortion rights is so bad, the Planned Parenthood Action Fund gave him a zero percent rating. Zero. He opposes requiring health care plans to cover birth control. He opposes restoring family planning services for low-income women. He supports the global gag rule, which bans overseas family planning organizations that receive US funding if they provide abortions . . . or if they even provide information about abortions. He thinks Roe v. Wade should be overturned. He has voted against a woman’s right to choose 125 times.

John McCain is a strong supporter of abstinence- only sex education in the schools — a program that has been shown to be loaded with gross misinformation, and totally ineffective to boot. And he voted against programs to help prevent unintended and teen pregnancies.

John McCain voted to prevent people living with HIV and AIDS from permanently immigrating into the United States.

John McCain supports blocking libraries from getting federal funding unless they block access to sexual material on their computers. He supports — in fact, he sponsored — a law that would essentially require Internet service providers to become porn police . . . and that would slap them with a $300,000 fine if they fail to report images on their sites that the Department of Justice decides are illegal.

John McCain’s record on gay rights is consistently dismal. He has opposed every single gay rights measure of recent years. He opposes same-sex marriage, and supports the Defense of Marriage Act. He even opposes domestic partnerships and any sort of recognition of same-sex partnerships. He is opposed to gays serving in the military. He opposes adoption by same-sex couples. He thinks employers should be allowed to fire people simply for being gay.

Oh, and just by way of contrast?

Barack Obama firmly opposes abstinence- only sex education, and supports science- based, age- appropriate sex education. He’s a co-sponsor of the Prevention First Act, which seeks to prevent unintended pregnancy and increase access to contraceptive services and information. He supports increased federal funding for science-based HIV-prevention programs. He supports the distribution of condoms in federal prisons. He supports the repeal of the travel and immigration ban on people with HIV. He opposes the requirement that one- third of funding for HIV prevention overseas go to abstinence- only- until- marriage programs. He supports adoptions by gays and lesbians. He voted against the Constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage.

I’m just saying, is all.

I’m saying this:

For someone who talks so much about freedom, and protecting Americans’ freedoms, John McCain sure doesn’t seem to care very much about our freedom to do whatever we want in our own fucking bedrooms.

I am sick unto death of politicians who use the word “freedom” as if it were some sort of meaningless mantra. I am sick unto death of politicians who talk about freedom without actually caring about what it means. I am sick unto death of politicians who whip up patriotic fervor by shouting about America’s wonderful freedom, and then do everything in their power to undermine our actual freedom at every turn.

And John McCain is one of those politicians.

Look. I know there are a lot of issues facing us this election. And even I don’t think sex is the most important one. There’s the economy. Health care. The war. Global warming. The preservation of civil liberties. There are a lot of issues facing us, and each of us has to decide for ourselves which ones we value most highly.

But if you’re a Blowfish customer, and a reader of the Blowfish Blog, chances are that sexual liberty, sexual civil rights, sexual health, and access to sexual information, are some of the issues that you care about. When you go to vote on November 4, you should at least bear these issues in mind.

And even more broadly than that:

Freedom is not some patriotic abstraction. Freedom is a living principle, with real, nuts- and- bolts effects on our everyday lives. And the freedom of consenting adults to pursue happiness in the privacy of our own bedrooms (or living rooms, or dungeons, or whatever) is one of those freedoms. The Supreme Court said so.

Yes, individual freedoms have to be balanced against the needs of a society. We don’t have the “freedom” to bash in people’s heads with hammers. And when those needs conflict, reasonable people can sometimes disagree about where that balance should lie. But if the principle of freedom means anything, surely it means that the choices consenting adults make about where we stick our private parts, and with whom, and in what configurations, are nobody’s business but our own.

And if an elected official doesn’t respect even that most basic nuts- and- bolt freedom, then why should we trust them to protect any of our freedoms? If an elected official is willing to toss around the word “freedom” to inspire knee-jerk jingoism with no respect for the actual principle behind it, and in fact regularly undercuts that principle to suit their personal inclinations or political aspirations, then why should we trust anything they say at all?

I’m just saying, is all.

Greta Christina, copyright © 2008. Be sure to check out Greta’s blog.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, 23 October 2008 at 11:18 am and is filed under Culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.