Cafeteria Catholics and the Free Exercise of Religion

A few days ago, in a column entitled "Defining Religious Liberty Down", Ross Douthat attempted to reinterpret the Free Exercise Clause of the Constitution in a manner that, in essence, would allow anybody who shares his religious beliefs, as well as a few others whose beliefs don't offend him, to do and say whatever they believe their religion demands, with no response or push-back from even a single individual. Anybody who does not accept that, Douthat lectures, "then don’t tell religious people that you respect our freedoms."

Douthat gets off to a weak start by attempting to reinvent the Free Exercise Clause,

[T]he Bill of Rights guarantees Americans something that its authors called “the free exercise” of religion.

It’s a significant choice of words, because it suggests a recognition that religious faith cannot be reduced to a purely private or individual affair. Most religious communities conceive of themselves as peoples or families, and the requirements of most faiths extend well beyond attendance at a sabbath service — encompassing charity and activism, education and missionary efforts, and other “exercises” that any guarantee of religious freedom must protect.

That is to say, Douthat finds the words "significant because as he understands them, if he claims to have been inspired by religion, they shield his every word and action from criticism. Not just from discrimination, not just from state actors, but from the responses of private citizens who happen to hold different values.

As I previously stated, Douthat is not speaking in defense of broad religious liberty. He is speaking out for his own beliefs, and other beliefs that he finds acceptable. He does not even consider that you might oppose his words or actions on religious grounds. If you so much as whisper a protest, you're violating his religious liberty - with his faith, or perhaps its his narcissism, obscuring that he's displaying the very arrogance he ascribes to anybody who disagrees with him.

Beyond the sheer arrogance of his position, Douthat overstates his constitutional case. In upholding the state's right to prohibit sacramental use of peyote, Justice Scalia, also a Catholic, has attempted to explain the Free Exercise Clause,

The Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment, which has been made applicable to the States by incorporation into the Fourteenth Amendment... provides that "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...." U. S. Const., Amdt. 1 (emphasis added). The free exercise of religion means, first and foremost, the right to believe and profess whatever religious doctrine one desires. Thus, the First Amendment obviously excludes all "governmental regulation of religious beliefs as such."... The government may not compel affirmation of religious belief, ... punish the expression of religious doctrines it believes to be false, ... impose special disabilities on the basis of religious views or religious status, ... or lend its power to one or the other side in controversies over religious authority or dogma....

But the "exercise of religion" often involves not only belief and profession but the performance of (or abstention from) physical acts: assembling with others for a worship service, participating in sacramental use of bread and wine, proselytizing, abstaining from certain foods or certain modes of transportation. It would be true, we think (though no case of ours has involved the point), that a State would be "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" if it sought to ban such acts or abstentions only when they are engaged in for religious reasons, or only because of the religious belief that they display. It would doubtless be unconstitutional, for example, to ban the casting of "statues that are to be used for worship purposes," or to prohibit bowing down before a golden calf.

Respondents in the present case, however, seek to carry the meaning of "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" one large step further. They contend that their religious motivation for using peyote places them beyond the reach of a criminal law that is not specifically directed at their religious practice, and that is concededly constitutional as applied to those who use the drug for other reasons. They assert, in other words, that "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" includes requiring any individual to observe a generally applicable law that requires (or forbids) the performance of an act that his religious belief forbids (or requires). As a textual matter, we do not think the words must be given that meaning. It is no more necessary to regard the collection of a general tax, for example, as "prohibiting the free exercise [of religion]" by those citizens who believe support of organized government to be sinful, than it is to regard the same tax as "abridging the freedom . . . of the press" of those publishing companies that must pay the tax as a condition of staying in business. It is a permissible reading of the text, in the one case as in the other, to say that if prohibiting the exercise of religion (or burdening the activity of printing) is not the object of the tax but merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision, the First Amendment has not been offended.

That's a long excerpt, so let's pull out two important points: first, the Free Exercise Clause prohibits the government from "lend[ing] its power to one or the other side in controversies over religious authority or dogma", and second it allows for the broad regulation of society in manners that affect individual and group religious liberty, as long as "prohibiting the exercise of religion... is not the object of the tax but merely the incidental effect of a generally applicable and otherwise valid provision".

One more important point, Scalia rejected the Court's precedents that would have required the state to articulate a "compelling state interest" before allowing a law to take precedence over an individual's free exercise of religion. If Douthat believes it is the secularists who were responsible for weakening that protection, he's looking in the wrong direction.

That is to say, Douthat is ignoring every conservative approach to constitutional interpretation, appears disinterested in learning the interpretation provided by even the most conservative, most religious Supreme Court Justices, and advocates a personal interpretation of the Constitution's language consistent with a 20th century understanding of its terminology - and at that, not a broad understanding, but a personal understanding. The theological equivalent would be for him to pick up a bible, read one verse, and announce that he knows exactly what it means - no need to examine history, context, the opinions of past religious leaders, the teachings of his church. In both cases, it's the sort of personalized, shallow interpretation that has long been scorned, respectively, by political and religious conservatives.

Douthat remains upset that the government is regulating birth control in the context of the secular operations of religious organizations. Yet any form of health insurance is going to cover procedures or medicines that violate somebody's religious beliefs. Douthat prefers to misrepresent the facts, purporting that the regulation treats "religious hospitals, schools and charities as purely secular operations", knowing full well that's not the truth. For example, a religious school that hired few, if any, non-practioners of its faith, and catered to a similarly non-diverse student body would not be affected by the regulation. But more than that, although Douthat does not mention private employers, the logic of his intepretation of the Free Exercise Clause would extend his objection to the mandate to purely private contexts.

What would happen if a religious organization, or a religious private individual, acquired Douthat's employer and stripped out of his insurance policy coverage for procedures and medications inconsistent with somebody else's religious beliefs? It's not apparent that Douthat has even considered that possibility. If he has, it would appear either that he does not believe that the rules he favors are likely to affect him - that is, he does not anticipate such an employer acquiring the Times - or would view the new owner's religious views as unduly extreme and thus not worthy of protection. Fortunately for Douthat, even within the context of birth control he suffers no direct impact.

Douthat also complains that a judge in Cologne, Germany - apparently operating under the wacky belief that his court is not regulated by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, held that "circumcision as a violation of a newborn’s human rights". Douthat takes umbrage at the notion that a judge could impose such a rule in relation to a baby boy, but makes no mention of baby girls. Yes, there are serious differences in kind and degree between male circumcision and female "ritual genital mutilation", but those concerns are secular. Douthat complains,

Here again, defenders of the decision insisted that it didn’t trample on any Jew’s or Muslim’s freedom of belief.

Douthat, predictably, does not identify even a single person who claims that the ruling does not impinge on "any Jew’s or Muslim’s freedom of belief" because if he were to approach the supporters' case honestly he would have to acknowledge that they are in fact supporting a balancing test - the rights of the child against the rights of the parent to perform a medical procedure that the parent believes is mandated by religion. Douthat can't keep himself from resorting to hyperbole, that the ruling "would effectively outlaw Judaism itself", as if no Jew has ever had an early or late circumcision, or as if it's impossible for a boy or man to convert to Judaism once he's nine days old. I don't mean at all to belittle the religious issue, but there's no need for that type of sensationalism.

The fact that Douthat has to reach all the way to Germany to find evidence of an encroachment on religious liberty is less evidence of the rarity of this type of conflict, and more of the fact that Douthat's argument is driven by his own ideology. He could instead pick up the cause of parents who, in the name of their religion, would deny an infant or child a potentially life-saving blood transfusion.

Douthat's third and last example is "the great Chick-fil-A imbroglio". Although a handful of politicians to whom Douthat alludes are deserving of cricism for suggesting that they might discriminate against Chick-fil-A based upon the statements of its founder, Douthat is confusing the exercise of speech rights with the free exercise of religion. He also fails to distinguish fair comment - a politician's standing up for the rights and freedoms of his own constituents - for interference with the free exercise of religion.

Does Douthat believe that the president of Chick-fil-A's statement was mandated by his religion? No? Then what we're seeing is his choice to make a public statement about his personal religious beliefs. While that might fall under Douthat's made-up version of what the Free Exercise Clause is supposed to mean, from a constitutional perspective we're actually talking about freedom of speech. The president of Chick-fil-A has the constitutional right to say what he wants about gay marriage based upon his religion, and everybody else in the country has the right to respond with support, condemnation or indifference. Even within the context of grandstanding politicians it's a speech issue - no politician or political entity has actually discriminated against Chick-fil-A based upon its president's statement.

Also, within the context of religion, what are we to make of Douthat's assertion that the president of Chick-fil-A "supports 'the biblical definition of the family unit'"? Because last I checked, the Bible included some family units that, by today's standard, are quite unusual. Even if we limit discussion to the New Testament, Douthat will find no shortage of people who will quote scripture to support their belief in polygamous marriage.

Whether intentionally or because he can't help but view the world through a manichean prism, Douthat creates a false dichotomy between the president of Chick-fil-A and the politicians, with the president simply engaging in the free exercise of religion and the politicians are, de facto, neither religious nor concerned about the free exercise of religion. Is Douthat seriously arguing that Mayors like Rahm Emanuel and Michael Bloomberg don't care about religious freedoms? That they're on the side of secularists who would back judicial edicts that "effectively outlaw Judaism itself"? And has Douthat truly failed to notice the considerable criticism of the political grandstanding from the secular community? I recognize that it's easier to caricature your opponents, to roll up every person who takes any position you don't like, to ignore their actual statements, and to pretend they're a monolithic "other" that stands against all that is true and good. But even if he can't reach the point of internal consistency, can't Douthat at least try to be plausible?

Toward the end of his column, Douthat mentions the need to balance the free exercise of religion against the interest of society, but rather than giving that difficult balance the serious consideration it deserves he invokes the absurd,

We do not allow people to exercise beliefs that require, say, forced marriage or honor killing. You can believe in the gods of 15th-century Mesoamerica, but neither Chicago values nor American ones permit the use of Aztec sacrificial altars on the South Side.

Again, it's the easy cases. The ones few to none would find controversial. The implication is, "The judge thinks that circumcising male babies is akin to human sacrifice," rather than examining the court's actual rationale and the actual balancing of interests that the court attempted to achieve. Harder cases, like denying a child antibiotics for an infection, a blood transfusion for surgery, or medical treatment for an easily treatable ailment that, left alone, is life-threatening or terminal? Douthat, it seems, has no interest in the difficult questions.

Even in the context of his examples, though, it's surprising that Douthat can't find a parallel. Why do we forbid honor killing in the name of even the most sincere religious belief? Why do we forbid parents from forcing their children to marry in the name of religion? Because we recognize that the parent's free exercise of religion can affect their child, and that the child is a separate individual with rights that may justify overriding the parent's religious beliefs and, at a certain age, that it should be the child's choice as to whether to follow the religious beliefs of a parent or to choose a different path.

The judge in German was not forbidding circumcision - he was holding that the procedure could wait until the child was old enough to make an informed decision. While you can disagree with that decision on a number of grounds, if you accept that society can forbid parents from completely disregarding a child's autonomy and individual rights in the name of religion, we're talking about a ruling that differs in degree from the circumcision ruling but not in kind.

If you read Douthat, no surprise here, no small part of his argument is predicated upon the fact that he's not comfortable with sex, and is particularly uncomfortable with female sexuality.

To the extent that the H.H.S. mandate, the Cologne ruling and the Chick-fil-A controversy reflect a common logic rather than a shared confusion, then, it’s a logic that regards Western monotheism’s ideas about human sexuality — all that chastity, monogamy, male-female business — as similarly incompatible with basic modern freedoms.

Nobody familiar with Douthat's past writing is going to be surprised that when he thinks of birth control he thinks of slutty coeds trying to get into his pants, not of married women who want to limit the size of their families or women of any age trying to address conditions such as endometriosis and menstrual cramps. But it astonishes me that to Douthat, the sole reason that a judge might be concerned about circumcision would be that it might "deny one’s offspring the kind of sexual gratification that anti-circumcision advocates claim the procedure makes impossible". When he writes,

[Religious ideas] certainly cannot be exercised in ways that might make anyone uncomfortable with his or her own sexual choices or identity.

Douthat gets it exactly backwards. It's not others who want to limit his exercise of his religion lest he "make anyone uncomfortable with his or her own sexual choices or identity" - it's he who wants to impose his religious values on the rest of society so that he never has to feel uncomfortable with his own, awkward sexuality. And believe it or not, from there Douthat's thinking becomes even more convoluted,

It may seem strange that anyone could look around the pornography-saturated, fertility-challenged, family-breakdown-plagued West and see a society menaced by a repressive puritanism. But it’s clear that this perspective is widely and sincerely held.

I'm looking around... funny, I can't see any pornography from here, my marriage seems intact, I have a child so I can't be all that "fertility challenged"... although I suspect that Douthat means the opposite, that the challenge of fertility he perceives is that, believe it or not, some people want to have sexual intercourse while avoiding pregnancy. The only intrusion into my conservative family idyll is a nag of a columnist lecturing me about the decay of society. So I guess from where I'm sitting, at least at the moment his puritanical bent is a bigger issue than our decadent society.

To be more fair to Douthat, yes, it's difficult to conceive of a religion that would not find fault with some aspect of our society - whose practitioners would not find something to be at odds with their sincerely held religious beliefs. That, however, has been the case for all of human history. Yes, like Douthat many religious people will be uncomfortable with our society's treatment of sexuality. But let's be honest, you don't even have to be religious to take issue with our society's approach to sexuality, nor is it only the non-religious who engage in sexual practices that would make Douthat blush.

Douthat believes that the use of birth control is morally wrong? Fine, great, nobody's making him use it. But let's not pretend that there aren't millions of devout Catholic men and women who don't share his dogmatism on the issue. He is free to lecture them that they're not being true to the teachings of their church, and they have every right to ignore him. A constitutional right, at that. It's not those men and women who want "to use the levers of power to bend [Douthat] to [their] will" - again, it's quite the opposite.

When Douthat complains that anybody who disagrees with him necessarily "regards Western monotheism’s ideas about human sexuality — all that chastity, monogamy, male-female business — as... incompatible with basic modern freedoms", he's quite incorrect. But it's perfectly reasonable to point out that much of the "chastity, monogamy, male-female business" emphasis of "Western monotheism" was historically directed not at regulating boys and men, but at regulating girls and women. Not that Douthat would care, but the 20th Amendment - granting women the right to vote - is still less than a century old.

We're similarly not that far removed from an era in which our nation had legal slavery, and even closer to an era in which interracial marriage could result in incarceration - and in both cases, you could find defenders of the practices who advanced sincere, Christian religious arguments in favor of the status quo ante. Now, I expect Douthat would find it obvious that Christianity holds slavery and racial discrimination to be abhorrent. When the government says, "You have to let African Americans rent rooms in your hotel," that offends some hotel owners' free exercise of religion. When society forces changes of that type, is it a bad thing, period, end of story, because it offended some people's religious sensitivities at the time, or can we accept that after a period of adjustment most religious institutions will find themselves agreeing with the change?

Contrary to Douthat's suggestion, our society has a long and proud puritanical streak. While it does not bother Douthat, and perhaps he would even prefer that it were more dominant, there are people in our culture who object to the treatment of women as second-class citizens, and who find it objectionable that people like Douthat use their religious beliefs to advance public policy that makes it more difficult for women to participate in society as equals. It is in fact possible to recognize our society's puritanical streak and recognize that some aspects of our popular culture are, to put it mildly, over-the-top. If you spend time actually looking at our society, both aspects are very hard to miss.

If you want to cloister yourself among people of your religion, living in seclusion, untouched by the corrupting elements of society at large, you have every right to do so. What you cannot reasonably expect to do is to come out of that seclusion into greater society without ever being offended, and you cannot reasonably expect to engage with a larger society that does not share your religious values without ever having those values weighed against the needs and rights of others, and of society as a whole. And sorry, if it feels like society is "bending you to its will" when it tells you that you cannot impose your religious beliefs on others, such is the consequence of living in an open society where others are also permitted to hold and exercise religious beliefs of their own, even if they differ from yours.

Dennis Prager's Conservative Man's Guide to Sex

Remember how, a while back, Ann Coulter would rant about how married couples have better sex lives than singles. And you couldn't help but wonder, "How would she know?" Dennis Prager has thoughtfully provided us with the answers: Married women have a better work ethic. (At least if they want to stay married.)

It seems almost gratuitous to make fun of Prager, not that it's going to stop me. He's apparently in the grip of a bizarre form of the whore-madonna complex for which the only cure is his demand that madonna "put out". According to Prager, here's how women think:

A husband knows that his wife loves him first and foremost by her willingness to give her body to him. This is rarely the case for women. Few women know their husband loves them because he gives her his body (the idea sounds almost funny). This is, therefore, usually a revelation to a woman. Many women think men's natures are similar to theirs, and this is so different from a woman's nature, that few women know this about men unless told about it.

Here's how men react:

A man whose wife frequently denies him sex will first be hurt, then sad, then angry, then quiet. And most men will never tell their wives why they have become quiet and distant. They are afraid to tell their wives. They are often made to feel ashamed of their male sexual nature, and they are humiliated (indeed emasculated) by feeling that they are reduced to having to beg for sex.

Prager admits that there are rare occasions when a husband "should not initiate sex", although the exceptions to his "24/7" policy aren't enumerated. But make no mistake, as much as the husband may be writhing in undisclosed self-doubt if his wife doesn't put out all the time, it's the woman's job to clearly communicate those times when the husband shouldn't ask for sex ("women should not expect men to read their minds"). I'm thinking Prager might forgive a wife's lack of accommodation at times of severe illness although, on the other hand, if she's already in bed....

Seriously, rather than writing columns lecturing women that, even though it's not in their nature to like sex very much, and certainly not very often, they should accede to their husband's sexual demands on almost all occasions he could have written a column lamenting to men, "Women don't like sex very much, perhaps not at all, so don't let your feelings get hurt when they say 'no'." Sure, people would still make fun of him, but maybe not quite as much. But at least it would be honest.

What sort of marriage does Prager envision, where a wife is to "give her body to" her husband as she acts "happy no matter what [her] mood", all the while keeping secret the fact that he isn't sexually attractive to her? For all of his whining about how women allow themselves to be "governed by feelings and moods", implying that men are rational beings, why not simply encourage men to be rational, accept their women for what they are, and build a marriage premised on mutual respect? Under Prager's logic, isn't it men who are being irrational, becoming angry, distant, ashamed, and unfaithful because they aren't willing to learn or accept basic "facts" about female sexuality?

This is where it gets interesting. When madonna doesn't "put out", the Pragers of the world feel justified in seeking out that other type of woman. Except Prager's already told us that there's really only one type of woman - there's no evil vixen of "the kind you don't take home to mother" who actually likes sex. According to Prager's columns, sex for women is always a quid pro quo. They don't get a great deal of pleasure from it, so they need to get something else. When Prager warns wives,

To ask that [your husband] also regularly deny himself sex with the one woman in the world with whom he is permitted sex is asking far too much. Deny him enough times and he may try to fill this need with another woman.

What type of woman is he suggesting would "fill his need"? Prager's attentions always turn to the material:

What if your husband woke up one day and announced that he was not in the mood to go to work? If this happened a few times a year, any wife would have sympathy for her hardworking husband. But what if this happened as often as many wives announce that they are not in the mood to have sex? Most women would gradually stop respecting and therefore eventually stop loving such a man.

Or maybe she would tell him, "Honey, you hate your job. Let's work on your résumé, and help you find a new one where you won't be so miserable."

What woman would love a man who was so governed by feelings and moods that he allowed them to determine whether he would do something as important as go to work? Why do we assume that it is terribly irresponsible for a man to refuse to go to work because he is not in the mood, but a woman can - indeed, ought to - refuse sex because she is not in the mood? Why?

I almost wish there were a webcast of this, as I would like to know how much anger, fear, frustration, even rage at God explodes out of Prager as he cries, "Why?" But there you have it. Women benefit from men going to work and providing them with material stability, geegaws and doodads. And a woman's equivalent responsibility in marriage is to willingly "give her body to him" pretty much any time he asks. If only women worked for a living, maybe then they would understand....

In the rest of life, not just in marital sex, it is almost always a poor idea to allow feelings or mood to determine one’s behavior. Far wiser is to use behavior to shape one’s feelings. Act happy no matter what your mood and you will feel happier. Act loving and you will feel more loving....

Okay, Dennis, if that's truly what you believe, how about trying this at home: "Act like you're getting lots of sex from your wife." Don't blame her when you feel dissatisfied in the marriage, feel insecure, or start picking up hookers.

As one bright and attractive woman in her 50s ruefully said to me, “Had I known this while I was married, he would never have divorced me.”

I can almost imagine the conversation:

Woman: "I am so upset. My husband was cheating on me, sleeping with prostitutes, and now we're divorced."

Prager: "If he was sleeping with prostitutes, he obviously wasn't getting enough sex at home."

Woman: "Well, he would come home from work late, reeking of alcohol, lipstick on his collar. It was a real turn-off. Not to mention I was concerned about sexually transmitted disease.

Prager: "He went to work, and you still didn't reward him with sex on demand? It's the same thing, you know. We all have jobs we hate, but we gotta do 'em. He goes to work every day for the pay and, when you think about it, he's merely asking you to do pretty much the same thing. By rejecting him for sex you're making him feel ashamed and emasculated, and the only way he can recover from that is by getting sex somewhere else. Since women don't like sex very much, are you really surprised he sometimes had to pay for it?"

Woman: "Had I known this while I was married, he would never have divorced me."

Prager: "I told my ex-wives the same thing, and boy are they sorry now."

And there you have it - everything Prager knows about sex. Don't you feel silly now, that you were afraid to ask?

Chastity

Rich Lowry today tells us of the glories of chastity, and suggests (based upon statistics which don't really support his thesis) that there is no inevitability to teenage sexual activity.

A couple of observations....

First, "conservatives" like Mr. Lowry never seem to speak from first-hand experience. That is, despite their ostensibly perfect morals and extraordinary self-control, they never assert that they, themselves, were abstinent as teens - let alone that they were abstinent until marriage. In most cases, they were not.

Second, "conservatives" have never had a problem with teen sexuality and teen pregnancy - within the so-called "confines" of marriage. History tells us that this debate is about social control, not about age.

Comments

Reaction Formation

Back during my undergraduate days, when taking one psychology class or another, I was introduced to the concept of "reaction formation". This psychological defense mechanism results in unacceptable impulses being converted to their opposite. The paradigm example was the anti-pornography crusader, who publicly laments the availability of 'smut' and 'obscenity', while simultaneously immersed (in a socially acceptable way) in the material he so deplores. (I won't refer to the "Meese Report" as a possible example, as that would be rude.)

Many will find cause to criticize the manner in which human sexuality is treated by the modern media. Whether it is the salacious "news" coverage of the Kobe Bryant or Michael Jackson sex assault allegations, the increasingly bizarre "dating" television programs or the "race to the bottom" in daytime TV with its "My eleven-year-old is out of control"-type prurient obsessions, or the attempt to revive or promote lousy television programming by adding suggestive jokes and content, there is plenty that will make many in our society uncomfortable. But obviously there are a lot of people who love, or love to hate, that type of programming - it is produced because it makes money. It could be argued that it holds up a mirror to American values - not those we profess, but those we actually live. It is the mainstream advertising dollar which causes this type of television to dominate the airwaves, not the fringe.

So back to reaction formation. When I heard about the Massachusetts decision which requires the state legislature to afford at least some form of marriage or "civil union" to gay couples, my reaction was essentially that it was good to afford gay adults the same rights in their relationships that we afford to heterosexual adults. It did not occur to me, as it apparently did to so many "conservatives", that recognizing gay marriage or civil unions would lead inexorably to the legalization of incest, polygamous marriage, or even adult-child relationships. And that leaves me wondering to what degree the "conservative" reaction is based upon ideology, and to what extent it is based upon "reaction formation" among the sexually obsessed who have sublimated their own desires but now project them onto the rest of society.

Leaving those thoughts behind for a moment, let's take a look at the latest from Cal Thomas, "Judging Michael Jackson and ourselves":

If Michael Jackson did, in fact, as it is alleged, have sex with a minor boy, what's wrong with that? The question is not meant to be cute; I am serious. If a male child was fondled or sodomized by Michael Jackson, why shouldn't he and the boy be allowed the orientation of their choice? If you disagree, who are you to impose your morality on them?

This statement is, according to Mr. Thomas, meant to outrage us - not because he is suggesting that Jackson's alleged victim "wanted it", but as an illustration of how "divorce, premarital sex, abortion, homosexuality, group sex, domestic partnerships and, soon, same-sex marriage" have become acceptable, with adult-child sex as, he supposes, the next likely target. He proceeds to lament the sexualized content of the latest "Abercrombie & Fitch Christmas Field Guide magazine, targeted to 10- to 13-year-olds", and provides us with his exact count of sexually suggestive images (although reciting that somebody else did the counting), and an abstract of the sexualized content.

And then Mr. Thomas protests, in relation to adult sex offenders,

Should we be surprised when some people act on the permission the media give them?

Yes, Cal, we should. Just as our violence-imbued media doesn't inspire otherwise law-abiding Americans to go on shooting sprees, and just as many people managed to watch and enjoy "Pulp Fiction" without running out to buy or try illegal drugs, seeing a child depicted in a sexually suggestive manner in no way constitutes "permission" to act unacceptably. Is Thomas commenting on how others might react, or is he speaking of his own reactions to such images, anticipating that others feel the same way? (It's not an unfair question to ask, given that he chooses to indict American society with his insinuations about such imagery.)

Before going on to misrepresent the significance of the diagnostic criteria set forth in the DSM-IV, Mr. Thomas continues,

The early sexualization of children has produced ever-earlier sexual activity (and pregnancy) among those children.

It has? Well, let's take a look at that assertion. As David Brooks notes in today's New York Times,

Teenage pregnancy and abortion rates rose in the early 1970's and 1980's, then leveled off and now are dropping.

(But why let the facts get in your way.)

Mr. Thomas then rails against sex education programs,

The sexualization of children is supported by state governments, many of which mandate sex education as early as kindergarten. School nurses dispense contraceptives and abortion advice without parental knowledge or approval. Teen magazines such as Cosmo Girl and Seventeen promote sexual activity for minor children. A British charity publishes a children's sex guide, "Say Yes, Say No, Say Maybe." It explains various positions and the excitement of intercourse.

It seems to me that "kindergarten sex ed" - which is inevitably going to focus on "good touch, bad touch" - would be something Mr. Thomas would endorse as protecting children from predators. But apparently it is better that children be ignorant even of "bad touches" than that they receive this insidious introduction to "sex education".

As for that British guide, which is apparently aimed at teens from fourteen to sixteen, the actual title of the publication is "Say Yes? Say No? Say Maybe?". Mr. Thomas misrepresents the title as if it is indifferent to what answer a teen gives. The actual title sends a very different message. And, given that "the excitement of intercourse" is one of the leading factors in why teens of that age end up engaged in unprotected sex, perhaps it isn't so bad that sex education materials address that issue? (In Mr. Thomas's world, though, perhaps it is better that teen sex be unprotected, to increase the odds that a "loose woman" will be "punished" with pregnancy....)

Comments