Chastity Belts Under the Christmas Tree

One thing (the only thing, really) I miss after cancelling my cable TV service is The Daily Show. Thankfully the occasional great clip is posted at onegoodmove, and one doesn't need a subscription (yet) to The New York Times to read Paul Krugman and Frank Rich. Rich's article (also here) on the no-nothings is on target, though he should have put a little more emphasis on the degree to which the religionists' moralizing is less about protecting children and more about defending patriarchal (i.e., authoritarian/capitalist) order. Richard Goldstein gets it right as well, though I've never seen the show he discusses:

Religious conservatives are perfectly willing to be entertained by immorality; they only require that it be punished, at least eventually.

Since those who suffer most from the theocrats' ignorance-only approach to sex ed tend to live on other continents and have a darker epidermal hue, it won't be long before "African HIV Survivor" becomes the next hit reality show, the latest way for one community to feel superior to another while denying its own problems and their actual causes.

The feudalists set up these fictitious culture wars, propping up theocrats as straw men, while they do the dirty work behind the scenes to keep a few men fat and happy and all others begging for gifts. "Women and children first," they all say, repeating the same old story: "It's OK, my dears, everything will be all white if you place your trust in the heavenly master and his invisible hand."