Life and Death in the Utah Legislature: When Morality Kills

WANTED: HPV

This picture of the Human Papillomavirus is the Wanted Poster for the criminal guilty of most cases of cervical cancer. Being a parent focuses priorities in a way that few things can and being a parent of two lovely teenage daughters brings with it all sorts of terrors, fears and night sweats. I've been following the progress of the HPV vacinne for some time now, because of the promise that the vaccine will effectively eliminate the risk that my daughters will suffer from cervical cancer.

First, the vaccine had to get by the fundamentalists in the Bush Administration running the FDA. Both of my daughters have started the vaccination process, which takes three shots over six months. Fortunatley, my girls have excellent health insurance that is paying for all of the cost. Yet today I read about some action in the Utah State Legislature that killed House Bill 358 that proposed allocating a million dollars for education and immunization of the women in the state. The funds were to be used to allow those women who couldn't afford the vaccine to receive it.

A couple of things you need to understand about the budget here in Utah this year -- we have a big surplus. We aren't operating on a deficit. We have the funds available. I listened to the audio of the committee hearing while I was writing this post and it chilled my blood. Each year in Utah two thousand 11 year old girls from lower income families would become eligible for the subsidized vaccine. The HPV virus has become so prevalent that the U.S. Center for Disease Control estimates that 75% of all women will catch the virus during their lifetime. This means that of the two thousand low-income 11 year olds, 1500 will contract the virus. How many will develop cervical cancer can't be determined. What is known is that in Utah, 17 women die from cervical cancer each year and cervical cancer is the 13th leading type of cancer death in the United States for women -- something that is now completely preventable.

The cost of vaccinating each year, after the back log is caught up, will be about $500,000.00. This seems a small price to pay for saving a guaranteed minimum of 17 lives every year. The Texas governor ordered the HPV vaccine mandatory for school girls, but the Texas Legislature is already making noise to overrule the governor, but then Texas bans dildos.

The allocation of the funds seems like a no brainer, so of course the Utah legislature kills the bill and issues the future death warrants for some unsuspecting eleven year old girls.

Why? From the Salt Lake Tribune Article, Representative D. Gregg Buxton, R-Roy, (dgreggbuxton@comcast.net) said that "he has received many e-mails condemning the vaccine and saying it is unproven." First, I'm sure that the medical qualifications of those people emailing him, where nil, nada, and zip. Second, the thing I would ask every one of these "Representatives" is if you had a female daughter, would you have her vaccinated?

Buxton was skating around the issue, but Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland (jdougall@utah.gov) finally came right out and said the reason the Utah Legislature wants to kill little girls: He asked, "How is HPV contracted?" I'm sure he knew full well that it is contracted by sexual contact and I can almost seeing the knowing nods and grimaces in the hearing room. Fuckers.

My belief was confirmed when Gayle Ruzicka threw her two cents into the mix, saying she was uncomfortable with a campaign that might target girls as young as 9. "Does [the campaign] teach them about abstinence before marriage and fidelity after marriage?" I went to Ruzicka's website and was not surprised to find a whole section opposing the vaccine on the National Eagle Forum website. The opposition to the vaccine because it protects against a sexually transmitted disease is so misguided that it would be silly if it weren't so serious. The Eagle Forum leaders bottom line -- if you are immoral you deserve to die. With morality like that, who needs enemies.

Damn, I'm just really pissed off right now.

Super Bowl Halftime -- Phallic Images for the Wimpy Guy

Think Prince had a little inferiority complex playing for the Super Bowl halftime? Here let me project my big cock and balls up on a screen to show you that I am more manly than Brian Urlacher. Tears were rolling down my eyes as the TV screen flashed the ankh-guitar cum cock-balls. I couldn't stop laughing and only one other person in the entire Mormon infested room understood why I was in hysterics rolling on the floor. You couldn't even see Janet Jackson's nipple with all the jewelry, even when you blew it up to twenty times the size, but Prince saved us the trouble, he blew his up for us.




So what does it say about the Family Values Football culture that a woman's nipples are enough to signal the downfall of Western Civilization, but a little pipsqueak rocker from Minnesota can project his wannabe cock to millions of Americans and not even a flicker of protest.

Apparently representations of the male genitals are less offensive than the female breast to our society. I'm just going to throw out an idea here and I'd love to hear your comments, but repressing female sexuality is necessary for maintaining conservative religious, political and economic control. The patriarchal control is phallic and in a symbolic and in a practical sense exposing female sexuality challenges the existing authority in a way that male sexuality does not. I realize it is not that simple.

Back twenty years ago or so, I remember a Time magazine article that made a bunch of people hot under the color because it described football in terms of sexuality. Tightly wrapped buttocks and genitals and enlarged head and shoulders battle to penetrate the opponents end zone -- something like that. Even spiking the ball after the touchdown, became yet another violative penetration. The homo-ification of football really seemed to bother a lot of people, yet given the Snickers Ad, I'd say that homo eroticism and football are still intertwined (not to mention Prince's rather androgynous appearance, despite his twelve foot cock with the pointy circumcised tip.)

UPDATE: SNICKERS AD PULLED

It appears that Sideon and I touched on a national topic before it became national news -- the speed of the Internet astounds. Sideon took the GLBT party line that the ad was homophobic. I responded by saying "Take a look at the guys face as he dives in -- pure lust. The entire thing was homoerotic, from phallic Snicker's bar peeled out of its wrapper to the deep kiss. Only the ending was homophobic."

This raises an interesting question, because the idea that two greasy car mechanics could be gay is against the gay sterotype and could be seen as a good thing. Snickers also apparently had alternate endings, which I found and have posted. The chest hair ripping was out of context for the rest of the commercial. The natural conclusion would have been for the two guys to acknowledge their mutual affection for each other and Snickers. Instead, Snickers played it for laughs and got snookered instead.

Rather than boycotting or asking the commercial to be pulled, the GBLT crowd should be asking for alternate endings. Have the commercial play when the two go off arm in arm munching on Snickers. The demanded apology or the moral outrage isn't nearly as effective as trying to figure out how to sublimate your message without in turn offending the very people you want to have understand. Go check out the Mormon Laban and Nephi rap video on The Shelf is Breaking for a similar discussion on racism and pop culture. From a sexual context and for further contrast to the Snickers controversy, look at the Britney/Madonna/Christina kisses and that uproar.





LOVE BOAT ALTERNATE ENDING -- Interestingly enough, this one has the highest rating of all the alternate Snickers commercials on YouTube.



MOTOR OIL ALTERNATE ENDING -- This was the most tasteless, I thought.