Though likely to be overshadowed by the fact - and all the sexism and judgment it entails - that some teen starlet went and got herself knocked up, the CDC has released a report that comprehensive sexual education works:

They found teenage boys who had sex education in school were 71 percent less likely to have intercourse before age 15, and teen girls who had sex education were 59 percent less likely to have sex before age 15.

Sex education also increased the likelihood that teen boys would use contraceptives the first time they had sex, according to the study by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was published in the Journal of Adolescent Health.

So why is it, again, that lawmakers continue to extend funding of a program that provides youth with lies and misinformation and, what’s more, doesn’t work?

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A group of scientists sent a letter to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid encouraging them to discontinue federal funding of abstinence-only sex education. Some highlights:

Withholding lifesaving information from young people is contrary to the standards of medical ethics and to many international human rights conventions...Governments have an obligation to provide accurate information to adolescents and adolescents have a right to expect health education provided in public schools to be scientifically accurate and complete.

The large-scale Mathematica evaluation of the Section 510 program, released in April 2007, found no measurable impact on increasing abstinence or delaying sexual initiation among participating youth or on other behaviors such as condom use…One of the few measurable impacts of the programs was a decrease in adolescent confidence regarding the ability of condoms to prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

A spring 2005 longitudinal study by Bruckner and Bearman found that abstinence pledgers, when compared to non-pledgers, experienced similar rates of sexually transmitted infection. Pledgers did delay sexual intercourse for a limited period, but when they did start having sex, they were less likely to use condoms. They were also less likely to seek reproductive health care compared to non-pledgers.

Importantly, the emphasis on abstinence-only programs and policies appears to be undermining critical public health programs in the U.S. and abroad, including comprehensive sexuality education and HIV prevention programs.

We also note that a December 2004 Congressional report on federal abstinence programs from the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Government Reform - Minority Staff found that 11 of the 13 most frequently used curricula contained false, misleading or distorted information about reproductive health - including inaccurate information about contraceptive effectiveness, purported health risks of abortion, and other scientific errors.

We would note that all of the mainstream organizations of health professionals that focus on the health of young people have strongly criticized federal support for current abstinence programs. These include the American Public Health Association, the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychological Association, and the Society for Adolescent Medicine. We have also attached the weblinks to the policy statements from each of these groups.

The full letter, along with valuable links to sources, can be found at RH Reality Check.

And, while we’re on the subject of pound foolishness, WIC funding is in danger of being cut.

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God bless Joe Sonka. God bless Joe Sonka because he works his tail off traversing Kentucky covering the various manifestations of right-wing lunacy in the commonwealth [If you haven’t checked out Joe’s blogosphere-famous coverage of the Creation Museum from earlier this year, do so].

I envy Joe because he has that ability to observe the multitude of nitwits that make up the Kentucky GOP with a humorous eye and a sly smirk. I, on the other hand, don’t suffer these fools so well, even from a thousand miles away. Yet Joe has the gift, through his writing, of putting the crazy nature of social conservatives in Kentucky in perspective.

For example, Joe has a frightening new report over at BlueGrassRoots (the article itself will be published in the Lexington-based W Weekly) about a recent meeting of the American Family Association of Kentucky.

I’m going to include some excerpts from Joe’s piece below, but the most important thing to remember is that both the Republican candidate for state attorney general, Rep. Stan Lee, and for state auditor, Linda Greenwell, were in attendance and fully engaged at this meeting.

You know how most of the world has been up-in-arms against Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (R?) over his years-long effort to promote the cause of holocaust denial? It’s craziness. Rational people know it. That didn’t stop the Iranians from organizing and hosting a Holocaust denial conference last year. Birds of a feather flock together, as even the U.S.’s very own former Klu Klux Klan member David Duke took part.

In the end, we will never eliminate crazy beliefs like Holocaust denial, racism, xenophobia, or homophobia, but we can marginalize them. Peer pressure does work, especially here in the United States. Americans, by and large, want to be perceived as successful, accepted, and mainstream. So, by framing these sorts of beliefs as radical, extreme, undesirable and out-of-the-mainstream, you necessitate that people who continue to cling to them make an overt choice for themselves: which is more important to them, their hatred of others or their own prosperity?

It’s objectively true that hatred is not rational; it is morally wrong. Yet some people will not make the rational choice on their own; they need a little cajoling along the way. That’s where societal pressure comes into play.

Keep that in mind as you read what Joe has to say below about this meeting. Think about how outrageous its content was, and how scary it is that two of the Republican candidates for statewide office embraced this message and those who propagate it.

In short, these people at the American Family Association of Kentucky are free to have their beliefs; it’s a free country. The rest of us, however, should expect that men and women who strive to attain the highest levels of elected office in our land would not associate with them, would shun them. Instead, they are embracing them, and on election day the people of Kentucky will shun Stan Lee and Linda Greenwell as punishment.

Raging Bigotry and the Dying of the Right

Did you know that Lexington is run by the “Homosexual Hegemony”? That “the gays” own the government and the media? And the only way to get access to this power is to have the dirty gay sex with them?

Yea, neither did I.

[…]

Roughly 50 people squeezed into the cafeteria. After the first speaker told us how he escaped the evils of today’s society when God told him to start his own line of athletic apparel, it was Kent Ostrander’s turn. Ostrander, the founder of the like-minded Family Foundation, was a key player in the push to amend KY’s Constitution so that gay marriage and civil unions are now outlawed.

He was sure to preface his points with “now, I’m not trying to vilify homosexuals”. For example, he would say this just before his inaccurate tangent on how gay sex is the cause of 75% of AIDS in the world. “These people bring this on themselves!”

He further chastised UK, saying that allowing partners to receive health insurance is to tolerate and “validify” these relationships. Again, he “wasn’t trying to vilify gays”, but the “predatory ideas of the radical homosexual agenda” will destroy our families and society. Ostrander ended his speech, nearly shouting, “Our God shall reign!”

Next, a sociology student presented her research project on why the black community in Lexington is faced with the problems of poverty, crime and drug abuse. Her conclusion, after repeatedly informing us that she was a “scientist”? Young blacks in Lexington are mired in this because of….. The Gays. You see, homosexuals own all of the power in the black community of Lexington, coining it the “Homosexual Hegemony”. Those gays force young blacks wanting access to that power to tolerate and become acclimated to the gay lifestyle. One acclimated to this immorality, they succumb to the evils of drug abuse, crime and dirty gay sex.

But these are just the crazy ramblings of some small fringe cult, right? Apparently, not. Linda Greenwell, Republican candidate for Auditor in next week’s election, was happily handing out campaign literature to the crowd. Ostrander pointed out state Sen. Stan Lee in the crowd, thanking him for all of his work to “support our cause in Frankfort”. Lee, the Republican candidate for Attorney General, took a bow and soaked in the applause.

Then, it was Frank Simon’s turn. He jumped right into the “culture war” routine, blasting the godless villains who have taken the commandments, literal creation science and prayer out of public schools. “We need to stop them and GOD will stop them!”

Simon started in with the gays, then paused, putting on a coy exterior of doubt. “Oh, I don’t want to get into this…” before deciding to share his shocking video with the crowd. The lights were dimmed, and he presented a video that he claimed was being shown in schools. It showed a series of families, in which a child introduced us to his/her two mothers or fathers. Each child explained how, despite their differences, they love and protect each other just like any other family does.

The visceral reaction from the crowd was palpable. Audible gasps. Loud cries of “no!!!”, “my God!!”, “how dare they!” It resembled the “2-minute hate” out of Orwell’s 1984, the crowd whipped up into frenzy at the traitorous Goldstein. “This is what we’re up against!” cried Simon.

“Sure, kids drank beer back in my day, but it wasn’t until the gays that they started smoking the dope! ….. We never used to have to lock our doors!”

They culprit was the ubiquitous “They”. “They” took over our government. “They” want gay sex taught to our children. “They control the media! You’re only going to find out about these votes in Frankfort after they happen. That’s no accident. They don’t want you to know about them!”

Such bigotry among fundamentalists has many forbearers. This used to be the argument against “race-mixing”, how the Bible warned against it and it would tear down the fabric of our society. Such bigots were swept to the margins of society after the civil rights movement, but there is always a new “they” to latch onto. And while fomenting hatred towards gays has proved quite successful for the Christian Right, they also know that the gig is up.

Shortly after this AFA meeting, UK had a “coming out week”, where gay and straight students could show solidarity and promote tolerance. At one event, state Sen. Ernesto Scorsone, our first openly gay representative, told the crowd, “When I went to UK, something like this was unheard of. We’ve progressed to the point where this is now possible.”

And that is why we see the vitriol of the Christian right. They know that their loss in the culture war is imminent. A recent poll showed that those under 30 have rejected this brand of bigotry in politics, supporting gay rights in overwhelming numbers. There is even a rift among evangelicals, as a recent NYT article found many churches abandoning the obsession with gays, moving towards the social justice aspect of Christianity.

Tuesday’s election would seem to validate this trend, as Republicans Ernie Fletcher and Stan Lee are expected to lose by nearly 20 points. But victory is not yet upon us, as KY politicians will still seek to capitalize on this homophobic demographic (Even Todd Hollenbach, Dem. candidate for Treasurer, refuses to renounce Simon’s endorsement).

But at least we now know that it will take more than simply using homophobia to get elected in KY.

Of course, if I was Mexican, I’d be sweating a bit.

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Our government continues to fund programs that aren’t working, yet has a hard time funding those that do. The next time Sen Mitch McConnell wants to throw out things like “common sense”, kindly tell him to “sit on it.”

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Dan Klepal, in today’s Courier-Journal reports on gubernatorial candidate Steve Beshear’s plan to create economic growth and educational attainment within Kentucky:

“My goal is to double the number of degree-holders by the year 2020,” Beshear said, adding that would bring the total to about 800,000. “To do this, we must make higher education more affordable.”

Beshear, a former lieutenant governor and attorney general, also has a plan to keep college graduates in the state. It’s called the Kentucky First Scholarship Program and would forgive one year of state loans for every year a graduate works in Kentucky.

The program would cost about $27 million in its first year, a Beshear spokeswoman said.

Those state loans would be granted only after all other available assistance — such as scholarships, grants and student loans — are used. The program would apply to all students, whether from Kentucky or out of state.

Though some data suggests that Kentucky is experiencing a “brain gain,” there is a general consensus that the state, along with others in the region, ranks quite low when it comes to education. Poverty here remains high. (More on reasons why here.) Meanwhile, our sitting governor advocates phony science and appeasing his fellow neocon hypocrites above making real progress in the state.

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The Courier-Journal today ran an insightful piece written by E.J. Dionne Jr. on the myth of “big government.” Big government is, of course, a scare tactic used to justify lots of awful things, from lax gun control laws to not providing for the nation’s poor. Just exactly how big our government has actually gotten under the leadership of a Republican president, however, is worth a closer look.

In slightly unrelated news, Mark Hebert reports that nearly two-thirds of Kentuckians want some sort of U.S. troop withdrawal in Iraq.

Also, I’ve been meaning to blog about abstinence-only (mis)education for a number of weeks now, but Mary Q. Burton at the LEO does such a first-rate job in “Sex, lies and abstinence” that I’ll just quote in part:

Teri Lloyd was surprised when the sex education books her children brought home from school seemed woefully incomplete. The books omitted certain parts of the female anatomy — specifically, the clitoris.

“That’s got to be a shame, fear-based thing,” says Lloyd, 49, whose daughter, now 23, attended school at Myers Middle. “We just failed to educate them about their own bodies. What we leave out can be shaming, too. I wondered why that part wasn’t mentioned. I’m not opposed to teaching abstinence; what I’m opposed to is pairing it with shame or with lack of information about birth control and the human body.”

They can give enough of my tax money to fund religious anti-choice pregnancy centers, but can’t find a few hundred bucks for an accurate scientific rendering of the female anatomy? Nice.

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Congress has voted to reverse a policy that bars the United States from providing contraception aid to foreign organizations that also provide abortions. Bush, however, will veto yet another bill (fourth? who’s counting?) and the veto will be upheld by right-wing lawmakers.

Better that people die from AIDS or unsafe abortions than send some rubbers overseas. That’s what the American “culture of life” is all about!

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The AP (via NPR) reports that President Bush is prepared to, once again, veto legislation that would supply government funding for embryonic stem-cell research:

This will be the third veto of Bush’s presidency. His first occurred last year when he rejected legislation to allow funding of additional lines of embryonic stem cells - a measure that passed over the objections of Republicans then in control. The second legislation he vetoed would have set timetables for U.S. troop withdrawals from Iraq.

I’d draw the conclusion that the Bush’s Iraq veto indicates that he doesn’t, in fact, care all that much about “life.” What a surprise: the “culture of life” is actually the culture of death.

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As a society and a state, we only have so much energy — whether it be intellectual, emotional, or physical — to devote to the causes we collectively identify as important to our present and future.

Where we put our collective efforts and what we make our common priorities are our free choices, and each and every state and our nation as a whole faces its choices.

And those choices have consequences.

I think it’s fair to say, and I believe historians of Kentucky agree on this point, that the aggregate of our state’s decision making since about the end of the Civil War has been on the less progressive side, and the end result is that — relative to the other states — Kentucky has fallen behind. We are undeniably at the bottom of nearly every indicator one cares to cite on trends of potential and prosperity.

Lots of lip service comes from our business and political communities about doing what needs to be done to “get Kentucky ahead” in the nation, but when the going gets a little tough, Kentucky always seems to take a little break from the action to wipe its brow and contemplate the world, while the persistent states chug right along, rarely taking their eye off the goal. That’s what happened in Kentucky with education reform and investment, that’s what’s happened with infrastructural development, that’s what’s taken place with the environment and natural resource management, and it’s even a trend that’s measurable in our culture.

Our culture? Yes, our culture. Most people probably think of Kentucky’s culture as an asset, and in many ways it most certainly is, from the landscapes of the Bluegrass, to Churchill Downs, to the musical sounds of Appalachia and Rosine and so much more.

Yet, there are terribly regressive elements to our culture, as well, and that fact has been made painfully clear in the reaction of Kentucky’s social and political “establishment” to President George W. Bush’s nomination of Dr. James W. Holsinger, with his record of an irrational and unscientific anti-gay agenda, as the nation’s next surgeon general. I’m not talking about the reaction of the everyday Kentuckian here because we haven’t seen any measure of it. What I’m speaking of is the collective voice of Kentucky’s chattering class, its self-defined elite population: it has come out in full force behind the Holsinger nomination.

Before I turn to the specifics of that reaction and the problems with it, I want to first make this more general point. Why is it important for Kentucky to embrace — not just tolerate — its homosexual population? Well, can any society prosper and turn its back on something like 5 percent of its population — a population that research tells us is generally very well educated and earns high-than-average incomes? And, keep in mind, while we turn our backs on them, other states are welcoming them with open arms. Some people might argue that we can do without that highly productive 5 percent or — perhaps it is better to say — we can do without that 5 percent producing at its highest potential.

Yet, imagine the aggregate effect of oppressing and/or losing that population over the course of a generation. It will be substantial, won’t it? Furthermore, our loss will be the gain of others. These people won’t simply roll over and not produce in their lives and careers; they’ll simply go elsewhere and find success. And, let’s be realistic here: a generation from now, attitudes towards homosexuals will be very accepting and lax, just as in the last generation we’ve seen attitudes towards race and interracial marriage liberalize.

So, for a moment, let’s put ourselves in the shoes of our grandchildren, who will not have inherited our general fear and hatred of homosexuals, but who will have inherited the inferior society and economy that we ourselves built around that fear and hatred. Attitudes will change, but there’s nothing stopping them from changing now except our own refusal to do so.

The hard thing for us to do as Kentuckians today is to say to ourselves, “You know, I don’t agree with it, I don’t think it’s right in the eyes of God, I would never engage in that sort of activity myself, but by golly these people are human beings, taxpayers, and they have their civil rights, and so let them be and let’s build a society where we call prosper and all have an equal stake.”

That would be the hard thing for Kentuckians to do, and — quite frankly — I can tell you today that we aren’t going to do it. We aren’t going to do it because its the cultural equivalent of work, and we’re taking the lazy way out on this one. We’ll let time take its course, and we’ll let our children’s children suffer the consequences and lament the repercussions of what was our emotional sloth.

Now, back to Kentucky’s chattering class and its favorable reception of Dr. James W. Holsinger’s nomination. Both the Louisville Courier-Journal and the Lexington Herald-Leader have endorsed the nomination, and even as more facts about Holsinger’s controversial and pseudo-scientifically problematic views on homosexuality have come to light, they have continued to aggressively defend their previous endorsements.

In fact, their articles have taken a rather populist tone by stating that Holsinger’s greatest sin is arguing that “male homosexual sex was unnatural and unhealthy,” a statement most Kentuckians likely agree with, but their belief of it, or Holsinger’s for that matter, still doesn’t change the fact that it’s well outside the realm of established medical consensus. Furthermore, Holsinger’s huge lapse in judgment was his attempt to wrap his own religious opinions on homosexuality in an aura of science by disingenuously cherry picking research data.

The Op-Ed pages of the papers have been filled with taunts like this from Martin Cothran, a senior policy analyst for the Family Foundation of Kentucky:

Yes, it sounds incredible, but there it is: a doctor who thinks anal sex isn’t healthful. Just what turnip truck did this guy fall off of anyway? Where has he been the last few years? Studying AIDS data or something? OK, we know that people used to take medicine seriously and that once upon a time, doctors based their opinions on actual evidence. But aren’t we past all that? Haven’t we come to the realization some things are more important than medical facts?

Or, let’s take this piece from Matt Barber, policy director for cultural issues for Concerned Women for America, which both Kentucky papers have now run.

The irrefutable reality that thousands of former homosexuals have chosen to leave the gay lifestyle they once chose to enter serves to further bolster — if not prove entirely –Holsinger’s advised medical assessment.

Kentucky’s major newspapers are gladly serving as platforms for the radical right to rile up the basest fears and hatreds of Kentuckians. Why? Because to stir up this outrage serves the purposes of the chattering class: to push the Holsinger nomination at all costs. The chattering class in Kentucky tolerates gays, so long as those gays are content to know their place and accept their second-class status.

Now, however, this arrangement is out of whack because the progress of the nation and Kentucky’s gay community is conflicting with the agenda of the state’s chattering class. The chattering class wants a Kentucky surgeon general; they want the prestige and have grand visions of Holsinger developing into the next C. Everret Coop.

The gay community and the nation as a whole, however, believes it’s time we stand up to the bigotry that Holsinger’s professionally stated opinions represent. The opinions he holds, in other words, are unacceptable to the mainstream of the nation, regardless of what the mainstream of Kentucky is; the nomination, after all, is to serve as the nation’s surgeon general, not Kentucky’s.

The surgeon general is in significant part a figurehead position, a symbol of the vibrancy of the medical profession in the United States, and it’s quite obvious to everyone involved but Kentucky’s chattering class that this nation can find a far more appropriate and unifying figure to be that head than Dr. James W. Holsinger.

The person in all of this who has disappointed me most, however, is Democratic Congressman John Yarmuth, who represents Louisville and who yesterday endorsed Holsinger’s nomination.

Yarmuth fashions himself a liberal, and we don’t have many politicians in Kentucky who do that. He represents a traditionally Democratic city and district, one with a sizable population of people who have suffered from persecution in the past and continue to do so. I don’t expect Republicans or conservatives to understand the nuances of this issue or even what’s at stake for our future in it. That’s why we have liberals and progressives: to imagine a better future and fight for it. That’s their social and political function.

We needed Yarmuth’s leadership on this one, and we’re not going to get it. It’s a shame. We know how the future will judge his failure on this one, and I for one plan to be around to remember it.

As I pointed out yesterday, if the paper that Holsinger had published in 1991 had argued against interracial marriage, a practice which is still abhorred by many on the religious right in this nation, I doubt Yarmuth’s representative would have said that the congressman:

“…finds ample reason to believe that those opinions will not interfere with (Holsinger’s) work (as surgeon general), that as a practicing professional he’s never let that interfere.”

So, the chattering class in Kentucky could have made a powerful statement in opposing the Holsinger nomination. It could have said:

‘It would be flattering to have a Kentuckian as surgeon general, but unfortunately President Bush, while choosing a man with impressive professional credentials, has also selected one whose religious campaign against homosexuals, which he attempted to bolster by misrepresenting and inappropriately contextualizing scientific data, places the nominee outside the mainstream on the issue of increasing tolerance of homosexuals in American society. This issue is one our nation — and our state, especially — needs leadership on, and we believe that James W. Holsinger cannot provide that leadership. Therefore, we oppose his nomination.

But that didn’t happen.

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Oy! These Creationists just can’t get along. You’d think people who push brother-on-sister incest as a divinely sanctioned form of love and procreation could get on more peaceably with their brothers and sisters in the Creationist movement.

Andy Mead of the Lexington Herald-Leader has the story, which is an excellent bit of self-contained work:

Museum group sued by fellow creationists
MONEY AND ‘ACTING IN AN UNBIBLICAL FASHION’ AT THE ROOT

There is trouble in paradise, with a fight of biblical proportions raging between a Kentucky-based creationist group and the Australian group from which it sprang.

Three days after the Memorial Day opening of Answers in Genesis’ $27 million Creation Museum in Northern Kentucky, a group called Creation Ministries International filed suit in the Supreme Court of Queensland.

Among other things, the suit claims the Kentucky group stole subscribers for its Answers magazine by claiming that the Australians’ Creation magazine was “no longer available.”

The suit is the most public move in what has been a growing rift between groups that are spreading the same Garden of Eden creation message on opposite sides of the globe.

Both groups believe in a literal interpretation of the Bible, that the earth and everything else was created in six days around 6,000 years ago.

But in the last several years, they have increasingly feuded about finances and power.

Now each is accusing the other of acting in an “unbiblical” fashion — a serious charge for people who believe that the Bible is God’s infallible word.

“All I’ll tell you is those allegations are totally preposterous and untrue,” Ken Ham, the president of Answers in Genesis, said in a brief interview last week. “The Bible tells you not to have a lawsuit against your brother, so you can see who’s obeying the Bible and who’s not.”

[…]

In 1994, Ham arrived in Northern Kentucky — chosen for its proximity to the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and a sizable portion of the nation’s population — and started Answers in Genesis.

The name was adopted by the Australian organization, which later changed its name again to Creation Ministries International.

It is CMI that is suing AiG.

In Kentucky, Ham began planning for his Creation Museum. The first order of business: building a financial base.

He spoke at churches. He conducted seminars. He launched a popular Web site. He started a radio program that eventually would be carried on 860 stations across the country.

All this allowed him to create a mailing list of people who were willing to give money. When the museum opened, it was paid for. Mark Looy, another AiG leader, said the average contribution to the $27 million effort was a little more than $100.

[…]

Australia’s only national daily newspaper, The Australian, has picked up on a sordid part of the Briese report: It says that Ham has questioned the timing of Wieland’s second marriage — to a woman who once was Ham’s secretary — only two weeks after divorcing his first wife. And it says that Ham is collaborating with an Australian who was excommunicated from his Baptist church because he once accused Wieland’s wife of witchcraft and necrophilia.

“I think to some extent CMI is bringing that up just for the unseemly aspect of it,” Lippard said.

[…]

Wieland said he still hoped for Christian arbitration with Ham. But, he said, CMI was left with no choice but to sue.

“At the end of the day … there has to be right-doing,” he said. “Things can’t just be swept under the carpet.”

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Hey all you religious fundies, make sure and put one Eric Linden on your prayer lists at church this Father’s Day!

Eric, you’ll recall, was the young man who had a brief stint in a video as Adam — the original man — at Kentucky’s very own brand-spanking-new, world-class Creation Museum. It was only a brief stint because word got around — like, the entire world — that Eric had a penchant for the free-love lifestyle, and there were even pictures to go along.

Now, we at Ditch Mitch KY say good for Eric, but we’re not religious fundies and the fundies sure didn’t respond that way. No, indeed, they didn’t. Because if there’s one message you do not want your kids taking away from a museum display featuring a naked man and woman in a garden alone, it’s free love.

Also, you just know that Eric was the only “sinner” who contributed to anything in the Creation Museum, right? I’m sure no-one on the board of directors has ever been divorced or anything because he or she cheated on a spouse. Surely not. Oh, that’s right, but you can ask forgiveness for that sort of stuff, but carousing with trannies is just unpardonable.

So, in the end, Eric’s video was removed, the world is still laughing at the fundies, and Eric had his fifteen minutes of fame.

And I present to you: images of Eric Linden with transvestite.

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That’s all there is to it: there are numerous other men and women physicians in this nation who are just as or even more qualified than homophobe Dr. James W. Holsinger to be this nation’s surgeon general, and those other persons do not come with all the anti-gay baggage.

Bush’s nomination of Holsinger to the office of surgeon general parallels that of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, a nomination that was ultimately withdrawn. Miers was marginally qualified, but came with a load of partisanship and out-of-the-mainstream views. Holsinger is the same.

The Louisville Courier-Journal has published another disgraceful editorial in defense of Holsinger. Wouldn’t it be refreshing if they had the balls to actually say what needs to be said: ‘it would be an honor for the people of Kentucky to have a surgeon general from their state, but Dr. James W. Holsinger is unfortunately not that person; he is a man who represents what is wrong with this administration and the sort of bigotry that Kentuckians must work to shed.’

I can assure you of one thing, however, these Kentuckians right here are going to fight this nomination.

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This letter to the editor was actually published in a Kentucky newspaper. I think its a pretty good representation of the kind of mindset and mental health that it takes to believe that Adam and Eve played fetch with dinosaurs 6,000 years ago while their kids were busy fucking.

Let me just summarize the wonderful pontification in the letter. The evolution “mythology” and science being taught in our schools is “dumbing down” our kids. This is being taught so the “Illuminati” and the Rockefeller family can control our kids. Oh, and they control the Federal Reserve and engage in occult activities, too. Also, her family loved the Creation Museum and the animatronic dinosaurs “concretely prove that God created the heavens and the earth”.

I really do hope that they chose to run this because it was funny, or they accidentally ran some wonderfully crafted snark.

(crossposted at BlueGrassRoots)

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Yep, people are curious about Kentucky’s world-class Creation Museum, but curious in a bad way. It’s like staring at a circus freak, really it is. And how do I know they’re curious? Check out DMKY’s traffic stats since we went wall-to-wall Creation Museum coverage:

PS: Make sure you check out Joe Sonka’s excellent display-by-display coverage at BlueGrassRoots.

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I went to the truly insane “Creation Museum” last Saturday and have my full report up on BlueGrassRoots.

I’m a big fan of dark, unintentional humor, a