why would you say that in public?

The Family Research Council, without a hint of sarcasm or whiff of hyperbole to make some point, wants the government to outlaw the sale of birth control to unmarried couples.

As just about every organization with the word "family" in its name, the Family Research Council is an archconservative group that spends its time fighting against big government when it wants to fund social programs or raise taxes, and promoting it when they think it should barge into your bedroom to check if you're having sex in the positions they deem not too indecent with a person they find acceptable to be your sexual partner. So when one of the FRC's senior fellows went on the radio to advocate the illegalization of pre-marital sex, declaring that "functioning societies" could never tolerate it, it's hardly big news. Considering that virtually every major study on the subject shows that between 80% and 95% of the Western world engages in pre-marital sex and the modern Occidental civilization is nowhere near collapse, I could only describe his comments as downright imbecilic and so fantastically detached from reality that it boggles the mind.

But of course none of this confuses or surprises me. No, what I find so bizarre and worthy of an actual post about Pat Fagan's brain-dead proclamations is how incredibly unaware of the world around him he must be to think even for a moment that he had a logical line of thought. At least the Fox News featured prude with a superiority complex famous for his obnoxious naiveté on the subject, Stephen Crowder, was at least self-aware enough to shame those of us who treat sex not as a forbidden fruit, but as an important facet of any romantic relationship, not demand that the government crack down on anything sexual without a ring and a marriage license involved. Fagan's plea for the Supreme Court to illegalize pre-marital sex by once again making it a crime to sell contraceptives to singles is so patently absurd and so spectacularly devoid of any hint of nuance or logical follow-up that is sounds like a manifestation of a pathology.

Then again, we're talking about zealots who see the world in black-and-white absolutes, whose definition of a crumbling society is based on their belief that any family unlike the ones in which they and tried friends and loved ones were raised is fundamentally wrong and broken, and that just the fact that the typical American family has changed over the last 60-plus years is a sign of societal collapse. Perhaps I'm simply expecting too much to have such people think through the talking points they spew and realize why so few take them seriously, much less take the time to study anything about human sexuality or acquaint themselves with the volumes of work showing that artificial prudishness results in more unwanted pregnancies, more STDs, and more demand for social programs to support kids and their young parents, who had children when they weren't ready for it and were lied to about their family planning options. They'll simply find any excuse to stay in their cozy, self-righteous bubbles, getting high on their own pious fumes…