Mark your calendars, gentlemen. An incipient national sexless nightmare is nearly upon us:
The women’s group “Liberal Ladies Who Lunch” is putting together an unusual event, which it is calling “Access Denied: Sex Strike.” The event, which is scheduled to take place between April 28 and May 5, features a poster saying “If our reproductive choices are denied, so are yours.”
What has these elegant ladies in such a tizzy, you ask? Their "rights" are under assault, or something:
Younger men and women may not remember the "good old days" when the only reproductive choice we had was to deny men access to sex. In truth, if we lose our hard won rights to medical care, birth control and pregnancy choice, it won't only affect women. Men will have to...go back to the days when they waited for or paid for sex. This is issue impacts all of us. This strike is designed to make that point. Ask your man to speak up for your rights, because when we lose our reproductive choices, so do they.
And to think, it's an unimpeachable article of faith on the Left that conservatives are reactionary. A few points:
(1) One could argue that there is a Constitutional right to access birth control, established under Griswold. But as I've said many times, nobody is seeking to ban or cut off access to contraception. This "strike" was prompted by the dust-up over the administration's very recent unconstitutional mandate, under which the federal government forces all employers -- including most religious employers -- to pay for health plans that must include "free" birth control. Push back against this federal power grab and affront to religious liberty in no way represents a deprivation of women's "rights." This manifesto also makes passing reference to abortion "rights" (extrapolated from "penumbras" or some such nonsense by the Supreme Court in 1973), which is also a red herring. Although pro-lifers are happy to have a debate about the legality and availability of abortion, the current debate has nothing to do with the issue, aside from the fact that the new mandate coerces religious institutions to fund certain abortion-causing drugs.
(2) Do these ladies realize that by suggesting this sex moratorium will require men to "go back to the days when they waited for or paid for sex," they're tacitly endorsing prostitution? Weren't a lot of people ticked off at Rush's inappropriate "joke" about Sandra Fluke being...a prostitute? I'm also unclear on whether certain pockets of women actually want to be called sluts. Liberal columnist Kirsten Powers has written about the "slut walk" movement, in which women "reclaim" the term (however that works), and Hot Air's Tina Korbe just wrote about a (related) "sluts unite" project. What are the rhetorical rules governing the use of this term? Help me out here.
(3) Is the idea that men -- conservative or otherwise -- will abandon their views on anything, let alone a core Constitutional principle, after one week of no sex? Glad to know these ladies hold us in such high esteem.
(4) After a full week of endless, mindless, and baseless "war on women" rhetoric from Democrats, The Weekly Standard's John McCormack highlights the inconvenient truth that President Obama (warmonger in chief on this front) has lost standing among female voters, according to the Washington Post poll we discussed earlier:
From March 7 to 10--a week into the national media firestorm surrounding Rush Limbaugh's degrading remarks about Georgetown Law student and liberal activist Sandra Fluke--Washington Post/ABC conducted another poll. It found Obama's approval rating at 46 percent, down four points from February, and his disapproval rating at 50 percent, up four points from February. In February, Obama was leading Mitt Romney, 51 percent to 45 percent among registered voters. In March, Obama was trailing Mitt Romney, 47 percent to 49 percent among registered voters. The Post/ABC pollster finds that Obama "did better among men and women alike last month, and has lost ground slightly among both sexes this month."
Maybe it's time for Democrats to consider cutting and running from this manufactured war.
UPDATE - Read some of the comments on the original "strike" Facebook page. Some are offensive and cross the line, but others are downright hilarious.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member