They're coming now for the teenage girls . . .

It's starting.
Remember the German anecdote about how first they came for the communists and then they came for the Jews etc, etc, and then they came for me?
Well, first, the Christian Right came for the gays. They spent four years racheting up the attacks, and now have established the anti-gay hatefest as the mainstream, conventional view in American culture.
Next, they're starting on the teenage girls. And they're obsessed with sex, again. I wonder if maybe they are thinking - or hoping, in a secret wishful-thinking wetdream kind of way - that all teenage girls are really just lusting to emulate the Britney Spears baby-Lolita act and only the Christian right can stop them
This week the Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act was approved in the House of Representatives. And the Republicans were incensed that Democrats would even try to amend the bill. Not only does the bill violate a Supreme Court ruling that requires such laws to include alternatives, it also actually endangers teenagers who are impregnated by incest.
But danger to teenage girls is not a concern of the Christian right. They also don't want teenage girls to be vaccinated against the human papilloma virus, which causes cervical cancer. Why? Because the Christian right is thinking, in a secret wishful-thinking wetdream way, that then these young girls might think the vaccination is a license to have sex. And better they should continue to risk dying than that they should think that having premarital sex is OK.
And certainly they should never be permitted to chose abortion on their own, even if they are so young that a pregnancy is a serious health risk. A 13-year-old foster child and frequent runaway was prevented this week from terminating her pregnancy when the Florida Department of Children and Families took her to court -- the very agency which is supposed to be protecting her. In court, a witness from the DCF was babbling about her risk of "post-abortion syndrome", but then had to admit that this so-called condition isn't recognized by the AMA or the APA. The case may well turn into another Schiavo media storm, too. Newsweek writes "The clash raises the prospect of another showdown between Florida state agencies and the judiciary. And yet again, a vulnerable individual lies powerlessly in the middle."
And who will be next? Should we have a pool?
High school science teachers aren't much of a target anymore because they have already mostly given up on teaching evolution whether its still in their textbooks or not. So maybe the next devils will be all those librull college perfessers.
Or how about immigrants -- the Minutemen are going after Mexicans in particular, but why be chosey, just go after them all!
Or how about a group which no one has thought of targeting since the Reagan administration. I'm talking about those lower-middle class people who live in cities (and who often vote Democrat -- there are the places where most of the vote suppression occurred in the last election.) They're already been marginalized as their factory jobs disappeared, their streets deteriorated, they lost their health care benefits, and their schools turned into dumps. But this is the group whose children are needed in the military, so if they can be demonized than a draft aimed at them could be brought in with much less uproar. Just a thought.