Wow.
This is a hell of a topic to diary, especially on my re-entry to DKos. But sometimes, the batshit insanity is too much for me to laugh off, especially in light of the Susan G. Komen debacle, Rush Limbaugh's disgusting smearing of Sandra Fluke, and Rick Santorum's candidacy.
In short, this is a "Are you fucking shitting me?!" diary from yours truly.
Talking Points Memo has this story on their site: SC County GOP: You Can't Be A Member Unless You Haven't Had Pre-Marital Sex.
And no, it's not restricted to women. But it is to candidates.
The Laurens County Republican Party in South Carolina adopted a resolution on February 28th, 2012, that states any candidate who wants to join and get on the primary ballot must pledge that they've never had pre-marital sex, ever, and that they'll never peruse porn again.
Just read that to yourselves, and think for a moment. These people not only expect anyone running for office under the GOP aegis to swear that they never got to home base before saying their vows before the minister, but that they'll never look at pictures or watch movies of people doing the deed.
You'd think that a resolution like this would be quietly tabled amid much coughing and prevarication--or that it would be ridiculed the moment it was proposed. Even the GOP hasn't gone so far as to demand that its men adhere to the same standards of sexual purity as its women.
But Laurens County's GOP not only approved it, they went on to say, via their chair Bobby Smith, "People feel the platform has not been adhered to. We want candidates to believe in and uphold the party’s platform.”
Apparently, the platform includes governing people's private lives to a degree hitherto reserved for the clergy, who are expected to take a vow of celibacy.
Now among the LC GOP's platform are the usual things--opposing abortion, upholding gun rights, a "compassionate and moral approach to teen pregnancy" (this is my "I don't believe it for a fucking minute" face), and "a high regard for United States Sovereignty."
. . . I wonder if Todd Palin was consulted for that one . . .
The LC GOP plan to have candidates interviewed by a three-person committee, who will make recommendations to the full executive committee on whether these people meet their standards and should be allowed on the ballot. Yet, near the end of TMP's article,
two caveats are noted. The first is that no candidate will be denied access to the BOP primary ballot if they refuse to sign the pledge, and the second is that the LC GOP knows there's no way they can legally enforce this pledge in the first place.
And yet the Laurens County GOP is going forward with this anyway.
I've seen articles on DKos discussing the right-wing's fear of sex that doesn't follow the conqueror mentality--male-focused, anti-woman (or at least indifferent to women's right to deal with sex on their own terms), and derisive of any alternative. It's all about rising up and destroying for these people; rise up and destroy the enemy, rise up and overthrow the forces of darkness! Trample the women who refuse to submit! Stomp the ethnic and sexual minorities into the ground!
And Rick Santorum is their favorite candidate. If not Rick Santorum, it'll be someone else who says the right words and agrees to take their pledges.
Because, even as you and I read these articles, laugh, groan, and swear over these benighted, would-be guardians of everyone's sexual purity, we have to admit that this is where the GOP is going to end up after this year. They've run out of money-men--that is, corporate candidates--to lead the base. They've run out of charismatic saviors to ride up on white horses and enter the fray. What have they got? Preachers like Franklin Graham, opportunists like Rick Santorum, and a base of people like the Laurens County GOP.
Are you fucking shitting me, indeed. If I lived in South Carolina and was a member of the Republican Party, I'd not only burn my card after reading this story, I'd find Bobby Smith and blow the ashes between his ears.