Rick Santorum Has a Problem with Contraception: How Theocrats Feel about Birth Control

When I wrote Condom Coture the other day, (directly below this entry), I discussed briefly the anti-contraception ideology of so-called "prolife" advocates.  Abortion certainly is a genuine target, and Christian Domionists such as Mark Harrington/Created Equal's goal is to eradicate it. The larger target, however, is birth control, and the "contraception mentality," they believe opened the door to legal abortion and is destroying America and Christianity.  In my hurry to get Condom Couture online, I  linked to the obscure  goodmorals.com as an example of fundamentalist objections to contraception. Now I have a much better: authority: Rick Santorum.

Last Monday, Santorum, visiting  DesMoines,  gave a  45 minute video interview with Shane Vander Hart from Caffeinated Thoughts, in which he expounded on a variety of issues,  including the detrimental consequences of contraception on marriage, sex , family, church, government, and the economy.

Raw Story picked up the interview and has posted a partial  transcript of of Santorum's comments. I've listened to the original interview and Raw Story's transcript is accurate.  I'm re-posting Raw Story's transcript below. (Contraception remarks are at 17:45-20:08.)

The candidate later went on to explain that sex between a man and a woman is “special,” and even birth control is “not OK.”


 “We’ll repeal Obamacare and get rid any idea that you have to have abortion coverage or contraceptive coverage,” he said. “One of the things that I will talk about that no president has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the sexual liberty idea and many in the Christian faith have said, you know contraception is OK. It’s not OK because it’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”

 Santorum continued: “They’re supposed to be within marriage. They are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal but also procreative, and that’s the perfect way a sexual union should happen. When we take any part of that out, we diminish the act. If we take one part out, it’s not for the purposes of procreation, it’s not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women. So, why can’t you take other parts of that out? And then all of the sudden it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure, and that’s certainly a part of it, and it’s an important part, don’t get me wrong. But there is a lot of things we do for pleasure and this is special and it needs to be seen as special.”


“I know most presidents don’t talk about those things, and maybe people don’t want us to talk about those things. But I think it’s important that you are who you are.”


You'd think liberals and progressives, after decades of  listening to Santorum-type Domionist rhetoric, would get it--but they don't.   Instead, liberal LaLas,  such as those who are responding to the Condom Couture protest in the Dispatch, cluelessly pander to theocrats in a a naive attempt to create "common ground" with people who not only  repudiate common ground, but stomp on it.. Since the "if you oppose abortion then you should support birth control" warble reflects a decadent, dying culture and nation which God has appointed Domionists--according to theocratic biblical interpretation-- to redeem-- the argument holds as much water as the proverbial sieve.Yet, useful liberal idiots continue.to pander in some odd belief that if they're nice enough, they and the Domionists will just agree to disagree and "move on."

Take for example, the June 2006 hearing on HB.228, an attempt to outlaw abortion in Ohio which I covered for the Free Press  (and on Theoconia.) Well-meaning liberals, wearing "Birth Control Not Bans"  tags  felt compelled, after a morning of listening to  Dr. John Willke's romance of what happens when sperm meets egg, and Patriot Pastor Russell Johnson and Janet Folger  (before she became Porter), comparing them to Southern slave holders and Nazis, to assure the panel, "we love our children."  With a couple exceptions,  the choicers from Planned Parenthood and "welcoming" churches spent the rest of the afternoon defending themselves against Folger's accusation that they are too busy killing babies to breed any for themselves.  Not one time did these so-called "defenders of abortion rights" mention the bedrock pro-abortion foundation of self-ownership and autonomy. Instead, "our defenders" argued tired old consumerist  "choice"--co-opted by  anti-aborts years ago-- except when they were lobbing their own cherry-picked  Bible verses across the room at Willke and Folger.who smirked back.

Jack Willke and Janet Folger Porter 

For the time being, some Domionists are willing, up to a point, to let birth control take a tactical backseat to abortion, though they won't remain particularly quiet, either.  John Willke, at least back in in 2006 was willing to take birth control off the table until legal abortion was outlawed realizing that if anti-aborts staged a two-pronged attack, neither stone would hit the mark. His comrade in arms, though,  Joe Scheidler, the granddaddy of the anti-abortion movement, and his  ProLife Action League (which backs Willke and Folger Porter's Ohio ProLife Action and their current Heartbeat bill) supports Santorum's position, believing that the abortion war cannot be won until the harmful moral consequences of contraception are exposed.  At Scheidler's  2006 conference, Contraception is Not the Answer, speakers proferred that contraception is the root cause of abortion,.  In order to ban legal abortion contraceptive culture needs to be derailed,and our Inner Druggars released.  The speakers argued that contraception harms women, decimates families, turns men into irresponsible bums, and lets all but the most pious run wild and pantless with no social restraint.  We can only wonder how may fornicators dance on the head of their pin. Or the fantasies that reside in their heads:

 Dr. Janet Smith,  professor of theology at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit argued that  birth control  insults women.  "It denies the gift of fertility and treats it as an inconvenience and a health condition to be treated."

Damon Clark Owens, director of New Jersey Natural Family Planning, declared that " contraception is a mortal assault on the marital love of spouses, the dignity of the person and the family that draws its life from that marital love.... It does not allow for the perfection of the person, but denies the unity and wholeness of sex, marriage, love and children."

"Former feminist" Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse complained that "contraceptive ideology says that all adults are entitled to unlimited sexual activity without a live baby resulting....Contracepted sex is dumb." . She is currently  the director of The Ruth Foundation: One Man, One Woman For Life ,a project of Maggie Gallagher's National Organization for Marriage    Roback Morse's goal is "to make marriage cool."  Queers need not apply.

Lionel Tiger,   Charles Darwin  (now Emeritus) Professor  of Anthropology at Rutgers had as much in common with  Joe Scheidler as Occupy Wall Street.  That didn't stop him, though, from arguing that birth control is bad because it puts the ability of women to control their reproduction in their own hands; thus, preventing shot gun marriages. "According to Tiger, the contraceptive pill has given reproductive control almost exclusively to women and has done away with the societal pressure on men to "do the right thing" in case of an unplanned pregnancy. He pointed out that the pill came into wide use in 1963—a cheap, effective, trouble-free contraceptive. "And what happened? Ten years later Roe v Wade. The entire scenario has driven men outside of the family structure—avoiding taking responsibility for a child they did not want to have and are not quite sure is their own."

Rick Santorum's statement earlier this week, is just the latest manifestation of decades of theocratic--Catholic, Protestant and misogynist--propaganda  that has been dismissed by liberals and progressives who don't want to dirty their own minds by delving into the minds of their opponents.  As a result, Domionists have been able to co-opt liberal  language and arguments, skew and reframe them as their own, and leave the "nice" people to bang their heads in their own wall..And, of course, dominate legislatures.and hack away at what is laughingly referred to as "abortion rights" in the US.

Banning birth control is a pipe dream, at least for now, and most likely in the future..Domionists know that. But their goal is actually not so much legislative, but "spiritual".through Christian conversion.via propaganda. By condemning contraception as the harbinger of the "culture of death" they hope to cut the underpinnings abortion.


Thanks to Mike Swanson for the Santorum tip! 

Created Equal: Condom Couture is an outrage to Ohio taxpayers!

Wednesday evening, Mark Harrington and his latest knock off, Created Equal, planned to picket a private fashion show fundraiser for Planned Parenthood of Central Ohio held at  the Shadowbox  Theatre on S. Front Street. .While any excuse to picket Planned Parenthood is a good excuse for Harrington, this event billed as "Condom Couture"--condom-inspired fashion with a cause" has driven the usually grumpy Harrington into the street. (As of this writing, I've been unable to learn if anyone showed up--I'll update when I do).

Maybe it's because this isn't' just some rubber chicken banquet.  It's $ponsored by the marketing research  firm One Point Contact, Continental Real Estate Companies, the Crane Group, and Teva Women's Health. I have no idea who showed up this year, but last years's local luminaries included  Mary and Bob Lazarus,  Howard Sirak, and Channel 10's Andrea Cambern.  Not a rubber chicken in sight.

 I have been unable able to locate a press release about the protest on the Created Equal website or major Christian wire services, but the Dispatch quotes Harrington in two short separate articles:

Condom rage: Despite the fact that the event is a private fundraiser, many taxpayers don't want to support the outrageous funding of sexual promiscuity under the guise of "safe sex."

Condoms on the catwalk:  This is an outrage to Ohio taxpayers and should not be tolerated.

We doubt that taxpayers much care if somebody wants to hang condoms from their hems, but we do know that  Harrington's real outrage is not for the Ohio taxpayer who has nothing to do with the event, but that somebody somewhere is having sex for non-procreative reasons.Marriage license or not. Private donations be damned!

Commenters on  the Dispatch site are treating Harrington like he's an ill-educated lout who opted out of sex-ed,. They  point out that condoms prevent pregnancy, not to mention abortion.  They do.of course, but that's not the point.since our local theocons oppose  birth control on Biblical and moral grounds, something the liberal mind can't phantom, and nine out of ten times clicks into pander mode when confronted by it. Abortion is simply the hook, something to grab the public, which still needs to be "educated" on birth control.. In the longterm, abortion is just one of many secular missteps in need of a Domionist repair. It's just sexier than the others.and gets the blood roiling.

Mark Harrington & Dave Daubenmire at Roy's Rock, Oct 15, 2004

I've covered Mark Harrington and his activities for at least six years. While others in his camp are passionate, hotheaded--even intellectual at times. Harrington has always seemed cynical,  Even in 2004, when I started to pay serious attention to him, Harrington appeared to have gone beyond  Domionists like Coach Dave Daubenmire and Dr. Patrick Johnston.  He struck me as a community organizer gone sour after  looking into the soul of  The People and finding it lacking. Somebody pulling the strings behind a candidate. Somebody who is happy behind a desk plotting it all out, or drawing up a flow-chart. (He's got a degree from OSU in Marketing and Economics.)   Not somebody standing in the street with a dumb sign or arguing with an OSU student over which holocaust is worse. Not that Harrington doesn't do these things.  He just never seems too happy about it. When I covered the Roy's Rock event  (transcript of speeches) for the Free Press in 2004, he was clearly bored and cut the event  short by a couple hours. All the songs were sung,  the last shofar blown, Coach  Daubenmire, Hollis Summers, and Harrington had said their piece, and State Rep Linda Reidellbach and the  president of the Ohio Christian Coalition were no-shows. Even the cops had left. Standing in the rain,  tandem with a rickety wooden trailer and a couple big  shiny rocks wasn't making his day.

Nonetheless Harrington knows an opportunity when he sees it, even if it's only for "the mission." The Dispatch picked up  the story fast enough and now it's all over the wire. He knows the stunt is silly, but he's sucking it up for the "greater good."


Mark Harrington is the long-time director of the Center for BioEthical Reform - Midwest (CBR), under which numerous projects were launched. The two best known are the Genocide Awareness Project  (GAP) which I wrote about in 2006 and truth trucks with their baybee  blender bits pictorials,  which you've probably seen driving around town annoying the mothers of young children.  He also developed Obama Nation/Christians for Social Justice  which posits Barack Obama as "the face of black genocide."

Harrington left CBR earlier this year to open up shop with Created Equal. In his press release announcing the opening,, he says that its name comes from the Declaration of Independence and Martin Luther King's famous I Have a Dream speech,  a quote which he neatly jereryrigged into something King did not say and the casual reader may miss. (italics is actual quote.)

Men should be judged not by the color of their skin" -- nor whether they are born or preborn-- but "by the content of their character." 


Harrington's press release description of Created Equal  fell right in line with my previous thinking about him:  a behind-the-scenes man.

Created Equal's goal is to train the next generation of leaders to take on the culture of death and win."  We will specialize in youth training and outreach at the high school and college level.  (He' is currently holding training sessions on the OSU campus)....

Using new media and cutting edge technology, he says "Our projects will be easily transferable to students all across America so they can win the abortion debate on campus now and into the future."

Dr. Patrick Johnston and Troy Newman, November 2005, Columbus

Created Equal is endorsed by Scott Klusendorf, president of, Life Training Institute; Lila Rose, president Live Action, and notorious  "undercover videographer";  Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life;   Dr. John Willke, co-founder of  National Right to Life, Ohio Right to Life, and founder of the Life Issues Institute;  prominent anti-abortion blogger Jill Stanek;  Troy Newman, director of Operation Rescue, Phil  Burress, president of Citizens for Community Values;  Mike Gonidakis, director of Ohio Right to Life;  and WRFD talk show host, Bob Burney.

 These are not insignificant names.

I have written about some of them hereand for the Free Press. Willke and Buress are board members of Janet Folgler Porter's new Pro Life Action Ohio, which may blow Ohio Right to Life right out of the game.  Jill Stanek and Troy Newman have appeared on the platform with Folger Porter recently and have ties to other Central Ohio Domionists. These supporters drag in a busload of like-minded friends in-state and out.. With the convergence of  so many theoconic forces in Ohio (which I'll be writing about over the next few weeks),  it appears the state is being sent up as a flashpoint.