Governor Bryant, Our Father, baby-daddy, holy miracles and repopulating the Earth

Update:  MSDH confirmed to me that $1500 from the general fund was used for the room rental at the request of Governor Bryant and negotiated by Nycole Campbell-Lewis (member of the governor’s task force on reducing teen pregnancy)  the ab-only teen pregnancy summit.

This is a snippet of the 15 minute video I took yesterday at the state funded/publicly funded teen pregnancy summit in Jackson headlined by Governor Phil Bryant.  I couldn’t upload a full 15 minute video so had to take a screen grab.  At around 3:45 mark – if you don’t want to watch the whole thing – you can begin watching for Gov. Bryant talking about:

• “Our Father” who art in heaven
• Holy miracle
• The Creator giving us sex to populate and repopulate the Earth*

Opening prayer given by a young woman, the Governor’s Christianity laced speech followed by dance performance to the Christian song which I believed (based on the chorus) was called Take Me to The King featuring mentions of Jesus, The King, laying at the throne, souls, etc.

Remember, this conference was paid for with public funds via the Mississippi Department of Health.  This is reportedly because since the  MSDH paid for the MS Women’s Fund Ab-Plus Conference which is within its purview and appropriate.  However, it is unclear at this time what pot of money was used for the Governor’s summit.  I have placed a call to the MDH to sort it out.

As I noted yesterday in my little video recap, it was not just the religious nature of this event that was legally dubious but the noted lack of preparation for the event.  It was poorly attended, seemingly only served Jackson students and suggests a lack of real seriousness on the part of Governor Bryant to thoughtfully and effectively tackle the staggering teen birth rate in Mississippi.

*Repopulating the Earth has been of grave concern to the believers of the demographic winter for some time and recently Ross Douthat at the New York Times.  Declining fertility rates have certain Christians concerned – very concerned.  I wrote a tiny bit about this in a piece for Religion Dispatches on the myth of sex-selective abortion in the US:

• Steven Mosher is of special note as he was a vocal advocate and perhaps the inspiration for the 2008 PRENDA. As Hvistendahl writes:  In 2008 [Mosher] posited to supporters that sex-selective abortion was the next logical battleground in the abortion war—not because it is inherently discriminatory and results in worsening status for women but because an “incremental approach” to restricting access to abortion is more workable than a flat-out ban. “I propose that we—the pro-life movement—adopt as our next goal the banning of sex-selective abortion.” And, as Kathryn Joyce has explained: Mosher, president of the Catholic anti-contraception lobbyist group Population Research Institute (PRI), describes his grim vision of Europe’s future: fields will lie fallow and economies will wither. A great depression will sink over the continent as it undergoes “a decline that Europe hasn’t experienced since the Black Death.” The comeuppance has a name, one being fervently hawked among a group of Christian Right “pro-family” activists hoping to spark a movement in secular Europe. It’s called the “demographic winter,” a more austere brand of apocalypse than doomsayers normally trade in, evoking not a nuclear inferno but a quiet and cold blanket of snow in which, they charge, “Western Civilization” is laying itself down to die.

 

FYI: The Mississippi Department of Human Service, not Department of Health, was sued by the ACLU several years ago for including religion in an abstinence rally. MSDH and MDHS are 2 different agencies.

We can’t talk about teen pregnancy in Mississippi without talking about religion

Religion – Christianity specifically – is inescapable in Mississippi.  I went to the Office Depot the other day to flesh out my roaming office.  If you look closely at the photo above, you will see Signs First (quickest sign company in town!).  To indicate their banner printing prowess, the selected a quote from an 18 aught-something SCOTUS quote, “…This is a religious people…a Christian Nation”.

I have seen bible verses on:

• Coffee bags
• County offices
• School office doors in Canton
• Billboards
• Bumper stickers
• The side of mini-malls….

To name just a few.

Religion is so inextricably married to public policy making and thought leadership in the government it is unclear how or if they will ever untangle.

This is from the PEW Forum on Religion and Public Life:

But do not paint Mississippi with a broad religious brush.  There are many non-believers, alternative believers and Christians who believe the Christians in power – those with the public face – are giving the real Christians a bad name.

When thinking about abstinence only until marriage programs, keep in mind the entire idea of ab-only is predicated on a Christian worldview of marriage:  between one man, one woman, for eternity, only within the confines of marriage is intercourse allowed, birth control should not be used – your childbearing is up to God.

This is a closely held belief of many churches (SBC (Southern Baptist Convention) churches, Evangelical, Pentecostal, African Methodist Churches and certain African-American Baptist churches – SBC isn’t closely aligned with Black Baptists – and independents).  School board members, superintendents and hyper local school district administrators bring those beliefs into their decision-making to fulfill the requirements of HB 999.

Ab-only also serves to reinforce gender stereotypes – woman as responsible for a man’s sexual appetite, cautioning modest dress and reminding young girls how sex driven boys are because of all those raging hormones.

This is from a piece I wrote on WAIT Training, a Denver based only curriculum and training business.  WAIT has been selected by several Mississippi schools as ab-only and ab-plus curriculum (as allowed by the state). In this clip – and more are available if you follow the above link – is about a girl who has sex with a new boy every semester.  The girl, symbolized by a piece of clear packing tape, is repeated tapped to boys’ arms.  She peels up flakes of skin, hair, germs, etc.  By the time the WAIT spokesperson, Shelley Donahue is done, the girl is ruined:

1st Annual Teen Pregnancy Conference

A hastily put together summit on teen pregnancy prevention was announced today by Governor Phil Bryant’s office.  If one was going to have a summit, one might get the press release out a few weeks in advance.

And lets address the flyer.  There are several things amiss here in my opinion.  First of course is the stretch-marked pregnant belly.  Perhaps suggesting to an overly body conscious teen girl to not get pregnant because she will become unattractive?  Stretch marks are the reality for scores of women who have children so using it as the Governor has is degrading.  I have stretch marks (whoa nelly!) from my pregnancy and I am offended that this image is used.

And, since we know that young women get pregnant on their own, there is no penis pictured here, nor is there a boy anywhere on the flyer.

The advertising bursts contradict the fear centric imagery and add a strange air of levity to the event.  The font across the girl’s pregnant tummy is borderline whimsical.

The governor will be keynoting it seems, and, since he is staunchly abstinence only until marriage, I will be interested to hear his strategy for keeping teens from having sex.

The governor’s task force on teen pregnancy has done very little thus far.  In my conversations with women in the teen pregnancy prevention arena (both in and out of government agencies) only one town hall meeting has been held and no real committee meetings have been called.

Next Tuesday, December 11th will be one of the first sub-committee meetings – on faith-based organizations and the faith community.