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Links in this episode:
George Carlin on abortion
CBS covers pregnancy pacts
Associate Press covers pregnancy pacts
MSNBC covers pregnancy pacts
Conservatives go nuts over pregnancy pacts
There was no pregnancy pact
The original offense
Rapture Ready
Ted Haggard gives up
Ted Haggard brags
Michael Savage gets weirder

Transcript:
This week on Reality Cast, I'll be interviewing Daniel Radosh about Jesus junk.  Also, why the Massachusetts pregnancy pact was a myth, a plea for moderation, and paranoia about the non-existent homosexual mafia.

As you no doubt know, George Carlin passed away recently.  Which means, of course, tribute time.  Carlin had an opinion on about pretty much everything, which includes reproductive rights. 

• insert george carlin

His influences on smartasses the nationwide is impossible to measure.

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A few weeks ago, I reported on a controversy in Gloucester, Massachusetts, where the health officials at a school were hitting resistance from the hospital and community over their desire to move from just providing pregnancy tests to providing contraception.  At the time, the news that the school's pregnancy rate had quadrupled in a year was alarming but not to the point where there needed to be a special explanation for it.  The number of known pregnant girls jumped from 4 to 17 out of a school of 1200 students.  Consider that 1 in 3 girls nationwide will be pregnant before the age of 20.If Gloucester hews to national averages, then 200 of their students will be pregnant before they turn 20.  The real rate is well hidden, and these fluctuations are just evidence of that.

In the weeks since the story hit, though, well, maybe you heard some more about it.  Once the principle uttered the phrase "pregnancy pact", then an urban legend with a big assist from a gullible media was on its way.  I was immediately skeptical.  The idea of a pregnancy pact fits into misogynist and classist narratives just a little too easily, like the myths about Cadillac-driving welfare queens in the 80s that people continue to believe in though they didn't exist. 

Here's the superintendent on CBS:

• insert Gloucester 1

And they just take him at his word!  These are the cream of the crop journalists in America, supposedly.  And they couldn't recognize blatant ass-covering.  I reported on this weeks ago and then it was clear that the narrative was about how the school needed to take more responsibility for education and contraception, but that story is lost in the midst of sensationalism about a pregnancy pact.

The story grew like a typical urban legend.  The original statements seem to be that a few girls came in seeking pregnancy tests and seemed disappointed when they weren't pregnant.  From there, the story grew.  Here's the AP video reporting:

• insert Gloucester 2

Sex researchers who focus on teenage pregnancy have long understood that many girls get pregnant on purpose, often because they're unaware of the ramifications or because they think it's going to make that high school sweetheart romance last forever or because they really want a baby to love them.  But it's ridiculous to think that means we should just throw up our hands and give up on preventing accidental pregnancies, which are also really common.

• insert Gloucester 3

So, some people want the girls to behave like good girls who don't plan on using contraception, without facing up to the fact that this will lead to more teenage pregnancy.  So they make up wild stories about pregnancy pacts that shift all the blame onto the girls.

The shameful legend-spreading moved to MSNBC. 

• insert Gloucester 4

Given permission to go on a misogynist spree, conservatives took the bait.  Roy Edroso detailed various right wingers declaring that they would like to brand single teenage mothers with scarlet letters to shame them, have them sterilized against their will, and otherwise punish them, with hints that prison for sexually active girls isn't out of the question.  Hollywood was blamed.  Hands were wrung.  TV reporters waxed sorrowful over the poor boys tricked into this procreative sex.  It was all nonsense.

One thing really stands out when you're watching the news reports, which is not a single member of this supposed pact steps forward to confirm the story.  It's all hearsay and based around a single blame-shifting comment from Principal Joseph Sullivan.  The Boston Herald reports that the mayor and other school officials are now stepping forward and denying that there's any such pact.  

Meanwhile, the reporter Kathleen Kingsbury who first wrote the pregnancy pact story for Time doesn't really hide in the initial story her beliefs about how girls should be punished for sexuality.  The original story criticized the school for allowing the girls to continue education after giving birth, and hinted that depriving them of child care, which is tantamount to explusion, would be a proper punishment.  I think that she had an anti-teenage mother agenda that made her gullible to claims about pregnancy pacts. She also pushes the incorrect story that no girls would take the contraception if it were offered, even though she admits that currently kids in Gloucester have a hard time accessing birth control pills. 

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* insert interview*

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So, Ted Haggard has quit the restoration program that was supposed to get the gay out of him.  He won't ever be going back to the Colorado megachurch he founded.  Let's hope that the damage done to the fundamentalist movement is somewhat permanent this time out. 

I'll admit, every time I think of Ted Haggard, I think of the creepy segment in the documentary Friends Of God that was made before Haggard was found out to be huffing meth with gay prostitutes.  In the segment, he tries to intimidate the less godly by putting on a show about how much sex you get if you're a fundie and married. 

• insert ted sex

Uh-huh.  But it does tell you something about the weird tendency of Americans, particularly of the Bible-thumping variety, to just make too big a deal out of everything.  Complete celibacy before marriage, doing it all the time after.  Or at least say that, because god forbid you admit that Jesus has made you less than superhuman. 

I briefly mentioned a few weeks ago that a couple of books are coming out---memoirs by people who decided that their marriages would be improved by treating sex like an endurance sport instead of a pleasure.  One is "365 Nights" and one is "Just Do It", a memoir about the more modest goal of doing it for 101 days.  These books have turned into a minor sensation, probably because most people are baffled at why you have to make sex a duty of endurance.  The couple that went for the year long extreme is a religious couple, which is unsurprising if you think about that Haggard video and the pressure it represents. 

Naturally, the Today show was all over this story.

• insert 365 1

In case you didn't guess, the more dutiful couple was the one that uses words like "beget" and are the religious ones.  Not that it's a bad idea to revise expectations about sex like this.  It's not going to be a 4 hour romantic getaway every time.  But I suspect a sex therapist would caution that if you're sacrificing quality for a dutiful quantity, then that's a problem. 

Of course, the best part is they admit that they didn't actually even keep the vow, but took plenty of days off.  Once again, I reflect on the Haggard video and how there's a lot of talk but the action isn't what people make it out to be.

I don't know why, but this comment cracked me up:

• insert 365 2

That's like a euphemism for a euphemism, came together.  I don't think he meant it how it sounded. 

There's a point to all this.  Mandatory sex is part of the larger tendency of our culture to see sex as something that needs to be tightly regulated.  Not that it's bad for couples to make sex a priority.  In fact, that seems smart to me.  But why does everything have to be about measurements and controls?

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And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts.  Michael Savage is, if anything, getting weirder and sicker all the time.  The latest rant about gay marriage from him is notable for being pathetic, paranoid, and a bit desperate. 

• insert Michael savage

Or my two female cats that lay around licking each other or the gay penguins at the zoo.  But no matter.  He's clearly not someone you argue with.  He's someone you back away from slowly.  Of course, all too often, that kind of nuttiness gets you a radio program.