Whores Deserve Cancer

Did you ever hear something on television that was so outrageous it rendered you mute? This happened to me the other day, and I can tell you that it isn’t often that I’m stricken speechless. I was flipping through the channels, innocently enough, when I came across the wonderful news that there had been a bonafide cure developed for cervical cancer. Each year over 10,000 women in the U.S. and hundreds of thousands of women worldwide are stricken with this painful form of cancer. Now that there’s a vaccine, all is well…now for the dumbfounding part.

Apparently a conservative Christian group is fighting the release of the vaccine in the U.S., because they believe it will encourage women to be more sexually active. I guess they figure that the women who contract cervical cancer are slutting around, and end up with a more than normal amount of nastiness in the ‘gina region. Therefore, cervical cancer is just G-d’s way of punishing them for being women of lowly virtue, and if given the vaccine, they would be cured and would continue their loose lifestyle.

Two and a half minutes into this report, the speechlessness had left me, and I was spinning around the family room like the Tasmanian Devil stuck in Seattle rush hour traffic. Beyond pissed doesn’t even begin to describe my mood. Of all of the ridiculous fucking things that I’ve heard in my life, the idea that women should be allowed to painfully suffer and die of cancer, because they weren’t virgins when they got married made me really pro-nuclear at that point.

What continues to piss me off, days after watching this jaw-dropping news report, is the plain ignorance of the Christian extremist right. I realize that the women inflicted with the cancer will certainly be curtailing their sexual practices, but I doubt the women who receive the life-saving vaccine will change the course they are currently on. Also, what about the woman who was a virgin when she got married, and spent her life being faithful to her husband, yet contracted the disease, because he didn’t return the monogamy? Maybe these particular Christians, instead of banning the vaccine, should ask the government to approve a Whore Review Board.

Women afflicted with cervical cancer could go before all of the white, male, Christian ministers, and if she was found to have a chaste life, would be able to receive the vaccine as long as she signed a special contract agreeing to continue her virtuous lifestyle. If she violated the contract, she would immediately be injected with a quicker, more deadlier form of cancer as her atonement.

I may not be a Christian, but I have Christians in my family, and growing up in this American society has naturally given me some exposure to the teachings of Jesus. With the limited amount of information I know regarding the J man, I can safely say that I don’t think he would have approved of letting women suffer from cancer. I also think that other, more reasonable Christians should have these idiots who claim to represent them censored or excommunicated.

When I look at these bloated, Caucasian, baby boomer males talking about letting women suffer from cancer, images of darker skinned, Afghani males come to mind. Yes, that’s right, I am comparing the leaders of the Christian right who want to ban a cancer cure with the Taliban, because the only difference between the two is the Christians let their wives shop at JC Penney while the Taliban wives are cruising the sales racks at Abdullah’s Burqa Hut.

Anytime you have an unreasonable group of zealots who are willing to let innocent people suffer in order to advance their religious agenda, it’s just wrong, oppressive, and theocratic. I just thank my lucky stars that Bush is finally falling flat on his ass in the polls, and given the most recent elections, people in this country are beginning to come to their senses and realize that just because you don’t like an aggressive amount of sex on t.v. doesn’t mean that you believe women shouldn’t be given a lifesaving vaccine.

I’m not all that worried that the drug won’t be approved by the FDA, because if there’s one thing our government loves more than moral values, it’s money, and Merck is championing this vaccine, and they have a lot of money. Thankfully, by this time next year all of us whores will be eligible to receive the vaccine for cervical cancer, and maybe we won’t have to go before the review board.