Interesting, short post on Crooks & Liars regarding the dustup (conflict? war?) that is brewing in this country regarding science and health.

First, go read this and make sure you click on and view the video included:

Crooks and Liars » The Evangelical War on Science

There is grave danger in allowing a religious doctrine to choose what is – by definition – a matter of science. Dogma does not teach; it simply commands you to believe a particular way, regardless of the facts.

Some people in this debate make the mistake of classifying all Christians as people bent on imposing a fascist theocracy on the rest of the USA; I’m not in that camp. From my experiences most Christians in the US are quite willing to seperate their faith and politics; however, there are some that have no problem trying to enforce their beliefs on your (and your children), even when those beliefs are – from a scientific viewpoint – completely unsupportable. Some have referred to them as “The American Taliban”... and, in some ways, they are. But please keep in mind that their numbers, when balanced against the rest of the Christian population, is very small.

The C&L post also has a link to a Glenn Greenwald post regarding the religious pressure to not approve (or, if that isn’t attainable, allow parents to prevent the use of) a vaccine that may very well save the lives of their female children. The hitch? It has to be given before they are sexually active, as it turns out a common type of cervical cancer is caused by a virus. The objectors say that by giving this vaccine you are saying “we expect you to be sexually active.”

It would be funny if there were not lives on the line; I view these people in the same light as the nuts that refuse to get their children vaccinated for other diseases (polio, etc.) thereby endangering all the children around them – and their parents, whose polio (and other) vaccines may have worn off. That is child endangerment of the first order and should be dealt with quite harshly.

P.S. It’s rather amusing and ironic that the religious right has started to morph into Orwell’s Junior Anti-sex League. More info supporting that claim in a later post.