Digby has a post up about a NOW program on the forced-birth movement in South Dakota that features the very insane Leslee Unruh, who is not only spearheading the effort to ban abortion in South Dakota, she’s pushing for abstinence-only sex education in the state.
And Unruh, of course, is one of the “abortion for me but not for thee” types who took full advantage of her own sexual freedom and had an abortion in the 70s, now regrets it, and wants to take away reproductive choice for other women.
Because, er, it will make women more free.
UNRUH:
I’ve been that woman. There is no freedom after an abortion. You carry an empty crib in your heart forever. There’s no freedom.
HINOJOSA:
And so, when you hear people saying, “Someone like Leslie is trying to actually take away women’s rights and taking away their freedoms–”
UNRUH:
I’m giving women freedom. We are giving back the women what they really want. This is true feminism.
But as frightening as it is to look into the face of the movement like this, it isn’t what really creeped Digby out.
That would be the Father-Daughter Purity Balls.
HINOJOSA: LAST FRIDAY NIGHT, YOUNG GIRLS FROM AROUND SOUTH DAKOTA CAME TO SIOUX FALLS FOR A SPRING BALL. THIS ONE IS CALLED “THE PURITY BALL” IT’S A YEARLY EVENT RUN BY LESLEE UNRUH’S ABSTINENCE CLEARINGHOUSE.
THE IDEA IS THAT THESE YOUNG WOMEN COME WITH THEIR FATHERS. TO CELEBRATE THEIR SEXUAL PURITY.
UNRUH:We think that its important for fathers to the be the first ones to look into their daughters eyes and To tell her that her purity is special, and its ok to wait until marriage.
HINOJOSA:IT MIGHT HAVE ALL THE TRAPPINGS OF A REGULAR PROM… BUT THIS ONE ENDS A LITTLE DIFFERENTLY.
GIRLS RECITING PLEDGE:”I make a promise this day to God…
HINOJOSA:
THE YOUNG WOMEN HERE ALL MAKE A PROMISE TO THEIR FATHERS THAT THEY WONT’ HAVE SEX UNTIL THE DAY THEY GET MARRIED.
GIRLS RECITING PLEDGE:…to remain sexually pure…until the day I give myself as a wedding gift to my husband. … I know that God requires this of me.. that he loves me. and that he will reward me for my faithfulness.
I’ll let Digby describe the scene for you, since I haven’t seen the program and Digby did:
You have to see it to believe it. They are all dressed up like prom goers, the dads in tuxes and the daughters in evening gowns looking all grown up. They dance, they laugh, they giggle. And then father and daughter stand up, holding each others hands, staring into each others’ eyes and the girls make these vows as if in a wedding ceremony.
As I watch it occurs to me that this is why they don’t have an exception for rape and incest. It’s one of the creepiest things I’ve ever seen.
I can not even tell you how much it would have creeped me out to have my father take that kind of interest in my sexuality. Or to look into his eyes and *say* the word “sexually.” That’s far too much detail to be shared between a father and daughter, in my opinion. Sure, we all know that a daughter’s sexual activity is probably never far from the mind of her father, especially when she’s dating, but the idea that he would go so far as to have her pledge to him that she will remain sexually pure until she “gives” herself as a “wedding gift” to her husband is creeptastic.
As PZ Myers said about the Purity Balls,
Daddies of the world, keep your hands off your daughter’s sexuality, OK? Raise them to be independent and thoughtful and informed and able to make their own decisions, and then just trust them.
Alas, PZ, these are people who don’t believe that women are moral agents, as witnessed by the whirling they do when asked what the penalties should be in South Dakota for a woman seeking an illegal abortion.
And they’re also people who long for the days of coverture. Digby did a follow-up post complete with pictures (some of these girls are really, really young, like around 7) and the promise that the father makes in return for his daughter’s pledge of keeping pure:
And this is what Daddy says in turn:
I, (daughter’s name)’s father, choose before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the area of purity. I will be pure in my own life as a man, husband and father. I will be a man of integrity and accountability as I lead, guide and pray over my daughter and as the high priest in my home. This covering will be used by God to influence generations to come.
He’s the “high priest” in his home. Are we getting the picture?
Yes, Digby, we are.
In this worldview, the man is the head of the household, high priest, and all the members of the family are his property. And anyone will tell you that property has value; in the case of the daughter in a family like this, her value is determined by her marriageability, which is bound up inextricably in her purity. That’s why she pledges to be her husband’s “wedding gift” and to protect the value of her father’s property by not giving it away before it’s legally purchased by marriage.
This, then, is the sanctity of marriage, an institution that must be protected at all costs from the queers.
And remember, Leslee Unruh wants to convince women that they’re really not free now, that they would be more free if the false choice of reproductive freedom and sexuality were taken away from them. Add that to the whole property-transaction nature of the Father-Daughter Purity Pledges and the worldview that encompasses, and you’re a short step away from the return of coverture, in which married women were not allowed to own their own property and fathers could beat their wives and children with impunity. All part of the mythical Good Old Days when things were so much better because Daddy or Husband made all the decisions. As Lance Mannion put it:
Once upon time we were all good and well-behaved, if plagued by demons and temptations within. You know, back in the day, when lynching was a spectator sport, children were worked to death in factories and mineshafts, and employers thought nothing of hiring goons to beat and kill workers who dared strike for safer working conditions and decent pay.
Then came the Fall, and with it moral relativism, post-modernism, Freudianism, Marxism, feminism, birth control, Roe v. Wade, situation comedies that make dad into a buffoon, and black people who expect to live in our neighborhoods and send their kids to our schools…whoops, did we say that last one out loud? We meant entitlements, the nanny state, and the culture of dependence brought about by Welfare.
This might all be just something to gawk at in dropped-jaw horror were it not for one simple fact: Leslee Unruh and her ilk are getting their worldview passed into law. They have power and influence, and their aim is to take away the choices and freedoms of all women, not just the women who subscribe to their worldview (or are unlucky enough to have been born into it).
Update: Amanda has more. She’s also cleaning vomit from her keyboard.