Are the Republicans leading us back into the seventeenth century (or beyond)?
The history of the Old and New Testament: extracted out of Sacred Scripture
and writings of the Fathers...translated from the Sieur de Royaumont, by several hands;
supervised and recommended by Dr. Horneck, and other orthodox divines (London, 1711)
The papers and web were filled with denunciations of Representative Todd Akin's asinine remarks about "legitimate rape" and pregnancy. In fairness, he was not saying that "rape" as such was legitimate. Rather, as far as I could tell, he was using the word, "legitimate," in the sense of "genuine": i.e. trying to say that, when a woman is clearly forced to have sex against her will, she cannot become pregnant. That is ignorant and offensive for another whole set of reasons: unacceptably narrowing the definition of rape, while betraying an abysmal understanding of science as well as current social and political standards (the more so, as it is all tied up with regressive ideas on reproductive freedom). But wait, it's worse. He sits on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology.
At any rate, despite the fact that so much had already been said, I thought I would add some historical context. It's no mystery, but (no pun intended), I found it in a historical mystery set in Restoration England.
Read the full story in The Propagandist: "Republicans. Confidently Leading America into the 17th Century."
As a bonus, you can also see there Jonathon Narvey's take on a nice little video clip of Bill Nye the Science Guy: "Creationism is Anti-American."
Confusion to our enemies!
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