Aside from being a religious extremist who wants creationism taught alongside evolution in public schools, Indiana Governor and GOP Vice President-Elect Mike Pence wants to teach your children some dangerously archaic ideas about sex.
Pence’s beliefs about human history and science could no doubt set children’s minds back about 2,000 years, but that’s nothing compared to what his beliefs about sex could do to their health.
In a CNN interview from 2002 that recently resurfaced, Pence sat down with Wolf Blitzer to lament then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s comments on MTV that called for young people to use condoms for protection.
Powell suggesting condoms over Pence’s belief in “abstinence education” had the Indiana Governor outraged.
“Given the enormous stature that Colin Powell rightly has, not only in America but in the world community — it was a sad day,” Pence said. “I don’t think any administration has had a worse day since [Bill Clinton was asked ‘boxers or briefs] on MTV. And the truth is that Colin Powell had an opportunity here to reaffirm this president’s commitment to abstinence as the best choice for our young people, and he chose not to do that in the first instance, but — and so I think it’s very sad.”
Pence then went to claim that condoms weren’t much protection at all against sexually transmitted diseases, a claim that is an outright falsehood.
“The other part is that, frankly, condoms are a very, very poor protection against sexually transmitted diseases, and in that sense, Wolf, this was — the secretary of state may be inadvertently misleading millions of young people and endangering lives,” Pence said.
Then, Pence made the bizarre suggestion that condoms are too “modern” of a solution, and that they’re just another example of “liberal” encroachment on family values.
“The problem is it was too modern of an answer, Wolf,” Pence continued. “It was — it truly was a modern, liberal answer to a problem that parents like me are facing all over America, and frankly, all over the world.”
America invested $1.4 billion in African abstinence education—but it failed #fromthearchive https://t.co/u8DkCfPxyk pic.twitter.com/YvO39fiPSE
— Pacific Standard (@PacificStand) July 26, 2016
It’s hard to know where to even begin here. As for Pence’s claim that condoms are “poor protection” against STDs, he’s pretending that the established science on the matter doesn’t exist. But then again, when is Pence ever on the right side of science?
From the CDC:
…when used consistently and correctly, condoms are highly effective in preventing the sexual transmission of HIV infection and reduce the risk of other STDs.
In regards to his claim of condoms being too “modern,” here’s a 12,000 to 15,000 year-old cave painting of a dude strapping up with some animal skin:
[This post has been updated] Featured image: Gage Skidmore (Flickr)
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