February 15, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – One of my favorite quotes from P.G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves and Wooster books occurs in the episode where Wooster gets mixed up, to typically hilarious effect, with a bunch of Marxist radicals.
At one point Wooster’s all-knowing butler Jeeves displays a surprisingly exhaustive knowledge of the writings of Marx. Upon being queried by Wooster where he learned so much about “the social revolution,” Jeeves responds: “It is as well to know exactly what tune the devil is playing.”
Good advice that.
I think of Jeeves often as I wander about the seedier districts of the internet as part of my job keeping tabs on the goings on of groups like Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Abortion Funds, Jezebel, and RH Reality Check.
It is, to say the least, instructive to read the tweets and blogs and posts of the radical leftist organizations, some of which (Planned Parenthood especially) have somehow managed to gain a reputation for respectability despite espousing views that are, quite simply, horrifying. (Don’t believe me? Watch this video from American Life League. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.)
Today, for instance, I happened upon this gem, tweeted by Planned Parenthood of the Greater Memphis Region:
Forget flowers and chocolate…using condoms is the ultimate sign of LOVE.
Which seems a rather odd thing to say. I believe that the standard quotation in reference to “ultimate love” goes like this: “No greater love has any man than this, than to lay down his life for his friends.” Apparently, however, that’s all bosh. What Jesus really should have said was, “No greater love has a man than to wear a condom.”
I had to scratch my head over that tweet for a few minutes. But I think I’ve figured it out. You see, in Planned Parenthood’s world, if you’re having sex, you’re most likely not having sex with your spouse; you probably have no plans of staying faithful to your partner; you almost certainly don’t want to have children; and either you or your partner is likely infected with any number of STDs.
Nor are they necessarily wrong in their suppositions. The latest numbers from the CDC show that upwards of one-third of Americans have an STD, with the hardest hit group being those between the ages of 15 and 24. Meanwhile, fewer and fewer Americans are bothering to get married, instead shacking up with whom they please, and moving on whenever the going gets tough. And all the time the birth rate keeps dropping, as children become increasingly viewed as an optional accessory, rather than the natural and desirable outcome of marriage and sexual intercourse.
Given all this, if you’re planning on having a Valentine’s Day romp with whoever happens to be available for casual sex at the time, the most loving thing you do that evening might very well be strap on a rubber to make sure you don’t infect your partner with a communicable disease, or impregnate them with a baby that you have no intention of sticking around to raise.
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I suppose it's perfectly in character then that Planned Parenthood also tweeted approvingly about the entrepreneurial student who recently grabbed national headlines after beginning a business delivering “emergency condoms” to college dorm rooms, for a fee. “That’s serious dedication to #safersex,” cooed Planned Parenthood. And then, just to drive home the point, on Valentines’ Day the organization sent out a tweet saying, “Be my Valentine,” accompanied by a photo of a Planned Parenthood chocolate surrounded by condoms. And finally, just a few minutes ago, they alerted us to the fact that it's apparently National Condom Week, and helpfully sent along instructions on how to put one on.
Maybe this all doesn’t seem as odd to you as it does to me. But when I read Planned Parenthood’s twitter feed I sometimes feel like I’m in the twilight zone, and I wonder if I have anything at all in common with them.
You see, I have been very fortunate to live amongst people where Valentine’s Day has as much to do with casual sex and condoms as it does with…I don’t know…golf, I guess. The vast majority of my friends waited until getting married to live with each other or to have sex. Most of them have happily welcomed children into their lives within the first few years of marriage. And almost none of them have ever used any form of birth control, instead relying upon self-control and the extremely effective natural family planning methods to space their children, if necessary. And the abortion rate? Non-existent.
It’s a different way of thinking and living than the norm, I grant you. But from what I’ve seen, these friends have far more stable and happy marriages than just about anybody who has bought into the Planned Parenthood lie. Nor is this surprising. After all, if you view condom-wearing as the “ultimate sign of love,” what are the chances that you’ll be able to muster the strength of character to stick by your spouse when things like personality differences, sickness, financial misfortune and children come along? Slim to none.
What I believe my experience shows, however, is that Planned Parenthood’s vision of love and romance, in which the condom plays a central role (and inevitably, abortion, when the condom fails), doesn’t have to win out.
Yes, the propaganda of Planned Parenthood and their ilk is powerful, and, with the help of the always-eager media, ubiquitous. But we have the freedom to reject it, and to choose something better: to choose, that is, a world in which the laying down of one's life is the ideal against which love is measured, and not the wearing of a piece of latex in bed with a stranger. Is that too much to ask?