Jackass of the Week: 22nd of May 2012.

This is Reverend Jesse Lee Peterson. If you're a woman, then he doesn't like you. He'd like to return to the 'good old days' where women didn't have power and were subordinate (he seems to think it particularly important that they are sexually subordinate) to men. I wonder if he's referring to the same good old days when people of his skin pigmentation had to sit at the back of the bus or drink from separate water fountains and had the pleasure of being randomly lynched by people dressed as ghosts?

Unlike the other jackasses I've posted; vloggers in their own rooms or an ill-conceived rant in a government hearing, this guy actually has some influence. Not just as a head of a church, but also as a radio host and regular commentator on Fox News, making his brand of ignorance and hatred doubly concerning

The Reverend seems to live in a world where filling less than 10% of all positions of power constitutes a take over by women that's going to destroy society. We can only assume then that in the world he inhabits, the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot didn't exist. In fact if there's one thing we can say looking at the way the world is, men have done really quite a shit job of looking after it. If women are capable of doing any worse, I'd actually be impressed.

What was the defining moment in causing the downfall of civilisation? Ah, of course! Giving women the right to vote! Before universal suffrage, everything was fine and dandy.Women of course can't handle political decisions, they can't possibly understand the important issues involved in politics like who they'd most like to have a beer with. Women are also irrational and freak out when faced with a stressful issue. As opposed to men, who of course haven't spent the last several thousand years beating each-other over the head with sticks in an ongoing argument over who's invisible friend is the real creator of the universe.

But even more important than the political and economic management of our society, is the fact that women may be having more than one sexual partner, OUTSIDE OF MARRIAGE! Imagine that! choosing to be intimate to someone without binding yourself to them for life in an institution that traces its roots to bondage and servitude? Shocking! And then taking action to avoid getting pregnant? what has the world come to.

He like many religious commentators takes great exception to Sandra Fluke, who has had so many words put in her mouth that it's actually quite depressing. Is there a legitimate debate to be had about whether or not the state should provide birth control? Certainly there is, but the sheer vulgarity and vitriol of so many commentators, the hatred and contempt that women like Fluke have attracted is so grossly counter-productive.

It's the laughable short sightedness of this view that gets me. He is completely hung up on being asked to pay for Birth Control (the issue is actually a little more complex for this, but let as assume for the sake of argument that this Reverend Jackass is accurately representing the issue). Assuming this women have unwanted pregnancy's and are forced by the state to carry them to full-term. Who do you suppose is gonna be paying for the education and other services the state provides for children? If you wan't to put it in economic terms, it is far more cost effective for the state to pay for Birth Control. The fact is, the economic issue is a complete red-herring. This is about cynical old men trying to control the sexual habits of young women.

Sandra Fluke is a woman, and as such I give her the credit of knowing her own lived experience as a woman better than any man does. It is disgusting to see so many men distort her words, and the words of countless other women, and dismiss them as 'sluts'. It never ceases to amaze my just how threatened some men seem to be by female sexuality. It would be funny if it didn't have such horrendous consequences for so many people.

I would tell this guy to go fuck himself, but I fear it would bring forth a lecture about the evils of self-sodomy and how God forbids it and how it's going to destroy society. So I'll finish by just calling him this:

Jackass!