Beware the GOP's Terrible Babies of Destruction

When I was a young militia boy, my mother would travel 40 miles every Thursday evening to receive instruction from Joy Beech. Mrs Beech--she righteously commanded everyone to address her by that title--was a Mormon version of Phyllis Schlafly. Indeed, Mrs. Beech eventually transformed her "Citizens for True Freedom" organization into the Utah chapter of Mrs. Schlafly's Eagle Forum.

Mom enjoyed crusading for Mrs. Beech, and she was very proud when she convinced the local drug store--the only one in town--to stop selling Playboy. Sadly, her efforts to ban National Geographic were unsuccessful. She had to live with the knowledge that her sons were masturbating to pictorials of the tribes of New Guinea.

But even that wasn't all downside, because she loved catching us patting our Robertson's. It gave her a hardship she could exploit when she rose to bear her testimony at the Church's fast and testimony meetings.

As much as Mrs Beech hated naked pictures, masturbation, and the ERA, nothing stirred her ire more than the Pill. She was absolutely certain that contraception was a feminist plot to destroy marriage by giving them the ability to pursue a career. Mom fully embraced the idea. After all, she had taken the pill and was in her fourth marriage.

Worse yet, according to Mrs. Beech, contraception allowed bad girls to avoid the consequences that should rightfully be incurred by their behavior; naughty girls should be punished with babies.

As my mother's son, I'm heartened to see that Mrs. Beech's hatred of contraception is, once again, fashionable in conservative circles. Crowds were bigger than ever at the American Life league 's fourth annual "The Pill Destroys Marriage" rally held last July. And just yesterday, GOP presidential contender Rick Santorum declared that states should be allowed to pass laws banning contraception--something Alabama tried to do earlier this year.

Mrs Beech is surely smiling down at us from her mcmansion in the Celestial Kingdom.