Here’s an excerpt from a Rick Santorum interview with Caffeinated Thoughts:

One of the things I will talk about that no President has talked about before is I think the dangers of contraception in this country, the whole sexual libertine idea. Many in the Christian faith have said, “Well, that’s okay. Contraception’s okay.”

It’s not okay because it’s a license to do things in the sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be. They’re supposed to be within marriage, they are supposed to be for purposes that are, yes, conjugal, but also [inaudible], but also procreative. That’s the perfect way that a sexual union should happen. We take any part of that out, we diminish the act. And if you can take one part out that’s not for purposes of procreation, that’s not one of the reasons, then you diminish this very special bond between men and women, so why can’t you take other parts of that out? And all of a sudden, it becomes deconstructed to the point where it’s simply pleasure. And that’s certainly a part of it—and it’s an important part of it, don’t get me wrong—but there’s a lot of things we do for pleasure, and this is special, and it needs to be seen as special.

Again, I know most Presidents don’t talk about those things, and maybe people don’t want us to talk about those things, but I think it’s important that you are who you are. I’m not running for preacher. I’m not running for pastor, but these are important public policy issues. These how profound impact on the health of our society.

I wish I could just get away with saying he’s wrong, but that would be too easy and he’s so far off base he’s not even wrong. Rather than do an easy, well reasoned take down, I think it would be more effective to to look at the logical conclusion of this kind of thinking to see truly how absurd it is.

If all sex is supposed to be procreative, then before someone becomes sexual active, a fertility test should be required. That’s right, no sex before marriage and if you’re found to be infertile prior to your wedding night then the marriage is off. Sorry to the survivors of ovarian, uterine, cervical, testicular, or other cancers that often require surgical treatments that result in sterility, they are unworthy of enjoying sex just like anybody else with any kind of a physiological abnormality that causes infertility. This type of reproductive only sex would also include pregnant women, women who have recently had a child, and post menopausal women and the men their married to (since sex should only take place inside of marriage).

So, if you are the young, happy, fertile couple capable of reproduction, then you should only have sex when she’s ovulating. It doesn’t matter if either or both are horny and want some action, if they can only have sex with the possibility of conception, then it can only happen during that “right” time of the month. It would also suggest that the appropriate thing to say to initiate sex would be “let’s make a baby”. Then once you’ve had your 2.5 children and you don’t want any more, well, you don’t need any more sex for the remaining four or five decades of your life.

While it may seem like the religious right’s obsession with contraceptives is anti-women, it’s so much deeper than that. It’s an extreme form of sex-negativity that seeks to turn everyone into asexual beings who condescend on occasion for the purpose of almost mechanical reproductive acts. It often seems like religious people just don’t want anybody to have fun, in this case, it’s quite true.