Derby Girl

The man? Stacey Campfield, a Republican Representative from Knoxville (where I grew up), who sponsors the “Don’t Say Gay Bill.” The bill makes it illegal for K-8 teachers to acknowledge the existence of homosexuality or allude to it in any way in the  classroom. So yeah, a winner.

Well, while on his dog and pony show promoting this embarrassment of legislation, he went on the radio and said, “It’s virtually impossible to contract HIV through heterosexual sex.” He also spouted some nonsense about a man having sex with a monkey and thus bringing AIDS to the human population. Read all about it here.

Yeah, genius.

So because I’m an asshole, I wrote him the following email:

Senator Campfield,

And he WROTE ME BACK. Within an hour! Now, at first I thought it might be a form email, but thanks to the rampant spelling and grammatical errors, I’m thinking this was him at this laptop gettin’ pissy:

Sorry to let you down but here are some cold hard facts…

 Here are a few links with  a compilation of facts found elsewhere mostly from the CDC

On the short lifespan of homosexuals,
http://theroadtoemmaus.org/RdLb/22SxSo/PnSx/HSx/hosx_lifspn.htm

Odds of getting AIDS through vaginal sex

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/895/what-are-the-odds-of-getting-aids-from-ordinary-heterosexual-sex

Odds of a US man getting AIDS from a woman through heterosexual sex can be deserned quite easily

UNAIDS estimates that in the U.S., living with HIV as of 2009, 310,000 are women.

total US population 308,745,538

Lets just go with about 50% are female = 154,372,000 female population.

Lets then say you take absolutely no care and sleep with anyone willy nilly. Your odds of getting a female with AIDS is 1 in @ 4970.

Lets go with the pro in the Knox news sentinal article who said on average, heterosexual intercourse between an infected person and a non infected person results in transmission of the disease about “one in a thousand times.” (I assume this is without a condom)

Right off the bat that puts your odds of getting AIDS through heterosexual sex at about 1 in 5 million.

Most “Normal” people I imagine would also stay away from the IV drug users, hemophiliacs, known disease carriers, prostitutes and other high risk people. Also conceding a man less likely to receive the disease then a women because of the nature of sex, the odds of a man getting AIDS from a female are pretty low.

Ad a condom and some common sense and you can add probably at least add a 0 to the number.

Who IS getting AIDS

 http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/aa/ and http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/msm/index.html or
_http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive/ldn/2009/aug/09082609

I admit I am not a historian on AIDS (If you listen to the actual uncut interview I was asked to tell what I had heard was the history of AIDS) The research on sex with a monkey being the first transmitter of AIDS has not been proven nor firmly dis proven. It is one of about 5 theories I was able to find on the source of AIDS. No credible source said any one was clearly definitive one way or the other.
It was first published I think in a book which documents the history of the AIDS epidemic is entitled “And the Band Played On.” The author of “And the Band Played on” was appalled by the unsanitary and degrading behavior of homosexuals. He died of AIDS a year after his book was published. The homosexual pilot comment was first printed in the American Journal of medicine article about “Patient 0”. His name was Gaeton Dugas. While possibly not the first person with AIDS he is still widely considered the person who widely transmitted the modern outbreak of the disease.

Here is a link on that…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ga%C3%ABtan_Dugas

As for the reason for the interview (My bill on parental responsibility of teaching sexuality to very young children) Here are some points of view for you to consider.

-It is a parents responsibility to decide when a child is ready to grasp such a complex issue as sexuality and what they want to tell the child about that complex subject. Not a teachers.

- All children develop mentally at different rates. I do not feel a teacher with an agenda (Be it pro
 or con) is the appropriate person to decide “Now is the time” for an entire class of children just because they may think one way or another on an issue and want to espouse it.

-A teacher is not a trained child psychologist or psychiatrist and could do as much harm as good to a sexually confused child.

-I doubt many on the other side would want a teacher who said “Homosexuality is evil, dirty and wrong” just because they felt that it was what is appropriate, that it is what they thought  the children needed to and were ready to hear. This bill ensures neutrality from teachers.

 -Physically threatening behavior is what is and needs to remain covered for all groups. Not the sexuality of the victim. We already have anti bullying legislation passed in Tennessee (In fact I co sponsored it 2 or 3 years ago when it passed) so all children are protected from bullying in our schools.

-We do not need an un equal justice system  that creates special separate classes of protected people that gets special protection under the law.

-Nor do we need to silence the first amendment rights of religious free speech of those in our schools whose family may hold different beliefs (as long as those beliefs are not physically threatening).

 -While there is a scientific and educational need to mention the basics of heterosexuality when teaching  the basics of reproduction (XY chromosomes, etc.) there is no scientific need to mention homosexuality as homosexuals do not naturally reproduce.

-We are falling behind the rest of the world in math, science, and English amongst other things. Tennessee ranks about 46th in most areas. Social engineering is just one less issue teachers should have to worry about teaching as part of their curricula.

     Yours in service,

     Sen. Stacey Campfield

Right? CA-RAZY! That’s completely unedited and in its full, original form. Yes, he linked to Wikipedia, which might actually be my very favorite part. To be fair, this is probably cut and pasted from a number of memos he’s written, so he didn’t actually type this all out to me. Frightening, though, that he’s got no compunction about a quick read-through before hitting send…

And well, because I’m still an asshole, I HAD to write him back …

I’d take your email far more seriously if it lacked quite so many fundamental spelling errors. Go speak with someone at the department of public health. I’m sure, as medical professionals, they’d be happy to enlighten you. But who needs medical professionals when we have politicians, I guess?

Your move, Senator Campfield. Oh, and you can watch him defend this insanity on my local TV news station, WBIR … go whatever intern they put on this who actually pushed back on him.

…when it continued into Sunday morning, I decided I needed to do something about it. I needed to eat healthier … and stop thinking Burger King is an acceptable lunch destination.

I don’t want to make a big deal out of it, like it’s one of those ridiculous cleanses or whatever (btw, I can’t see the word “cleanse” without thinking of you all shitting out your life force). BUT I’ve managed to spend my time since Sunday eating REAL FOOD. So much so that when I opened up my massive Whole Foods salad over at Slam Chowdah’s house, she literally said, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you eat anything that looks like that. We should take a picture!”

My lunches this week have not been of the standard Chipotle-variety, I’ve skipped the Starbucks pastries (and Starbucks really, only had 1 chai this week). I cooked my own dinner on Tuesday night (lentil tacos) and then ate the leftovers on Wednesday. I only had 2 cokes this week, and that was early in the week. Haven’t had one for two days now… skipped visiting the vending machine at work, and when I wanted a snack I went for sliced pineapple or a banana.

All that’s to say that I’m not going vegan or cutting out sugar or ditching pasta (you shut your goddamn mouth), but I am being more mindful of where my food is coming from, and I’m already starting to feel better.

This should probably be a whispery post, because frankly it feels weird to *blog* on Tumblr, amiright?