If you ever wondered just how immoral the Talibaptist wing of the Republican party is, look no further than state Senator Dave Schultheis (R-Colorado Springs), who is opposed to testing pregnant women for AIDS, because it would lead to treatments to reduce the chance of their children catching the disease, and their children having AIDS is appropriate punishment for their promiscuity.

The frightening thing is that coming from Colorado Springs, home of James Dobson’s Focus on the Family, a significant portion of his constituents likely agree:

• What he said during the debate: “This stems from sexual promiscuity for the most part and I just can’t go there. We do things continually to remove the consequences of poor behavior, unacceptable behavior, quite frankly. I’m not convinced that part of the role of government should be to protect individuals from the negative consequences of their actions.”

• What he said afterward: “What I’m hoping is that yes, that person may have AIDS, have it seriously as a baby and when they grow up, but the mother will begin to feel guilt as a result of that. The family will see the negative consequences of that promiscuity and it may make a number of people over the coming years … begin to realize that there are negative consequences and maybe they should adjust their behavior. We can’t keep people from being raped. We can’t keep people from shooting each other. We can’t keep people from jumping off bridges. People drink and drive, and they crash and kill people. Poor behavior has its consequences.”

For all those wankers (that’s you Lord Saletan) who think that we can engage in meaningful negotiations with the abortion criminalization crowd, understand that they want to eliminate all forms of birth control, and re-institute criminal penalties for “fornication”.

In fact, they want to give children AIDS to punish their parents.

You can no more find common ground with them than you can with al Qaeda.