Kinsey, Sex & Graham Crackers

Creationism in our schools, abstinence-only sex education, "reproductive rights" on the list of can't-say-that-on-television phrases, the mediocre movie "Kinsey" a flashpoint for the religious right; has the rational mind disappeared from our culture entirely? Frank Rich, in today's NYTimes, http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/arts/12rich.html?th makes a compelling case that science and reason are in jeopardy with the ascension of the "moral values" crowd: " . . . off-screen Americans are being damaged by the cultural war over sex that is being played out in real life. You see that when struggling kids are denied the same information about sexuality that was kept from their antecedents in the pre-Kinsey era; you see that when pharmacists in more and more states enforce their own "moral values" by refusing to fill women's contraceptive prescriptions and do so with the tacit or official approval of local officials; you see it when basic information that might prevent the spread of lethal diseases is suppressed by the government because it favors political pandering over scientific fact. " Strangely enough, this morning I came across an obscure note about the inventor Sylvester Graham who, in the 19th century, invented the graham cracker as a suppressant for what he viewed as the hyperactive American libido. Hmmmm . . . maybe there's a new slogan here for our government funded sex education programs. "Abstain & Graham-It"