Values Voter Summit lessons: Women, please dress more modestly

Now that the Values Voter Summit crowd really and truly embraces palling around with terrorists, I think it's probably officially no longer out of line to be calling them the American Taliban crowd. Still, but let's not jump to conclusions as to their motivations or driving forces here. Oh look, here's a completely unrelated story from Think Progress:

Literature being handed out at the Values Voter Summit on Friday attacks women for being 'immodest' and extolled them to 'go home and put some clothes on!'

In flyers and brochures on display at Values Voters, the social conservative conference where Republican Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan spoke, an organization called Modesty Matters criticized women for dressing 'immodestly' at church, and blamed women for causing men to stare lustfully at them.

Well, that's not so bad. Just your garden-variety movement to point out that you slutty sluts in your revealing slutty church clothes are riling up the godfearing but lustful menfolk, so stop it already. So what's in the (multiple) brochures?

- From the 'Modesty: It's nothing to be ashamed of' pamphlet: 'Since men are particularly visual, immodesty in church can trigger lustful thoughts.'

Ah. The old "if I'm having impure thoughts, it's must be because you women are sluts" argument. The favorite argument of anti-women religious movements everywhere, including in such lovely places as Afghanistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia. Women owe it to men to dress in accordance to men's needs, and if they don't, women deserve the blame for it. So cover up!

'My men's bible study group talks frequently about controlling our lust, thoughts, and eyes. Yes the problem and responsibility are ours, but is it really reasonable for the women of the church to make it THIS difficult for us?'

No insult intended, but it sounds like your men's bible study group consists of a bunch of perverts. Really? You're supposed to be studying the bible every week, but those meetings keep devolving into conversations about how hot the various women of the church are and how much lust you're feeling because of it? Are these meetings, per chance, being held in a bar? Maybe you should join a bible study group that spends more time on the bible study part.

- From the 'True Woman Manifesto': 'All women, whether married of single, are to model femininity in their various relationships, by exhibiting a distinctive modesty, responsiveness, and gentleness of spirit.'

I don't know what "distinctive" means in this context. I think it means "a lot of."

For a group so concerned about sharia coming to America, telling the womenfolk how to dress in order to make things easier on the menfolk does indeed kinda sound like sharia coming to America. It's the precise rationale behind conservative Muslim governments mandating the wearing of burkas, after all'that if a man thinks about sex, it's the fault of the women around him, so it's the responsibility of all women everywhere to cover up enough that no man can possibly think about sex. And since I am quite certain that, somewhere out there, there are a group of men with a burka fetish, good luck with that, Flanders.

On the other hand, these brochures are probably one of the least offensive things to come out of this summit. I mean that: This group is not talking about mandated modesty, only suggested modesty. They may be spouting the exact arguments of anti-women religious conservatives in other countries, but at least in this case they're not suggesting we stone or jail the womenfolk whose slutty slutty church clothes are giving nearby menfolk the vapors. That rates this group considerably above the much, much larger anti-abortion, anti-birth-control, anti-sex-education crowds at this same event, who do expect to see their own peculiar religious values mandated upon all American women by actual force of law.

Still, though. When your arguments blaming women for the lustful thoughts of men could be taken directly from the preachings of any number of ultra-conservative anti-women Middle Eastern governments, shouldn't you at least, I don't know, reflect on that for a minute?

No? All right then, carry on. There's probably a woman standing in line at Chick-Fil-A right now with her ankles showing, so I think you're going to have to print up another batch of pamphlets.