HPV: Half-wit politician virus

Editor's note: Michael Ackley's columns may include satire and parody based on current events, and thus mix fact with fiction. He assumes informed readers will be able to tell which is which.

Latest entry in the California Legislature's ''Most Mentally Challenged'' contest is Assemblyman Ed Hernandez, D-West Covina.

His optometric training did not improve his astigmatic view that the sexually mediated human papilloma virus should be accorded the same dread as contagious diseases like diphtheria, measles, whooping cough and other illness that can be transmitted by as little as a touch or a sneeze.

Hernandez's Assembly Bill 16 would have forbidden school districts to admit ''any female pupil to the 7th grade level, nor (sic) unconditionally advance any pupil to the 7th grade level ... unless the pupil has received the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine.''

TRENDING: Is this what you voted for, America?

Currently, the measure is tabled. Democrats wanted it shelved because – they said – it was unclear how to pay for it. This is an obvious dodge. Paying for things has never been a major concern for either party. Republicans were against it because they said it would erode familial authority.

But never fear: Hernandez hopes to bring back an amended version soon.

Then we have the sad case of Don Perata, D-Oakland, president pro tempore of the California state Senate. Perata learned how to exercise power at the feet of former Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, who once put a legislator in his place by assigning him office space in a janitorial closet.

The senate leader authored his own version of discipline-through-real-estate last week by changing the locks on the offices of three Democrats who earned his enmity by attending a proscribed caucus of ''moderate'' lawmakers. Eventually, the three were allowed access to their offices, but it was clear who was the keeper of the keys.

Yours truly knew Perata when he was an idealistic young civics teacher in the bayside City of Alameda. It has been sad to watch his descent into cynicism.

Nobody should be surprised that the powers at San Francisco State University would try to suppress college Republicans for ''desecrating'' the flags of al-Qaida and Hamas. The authorities sought cover for their flouting of the First Amendment by arguing they were concerned about the desecration of the name of Allah, represented on the flags in Arabic characters.

However, one must wonder how many times the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have appeared on campus without the same officials turning a hair.

The ''Sisters'' are a group of homosexual men who dress in nuns' habits and lampoon the Catholic Church. Catholics have not objected to the group's policy differences with the church, but to ''their obscene assaults on the Eucharist, the very nucleus of Catholicism.''

Kudos to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education for taking up the cudgels on behalf of the Republican students. It has dispatched a letter to university officials, warning that "if you continue to ignore your constitutional obligations, you risk personal liability for depriving your students of their rights."

Also unsurprising is the revelation that Rep. Fortney ''Pete'' Stark is an atheist. A member of American Atheists has won $1,000 for nominating him as the "highest-level atheist, agnostic, humanist or any other kind of non-theist currently holding elected public office in the United States" in a contest sponsored by the Secular Coalition.

Stark, a San Francisco Bay Area congressman since 1973, said, "When the Secular Coalition asked me to complete a survey on my religious beliefs, I indicated I am a Unitarian who does not believe in a supreme being.

"Like our nation's founders, I strongly support the separation of church and state. I look forward to working with the Secular Coalition to stop the promotion of narrow religious beliefs in science, marriage contracts, the military and the provision of social services."

We asked Stark's chief of carping, caviling and casuistry, Howard Bashford, to expand on his boss' statement.

''For 'science,' read 'embryonic stem cell research,''' said Bashford. ''For 'marriage contracts,' read 'homosexual marriage;' for 'the military,' read 'accept open homosexuality and eliminate don't ask, don't tell;' for 'social services,' read 'whatever.'''

Pressed to explain what Stark meant by ''narrow religious beliefs,'' Bashford replied, ''That means anything the congressman doesn't like. That's the beauty of having no ultimate, transcendent authority.''

Examination of the Secular Coalition website helps explain the glee with which the organization greeted Stark's revelation. It gave heart to the membership, which constitutes – you guessed it – a downtrodden minority.

Coalition Director Lori Lipman Brown implies that, in fairness, there should be a lot more infidels in Congress. She says, "If the number of nontheists in Congress reflected the percentage of nontheists in the population, there would be 53-54 nontheistic Congress members instead of one."

Yet, says a press release on the site, ''Recent polls show that Americans without a god-belief are, as a group, more distrusted than any other minority in America.'' Imagine that!

The press release goes on to say that ''surveys show that the majority of Americans would not vote for an atheist for president even if he or she were the most qualified for the office.''

Whoops! There's the Secular Coalition blind spot. A majority of Americans views belief in a supreme authority, something greater than a candidate's individual judgment, as a major qualifier for elective office – and for trust in general.