Dan Savage: Rise Up, Straight People!

Dan Savage, who's Savage Love columns can be found in your Chicago Reader, warns hetros that the fundamentalists want to control their sexuality as well.

Straight rights update: There were two disturbing developments in the battle over straight rights last week.

First: Target. We know the store fills its ads with dancing, multiculti hipsters giving off a tolerant, urbanist vibe and runs hipster-heavy ad campaigns positioning Target as a slightly more expensive, more progressive alternative to Wal-Mart. Well, as John Aravosis revealed on Americablog.org last week, Target's politics are as red as their bull's-eye logo.

The chain allows its pharmacists to refuse to dispense birth control and emergency contraception to female customers if the pharmacist objects on religious grounds. What's worse, the company claims that any of its employees has a right to discriminate against any of its customers provided the discrimination is motivated by an employee's religious beliefs. Read all about it at http://www.americablog.org/ and www.plannedparenthood.org.

Second, more troubling news from Tucson, Ariz., where a 20-year-old rape victim called dozens of pharmacies in town before she found one that stocked emergency contraception (EC). "When she finally did find a pharmacy with it, she said she was told the pharmacist on duty would not dispense it because of religious and moral objections," reported the Arizona Daily Star.

Emergency contraception, the story continued, "prevents pregnancy by stopping ovulation, fertilization, or implantation of a fertilized egg. The sooner the emergency contraception is taken after intercourse, the more effective it is."

Don't just sit there, heteros. Defend your rights! Don't shop at Target, and write 'em and tell them why you're going elsewhere. (Go to Target.com and click on "contact us," then "Target Corporation.") As for Fry's Pharmacy in Tucson, the shop that wouldn't dispense EC to a freakin' rape victim, the fundamentalist pharmacist claims its her "right" not to do her fucking job.
Well, you have a right to free speech. Call Fry's at 520.323.2695 and ask them why the fuck a pharmacy that won't dispense EC keeps the drug in stock. Do they do it just to torment rape victims? ("Oh yeah, we've got EC - but you can't have any. Don't you know that Jesus wants you to bear your rapist's child?")

Rise up, straight people, and demand your rights.

With Christmas right around the corner, the folks at Target may be particularly interested to hear from you.