Purity for thee but not for he Several years ago, when many Democratic strategists were demanding that the party embrace the tenets of the Christian Right in order to win over the salt of the earth, white, Real Americans (whom they insisted were essential to a legitimate governing majority) the media briefly reported on some of their more extreme rituals. They looked at “purity culture” practices such as gay conversion “therapy”, masturbation abstinence and “purity balls” which feature a pseudo wedding ceremony between a father and daughter. All these practices were disturbing enough that they pretty much went underground after being publicly exposed and the culture wars turned to their next battlefield, the latest being the cruel bullying of transgender teens and banning of gay literature in schools. There was something particularly creepy about the purity balls. TIME Magazine reported on one of the balls back in 2012, where girls as young as eight or nine don long white dresses and listen to their fathers “promise ‘before God to cover my daughter as her authority and protection in the areas of purity,’ and to practice fidelity, shun pornography and walk with honor through a culture of chaos and by so doing guide their daughters as well.” He promises to protect her “purity of mind, body, and soul”and the girls are given lockets with a key, which the father keeps until the girl gets married at which point they turn it over to her husband. (I guess chastity belts are hard…