Six hundred years ago, Galileo got into hot water by endorsing an earlier scientist’s theory that the sun, not Earth, was the center of the universe.

The establishment -- conservatives by definition -- went bonkers and set out to make Galileo’s life miserable, even submitting him to one of the Catholic Church’s infamous inquisitions.  Because he would not renounce Copernican theory -- which disturbed the  orthodoxy about humankind being the most important achievement of all creation -- Galileo spent his last years under house arrest.

The tendency of people in power to spit in the face of science has been rolling ever since.
Not only will they not accept empirical evidence, let alone informed theory, but they like to punish proponents. John Scopes and evolution; Kinsey and sexuality; Joycelyn Elders and masturbation; Kyoto and global warming; geneticists and embryonic cell research all come to mind.

For the head-in-the-sand set, “What’s truth got to do with it?” might as well be their running motto.

Now, ironically, it is a fellow conservative that has the hard right up in arms again, demanding repeal and repentance -- this time, in Texas, where Republican Gov. Rick Perry is calling for young girls in the Lone Star state to be vaccinated against a sneaky killer, the human papilloma virus.

The vaccine is said to be sure-fire prevention of the two kinds of HPV that cause most cervical cancers. Several thousand women die of cervical cancer each year in the U.S.

But some parents are fighting mad about Perry’s mandate for 11- and 12-year-old girls. They say the order usurps their rights and, even worse, encourages the girls to be not only sexually active but promiscuous. 

A writer for the conservative-leaning Weekly Standard pointed out that a D.C. city councilman ridiculed the argument by declaring that the HPV vaccine “no more encourages sexual activity than a tetanus shot encourages you to step on a rusty nail.” 

The magazine writer then noted, “the analogy is faulty. There is no biological urge to step on rusty nails. There is, however, a powerful urge to have sexual intercourse that begins at puberty.”

Although it was apparently lost on the writer, he has made the point for the vaccination. That powerful urge is what the parents really fear. They seem to think it can be learned, like dancing. Their ignorance about basic biology -- or is it just their denial -- is so great that they would rather take a chance at their little girls getting a killer cancer than protect her from at least that one hazard should she capitulate to the urge too soon.

There is no doubt that some black parents will not allow their daughters to be immunized against HPV because of Tuskegee. Our community has never gotten over that horrific experiment, which began in 1932, treated black men like lab rats and ruining their lives with syphilis in the name of research.  Ever since, black people have been suspicious of government needles and pills -- understandably, to a point.  But our refusal to participate in clinical trials and other medical research has been to our detriment too. 

It’s not often that those of us on the left side of the political spectrum are sanguine about a right-side proposition. But, Perry’s is a good one and important. And for many of our girls, a matter of life and death.