The moral relativists are at it again. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton (D., D.C.) and Reps. Jim Moran (D., Va.) and Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) have written Interior Secretary Ken Salazar to propose use of a non-lethal immunocontraception vaccine to control the population of white-tailed deer in Rock Creek Park. The deer have taken over this urban park, which runs the length of Washington, DC, posing a danger to motorists. They rut and graze freely on taxpayer-funded flora, exercising rights granted all too casually in our permissive society without a thought in the world about responsibilities. One-shot multiyear contraception will do nothing to undo this tangle of pathologies. What these deer need to learn is that abstaining from sexual activity is the only guaranteed way to avoid unwanted pregnancy, sexually-transmitted disease, and collision with a Chevy Suburban half-ton. A mutually faithful monogamous relationship consecrated by the institution of marriage is the sole appropriate setting for sexual congress. Small chapels should be built at strategic points throughout the park where the proper ceremonies can be performed. Presiding ministers might take the occasion to point out that while the confiscatory tax rate and a regulatory stranglehold are keeping unemployment high, want ads are still full of job listings for able-bodied stags. Sadly, that’s not the policy direction we’re heading in. Next thing Congress will make these cloven-hooved pests eligible to participate in Obamacare so they can obtain abortions courtesy of the U.S. Treasury.
Correction. An earlier version of this post referred, erroneously, to "taxpayer-funded fauna." I meant "taxpayer-funded flora."