The respectable, politically powerful golden child of the religious right says sexiness on college campuses comes from condom handouts and ends with totalitarian government.

Tony Perkins, the Family Research Council's longtime head, made the case in his radio show last Thursday. Judging from the work of the dutiful chroniclers at Right Wing Watch, Perkins laid it out like an Alex Jones conspiracy theory, only without the hassle of nominally tenuous connections between dots:

Speaking on his "Washington Watch" program, Perkins lamented "the sexualization that is taking place in our culture in general but on college campuses."

"Contraception is made available as if it were candy which sends a message, well it's there, it must be there for a reason, and then we're surprised when — this is not justification, it's wrong, we are all responsible for our actions — but we're surprised when people act on these outside factors that they are surrounded by," Perkins said. "It leads to tyranny."

Perkins told a caller that people are trying to "jettison the moral law and live by an arbitrary standard that is put in place by government."

Just to be sure I wasn't missing the point, I checked with my evangelical wife, who's up on all the religious right's given battles, to see if this was a familiar argument.

"Contraception leads to tyranny?" she said. "I have aspirin in the medicine cabinet. That doesn't mean I have a headache all the time."