1. Disturbing - Trailer for the upcoming documentary "Kidnapped For Christ." American teens are abducted by their families and sent abroad to be de-gayed - in Jesus' name, of course. 2. Amusing - "Every Sperm is Sacred" from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life. This really should be the theme song for the "pro-life" movement.
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According to HuffPo, a Democratic state senator in Oklahoma has countered all this zygote personhood nonsense with a satirical measure which would make male masturbation as well as any non-procreative ejaculation a crime. Doesn't each precious squiggly-wiggly deserve protection against casual spillage? (Wet dreams, one assumes, would merely result in a fine and perhaps community service.) Progressive lawmaker Constance Johnson reasons that any sperm not intended to fertilize an egg is an "an action against an unborn child." What's good for the goose and all that, dontcha know.
Smelling menstrual blood in the air - as opposed to, say, the frankincense-laced aroma of nervous altar boys - Cardinal Francis George of Chicago is jumping into America's contentious contraception debate.
You remember Cardinal George. He recently compared equality advocates to the KKK. Now his focus, such as it is, has shifted elsewhere. Michael Sneed reports for the Sun-Times: In a letter earmarked to be read this weekend at all Catholic churches in the Archdiocese of Chicago, Cardinal George is throwing the gauntlet down at the Obama administration for denying Catholics religious liberty. “We cannot and will not comply with this unjust law,” states the cardinal, who is vehemently opposed to the new Obama administration rule requiring religious organizations to include contraceptive health insurance coverage. “People of faith cannot be made second-class citizens because of their religious beliefs." (Please, Your Worshipful, give us a fucking break. Has the Roman Church started paying taxes?)
The only thing Catholic leaders obsess about more than gay couples tying the knot is women's vaginas.
Sorry humanity, but Pope Benedict and his bejewelled minions are too busy funding anti-LGBT causes and anti-choice activists to feed hungry children in Third World countries. And now there's another political cause célèbre upon which church prelates can squander their time and energy (not to mention the faithful's money).
Like social conservatives, the Vatican believes that the national debate over abortion has been won - in the court of public opinion, anyway. Perhaps it has. So now these Princes of the Church and their evangelical counterparts are working diligently to enact "personhood" amendments and ban certain contraceptive pills and devices. Birth control and family planning, it seems, is the nouveau no-no.
Laurie Goodsteing at the New York Times applies foundation: (T)he nation’s Roman Catholic bishops were fully prepared for battle. Seven months earlier, they had started laying the groundwork for a major new campaign to combat what they saw as the growing threat to religious liberty, including the legalization of same-sex marriage. But the birth control mandate, issued on Jan. 20, was their Pearl Harbor. Hours after President Obama phoned to share his decision with Archbishop Timothy M. Dolan of New York, who is president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the bishops’ headquarters in Washington posted on its Web site a video of Archbishop Dolan, which had been recorded the day before. “Never before,” Archbishop Dolan said, setting the tone, “has the federal government forced individuals and organizations to go out into the marketplace and buy a product that violates their conscience. This shouldn’t happen in a land where free exercise of religion ranks first in the Bill of Rights.” The speed and passion behind the bishops’ response reflects their growing sense of siege, and their belief that the space the Catholic church once occupied in American society and the deference it was given are gradually being curtailed by an increasingly secular culture.
It has frequently been noted that if men had to suffer the pains of childbirth, issues such as this would be, well, non-issues. Tacitus correctly observed: Experientia docet.
UPDATE: As is his wont, President Obama has offered the Religious Right a compromise. As is their wont, ultraconservatives are bitching about it.(Pictured: Cardinal Francis George, Woody Allen as Sperm)
It's been noted that the modern-day Republican Party, if given free reign, would create a society which would make the prophetic futures of George Orwell and Margaret Atwood seem benign. While occasional bouts of extremist posturing can be written off as the delusions of overwrought individuals, a pattern of paranoia has emerged that cannot be ignored: Shoot undocumented workers, bring back segregation, encourage anti-gay bullying in schools. (Republican leaders in Texas, not satisfied with simply recriminalizing intimacy between same-sex couples, want felony charges brought against any person - including LGBT-friendly pastors - who officiates at a non-heterosexual wedding.) These calls for violence and oppression will eventually coalesce into a Religious Right police state.
Case in point. Below is the latest howl of insanity from an elected official in the Tar Heel State ...
A lawmaker in North Carolina says doctors who perform legal abortions should be executed. Not only that, he would like to see them hanged by the neck in public. Larry Pittman, a conservative representative from Cabarrus County, recently sent emails to every member of the state's General Assembly declaring that he supports capital punishment carried out in town squares. ("Get yer hot dawgs here!" "Candied apples for the kids!") From WRAL: A Cabarrus County lawmaker wants to bring back public hangings in North Carolina as a deterrent to crime, and he says doctors who perform abortions should be in the line to the gallows. Pittman wrote in the email, "If murderers (and I would include abortionists, rapists, and kidnappers, as well) are actually executed, it will at least have the deterrent effect upon them. For my money, we should go back to public hangings, which would be more of a deterrent to others, as well." He confirmed to WRAL News on Thursday that he wrote the email ... (On the official webpage for the North Carolina Legislature, Pittman lists his current occupations as "pastor, shipping worker, and company chapman.")
Although the "pro-life" pols waging war against the female womb promise they'll only target physicians who terminate pregnancies (often because an expectant mother's health is threatened), at the very moment abortion becomes illegal and "personhood" is granted to fetuses, these same lawmakers will turn their self-righteous wrath on pregnant women. We're already seeingexamples of this. (Pictured: Pittman)
Anti-Choice, Homophobic "Mobile Health Clinics" in Lone Star State
It's been obvious for some time that the "pro-life" movement has broadened its agenda. Shrill anti-choice activists are no longer intent on merely halting legal abortions, thus sending young victims of rape and incest into the darkened alleyways of yesteryear. They won't be satisfied until women - our wives, sisters, mothers, daughters - with life-threatening health issues or carrying nonviable fetuses are forced to endure even more anguish than their medical conditions would naturally incur. They're also pressing for legislation to grant human rights to microscopic zygotes via grotesque "personhood amendments" and striving to make the sale and possession of contraceptives illegal. Pope Benedict will be deee-lighted.
Audacious Sarah Posner of Religion Dispatches recently investigated a mobile "pregnancy unit" parked near a Planned Parenthood facility in Houston. She went inside this dogma-driven 'Christian Healthcare On Wheels' hoping to speak with Coalition for Life president Christine Melchor - but instead Posner was confronted by a stern "nurse" named Cheryl Park who reluctantly gave her a tour of the "pro-life" bus which provides tea and sympathy to those that believe human life begins at the exact moment sperm touches a female ovum and cold comfort to any woman (or girl) who for medical or personal reasons must terminate her pregnancy. Writes Posner:
Park is Catholic, as are many of the Houston Coalition for Life activists, but she says the Lutheran Missouri Synod has been on board with the cause. Park can’t hide her contempt for Planned Parenthood, and she’s barely able to even utter the words, referring instead to “over there” and “they.” Her opposition isn’t due solely to the fact that Planned Parenthood performs abortions; she is adamantly against the use of birth control, and hopes to stop women, not just from entering the building for abortion services, but for any reason. In the waiting area, Park offers me pamphlets, ranging from those promoting chastity, offering misinformation about the ineffectiveness and dangers of birth control, to those offering services for “post-abortion trauma,” which is cured by faith in Jesus.
A dour middle-aged woman dressed in scrubs, Park seems incredulous as she lists the services that Planned Parenthood provides: AIDS testing, research, vasectomies, and tubal ligations. “They treat lesbians and gays,” she adds scornfully, “you might see two guys go in there together. They just run the whole gamut.”
Oh my Lord! Planned Parenthood treats gay and lesbian couples like human beings? Quick, call the police!
Across from the bus, a handful of activists mill around the entrance to the Planned Parenthood parking lot. In multi-colored sidewalk chalk, lettering emblazoned with hearts and curlicues, someone has written, "God loves you both."
Of course the activists in the Womb Control Movement just know that God cherishes the unborn more than He loves the born - and naturally that includes all the sexually abused young girls these activists would force into carrying unwanted fetuses, risking their physical and emotional health.
Still, who can resist the well-reasoned arguments of the "pro-life" crowd? Right?
You may have seen the following video of a man who confronted some sidewalk anti-choice religious zealots. The man's wife had to undergo an abortion because their 16-week-old fetus was dying inside her. The most astonishing thing about this incident is that the activists could not would not be convinced that they were doing anything wrong. They could not be shamed because they have no shame. They certainly have no compassion.
Faith2Action's religious dominatrix-activist Janet Porter and her coterie of womb controllers insist that the Ohio Senate will soon pass their anti-choice "heartbeat bill," the harshest in the nation, which has already sailed through the state's House of Representatives. Heartbeat bills are exactly what you would think. They make abortion a criminal offense (even when a woman's health is threatened by pregnancy) from the moment a fetal heartbeat is discernible in the first trimester.
Robin Marty on AlterNet: "For most women, that would provide a window of two weeks or less in order to learn she was pregnant, make her decision about the pregnancy, arrange for an appointment, gather money for an abortion, obtain the mandatory counseling and sit through the required 24 hour waiting period. For a woman with irregular menstrual cycles, by the time she realizes she is pregnant it likely would already be too late to do anything but continue the pregnancy."
Brian Tasshman reports for Right Wing Watch: Porter’s prized legislation would “eliminate virtually all abortion,” and has won the support of leading Republicans such as Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Michele Bachmann. After it passed the House, she organized an ad campaign and a prayer rally to urge the Republican-controlled Senate to allow a vote on the bill, telling Senate leaders that “when the Heartbeat bill becomes law” America“will be once again in a position where God can bless us.”(Well, except for those pesky hellbound homosexuals, deranged transgender individuals, Satanic Muslims, and less-than-human undocumented workers that Porter and her cohorts are determined to eradicate.) The blatantly unconstitutional legislation has created divisions in Ohio’s anti-choice lobby – the Ohio Right to Life Society refuses to back Porter, and the Republican State Senate president has yet to say whether the bill will be assigned to a committee.
At the fundie rally, after much preening and self-congratulation, Janet Porter announced, "When your children and your grandchildren ask you: Where were you when they were killing babies? You can answer: We were the ones who stopped the killing." (There was a video posted but the Faith2Action goons had it pulled from YouTube.)
Acorns are not oak trees and embryos are not babies. How would Janet respond to the young victims of rape and incest - prepubescent girls - who become nothing but brood mares in the eyes of the law? How would she respond to little children whose mothers' health prevent them from carrying a fetus to term? When their moms suffer and die in the delivery room, would she then pray with them that this is all "God's will?"
The pretentious piety of "pro-lifers" is somewhat remindful of that self-absorbed, shallow, Jew-hating prioress in Geoffrey Chaucer's classic The Canterbury Tales, who seldom expressed genuine Christian charity but ...
"She wolde wepe, if that she sawe a mous, Caught in a trap, if it were deed or bledde."
It amazes me that so many grown men feel threatened by or resentful toward strong, free-thinking, independent women - and it's even more astonishing that some women, in accordance with their sincerely-held spiritual beliefs, devalue themselves and embrace inequality as a God-ordained condition.
The all-powerful Southern Baptist Convention, the LDS Church, and Roman Catholic hierarchy strive, disingenuously, to make the point that a woman's "submissive" place in the home isn't reeeealy submissive; that Christian females merely have different roles to fulfill than men. Of course the Holy See currently prohibits women from administering the sacrament (Vatican officials refer to female priests as "crimes against faith"), Mormon wives accept a subservient position in spiritual affairs, and the customers at Lifeway Christian Stores were so scandalized when Gospel Today featured female ministers on its cover that managers ordered copies of the magazine hidden behind the counters.
On the ultraconservative website Renew America, Selwyn Duke thumps his chest, prissily proclaiming: (W)here men are big-picture-oriented, women are detail-oriented. This feminine quality is wonderful when handling young children, whose lives must be micro-managed; the problem is that it also leads to acceptance of a micro-managing government that, ultimately, will treat us all like children. And then you have not just a nanny state - a feminine descriptive, mind you - but what we are quickly descending into: The Harridan State! (Misogyny is rarely expressed so baldly.) Did you ever wonder why women are so often attracted to strong, burly men? It's the same reason why they're drawn to men boasting wealth and/or power. It's the same reason why they're more careful investors. It's the same reason why male animals show off and act dominant to attract females. It's the same reason why women are drawn to highly intelligent men... Women crave security. (Poor, helpless, dependent things. Thank Jeebus members of the "weaker sex" have studly men like Selwyn to point out their innate inadequacies and observe how hopelessly attracted they are to "burly" and "highly intelligent" dudes, y'know, like himself.) ...When a woman falls for a man who she can look "up" to, she may say to him something such as "You make me feel safe." I get this from female readers all the time — sometimes one article is all it takes. (Now if that doesn't make the collective panties of Concerned Women For America moist I don't know what will.)
Kim Campbell writes for the Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood: The Serpent under-minded God's spoken word in Genesis when he confronted Eve's understanding of God's goodness. The serpent still undermines God's truth today... We get to have children that will help populate the earth who will be part of the throng around the throne from every tribe, tongue, and nation. After the Fall, Eve's punishment came in the form of pain during childbearing. (To those who support a literal interpretation of scripture, Eve and her female descendants are forever cursed to suffer during childbirth because she disobeyed God The Father - a male, we're reminded from the pulpit - in her quest for Knowledge. Also, do you think it's possible that the "serpent" who beguiled Eve was a velociraptor? Scoff me not. Thirty percent of Texans are convinced that dinosaurs were present in the Garden of Eden.) We are not to be androginous which society would like us to lean toward: women in battle, women playing men's sports, men wearing skinny jeans or wearing earrings, parents raising their children "sexless" until they can determine what they want to be. We see it. This denial of the truth of sexuality. There is diversity in function in the created sexual genders. God has a beautiful plan for males and females. He does all for His glory. (It amuses me when evangelicals declare that everything God does is For His Own Glory.)
Janie B. Cheaney writes on World Magazine: The root of the problem, like so much else, goes back to the Garden. The man neglected his leadership role, allowing the woman to make a bad decision, which broke their bond with God and set their relationship at odds. Mutual dependence ever since—men for protecting, women for domesticating—held a rough approximation of the creation order together by force... Men need high expectations, worthy goals, respect. Women need security, approval, love. (And apparently, prior to the societal changes detested by religious conservatives, marital rape or a punch in the mouth for not "obeying" their husbands.) Each needs what the other can give, but if we refuse to support each other with our positives, we'll drag each other down with our negatives. If men and women don't mutually pledge their strengths, they will default to their weaknesses. The harder a woman pushes, the faster a man retreats. The more a man forfeits, the more a woman takes on. He gets lazy, she gets bitter. He turns violent...
Genesis 2:18-24 If you are like Adam, simply have God create a wife for you from one of your ribs while you sleep. Genesis 4:16-17 If you are like Cain, even if no one is out there, just wander around a bit and you’ll find a wife. Genesis 20:12 If you are like Abraham, you will marry your half-sister. Genesis 29:15-30 If you are like Jacob, agree to work seven years in exchange for a woman’s hand in marriage. Get tricked into marrying the wrong woman. Then work another seven years for the woman you wanted to marry in the first place. That’s right. Fourteen years of toil for the wife you want. Exodus 2:16-21 If you are like Moses, find a man with seven daughters and impress him by watering his flock. Exodus 6:4 If you are like Amram, marry your father’s sister. Amram was Moses' father. Did you know that Moses was a product of incest? Deuteronomy 21:11-13 If you find an attractive prisoner of war, bring her home, shave her head, trim her nails and give her new clothes. Then she’s yours. (To rape or torture or whatever God's chosen conquerors wanted to do.) Luke 16:18 Jesus said: Whoever put away his wife and marries another commits adultery. Whoever marries the divorced woman commits adultery. (Conservative Cafeteria Christians like to ignore that passage. Take presidential wannabe Newt Gingrich, a serial adulterer who abandoned one of his wives when she got cancer.) 1 Cor 7-10 Paul said: Let NO woman divorce her husband. (Even if he beats her and abuses the kids.) Ephesians 5:22-24 Paul preached: Wives, submit yourselves to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife. (There's more in this vein on Gary's droll website.)
It's hardly surprising that Southern Baptists have woven Paul's exhortations into the denomination's Declaration of Faith: "A wife is to submit graciously to the servant leadership of her husband even as the church willingly submits to the headship of Christ." (That would be the "headship of Christ" as interpreted by - you guessed it - MEN! For the masculine ego, this is a win-win situation.)
LDS Side Note - Mormon women once created a curious justification for their lesser status in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: "Every time we wrap our arms around our husbands," they would joyously murmur, "we are members of the priesthood." This reasoning is specious at best, considering the Mormons' unsavory - and relatively recent - history of polygamy and childbrides compelled to marry older men. (And yet, LDS elders and Mormon politicians can't seem to stop condemning the lives and loves of committed same-sex couples.)
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