What? What? WHAT?!
It's like a bad joke opening, "Two Roman Catholics and a Mormon walk into a bar and demand that all the women stop using contraception..."
To make the joke complete let's examine the "moral authority" credentials of these three clowns and that of the "religious authorities" who want to make religion -- say the "issue" that President Obama is not a "real Christian," or he is "anti-religious freedom" -- an election year talking point.
Who is it that claims this moral authority and that also demands to be taken seriously? Why the Roman Catholic bishops and a former Mormon missionary of course!
I didn't bring this up, they did! So cool your jets everyone who only wants religion to be respected and never criticized, even when that "religion" plays hardball politics.
Who are these paragons of tolerance demanding that the rest of us respect the reclassification of robbing women of their right to use contraceptives as "religious freedom?"
Back to our "two Catholics and a Mormon walk into a bar," or rather back to Newt, Mitt and Rick walk into a bar. So what about the moral authority of the religious bodies they are "defending" -- as a way to actually attack the president? They brought religion up so lets talk about it! What right do they or their bishops have to lecture the rest of us?
When Mitt was working for his church as a missionary he was working for a church that at that time banned black men from being ministers.
When Newt and Rick speak for their church's tender conscience on not being forced to insure women's health, they are speaking for a church body run by old men who have presided over 50 years of covering up child abuse, sexual molestation and the codling of fascist regimes from Franco to Mussolini.
Like I said, this may be impolite to mention but the rest of us didn't start talking about religion as an election issue in order to depose our first black president.
And what of the fellow traveler evangelicals ready to yell that they may be "personally" for "allowing" women to use contraception but that they just want to "defend religious liberty?"
Aren't they the people spouting anti-Muslim nonsense from coast to coast? Aren't they the people trying to ban gay men and women from marrying? These evangelicals seem eager to strip lots of people of actual rights these days while crying wolf about their own.
Like they say, people who live in class houses shouldn't throw stones. If the bishops want this fight, bring it on!
Frank Schaeffer is a writer. He is just launching a speaking tour called Theocracy or Democracy.
Follow Frank Schaeffer on Twitter: www.twitter.com/frank_schaeffer
Warning: Dr. Schaeffer will push you to consider the implications of a "Post Modern" "sociologically or material determined" worldview with a remarkable array of examples addressing politics, art, philosophy, law, and theology. His projections have proven quite correct... .
Consider this gem from Ch 7: " It is obvious, the future is open to manipulation. Who will do the manipulating?" He then goes on to define the means of manipulating masses of people that some elites will use to shape opinion and culture, done with technology which no tyrant of the past had at their disposal.
But then again that's JUSTME!
I may not be into female genital mutilation of small girls, but if someone says it's a religious practice, then everyone must bow to that belief. If I morally object to fat people, because I believe they are inherently lazy and slothful, then I shouldn't have to pay for their health issues. Same with HIV. You made your bed, now lie in it.
Driving kills thousands every year, it is incredibly dangerous to operate a motor vehicle, so if you get in an accident, don't come crying to me. That might seem like a bit of a stretch, but I figure if we're all throwing in stupid analogies, I didn't want to be left out.
Except that we are hearing NO outrage from Christian Scientists over having to have medical coverage at all.
These talking points you bring up are merely being used to carve out privileged exemptions for very vocal political voices involved in the field of politics, NOT religious voices involved in the field of religion.
Tom Johnson
If these "men," of church or "state," could see themselves as the rest of us see them (those of us with clear vision, rational), they would see how much they look like the Taliban, Al Queda, and other Muslim fanatics -- who also deprive women of all rights and all worth, which is always -- ALWAYS -- because the males involved are as arrogant and fearful as they are incompetent, and that is the ONLY way they can maintain their inaccurate visions of themselves as being real Men.
REAL men do NOT slaughter innocence or deprive any human being of value (or of essentials like food and shelter and birth control and dignity) or fail to say "I'm sorry" when it is needed or turn away from want and need or put themselves and their greed above their community or country or even church.
You don't have to strap a bomb on a child to be a terrorist, although they are certainly terrorists and certain neither men nor muslim. There are many forms of terror. Many of them on the nightly news, pretending to be christian, mostly outraged, clearly unable to face (or see?) Truth.
Mike
www.newyorkgritty.net
Fan Frank, then update your preferences to include "Notify me when a blogger I'm a fan of posts a new article."
Here is another article that expresses my outrage a little more bluntly (pardon the pun):
http://balmer.typepad.com/thegonzowriter/2012/02/the-republicans-war-against-women.html
This was also written by a man. The Republicons are not just up against what they consider the "weaker sex", there are plenty of men who are equally outraged about the GOP's War on Women.
It seems pretty clear to me that potential establishment GOP candidates wisely bowed out of this race, knowing that the agenda that would have been required of them was a losing battle and a huge embarrassment.