Hmm... Maybe It's Because Obama Hasn't Accomplished Anything

This is precisely why I support Hillary over Obama.

Read Full Post

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Wiretapping Case

The Supreme Court has refused to hear a case brought by the ACLU about the government's warrantless wiretapping program. When the highest court in the land refuses to hear a case involving issues that are at the heart of our civil liberties... and how we have been gladly handing them over to the Bush administration out of fear, you know things are bad.

Read Full Post

Colorado Rep. Calls Teen Parents "Sluts"

Oh, this is rich. Colorado Rep. Larry Liston made the following statement a a Republican caucus luncheon about teen parents:

In my parents' day and age, they were sent away. They were shunned. They were called what they are ... There's no sense of shame today. Society condones it ... They're sluts. And I don't mean just the women. I mean the men, too.

This is a prime example of the pro-life religious right's real agenda. They say they're all for saving babies. But rather than pushing for measures that would reduce unwanted pregnancies and abortions, they'd rather shun those who find themselves in the unfortunate situation of being unmarried, young, and pregnant.

After all, a culture that denys its youth access to birth control and then shuns girls who get pregnant, brands them whores, sends them away, and destroys their future couldn't possibly prompt pregnant teens to opt for abortion, could it? At the base of this is just an outright hatred of women, and a fear of female sexuality and female empowerment. Rep. Liston wants us to return to the good ol' days when women's sexuality was treated as something that didn't exist, and women were denied power over their bodies, their futures, their lives, by the very cultural mores that he lauds. And, by the way, as far as I know, the men were never branded as sluts in those good ol' days.

Liston later apologized:

The derogatory term I used was offensive and inappropriate and I would like to apologize for using it.

To my mind, though, this is a non-apology. He apologizes for using the term "slut". But it doesn't matter what word he uses; it's the notion behind it that is offensive. I would only be satisfied by an apology that recognized the misogyny in Liston's original statement, and rejected it outright. I won't be holding my breath.

Read Full Post

Carlin on Abortion Rights

In a previous post, I mentioned some of the problems with legally defining a zygote as a person, as a bill before the Georgia state legislature proposes. George Carlin hits pretty much each and every point I made... with much better timing.

Warning: He uses explicit language and there are adult themes, so if you're seriously offended by that sort of thing...well, you're missing out.

Read Full Post

To Moderate Christians - Come Out of Hiding!

If only more Christians were of the same mind as John C. Danforth. The episcopal minister and former Missouri Senator has an op-ed piece at the New York Times calling on moderate Christians to speak up against the radical right.

According to Danforth, for moderates

...the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves. Repeatedly in the Gospels, we find that the Love Commandment takes precedence when it conflicts with laws. We struggle to follow that commandment as we face the realities of everyday living, and we do not agree that our responsibility to live as Christians can be codified by legislators.

When, on television, we see a person in a persistent vegetative state, one who will never recover, we believe that allowing the natural and merciful end to her ordeal is more loving than imposing government power to keep her hooked up to a feeding tube.

When we see an opportunity to save our neighbors' lives through stem cell research, we believe that it is our duty to pursue that research, and to oppose legislation that would impede us from doing so.

We think that efforts to haul references of God into the public square, into schools and courthouses, are far more apt to divide Americans than to advance faith.

Following a Lord who reached out in compassion to all human beings, we oppose amending the Constitution in a way that would humiliate homosexuals.

For us, living the Love Commandment may be at odds with efforts to encapsulate Christianity in a political agenda. We strongly support the separation of church and state, both because that principle is essential to holding together a diverse country, and because the policies of the state always fall short of the demands of faith.

I'm often told that the arguments of many of the new atheists are fallacious in that they attack a strawman. Hitchens, Dawkins, Harris and their ilk are attacking the radical views of a few wackos, the argument goes, but most religious people don't believe those things. They are moderates.

Now, I have to admit that even when it comes to so-called moderate religion, I'm still troubled, for even the most moderate Christianity involves believe in a personal god for which there is no evidence. And the same goes for more "eastern" or "new age", "spiritual" belief systems, that lack a personal god, but include weird talk of spirits and energies for which there is no evidence. I sincerely believe, however, that if moderates exist, the discourse between such people of faith and unbelievers could be much more civil, and hence much more productive.

The problem is that I can't seem to find them. Sure, I'll encounter someone who refers to himself or herself as "spiritual", which usually amounts to their being an atheist but not wanting to accept the label, or viewing "atheism" as involving commitments which it does not. The religous people I encounter, though, and the religious people that I see in the media, or in online forums, are not moderates. They are fundamentalists. They are people who think that it's an attack on their faith to demand that their belief system not be given special treatment. They are people who think that they know god's will and they have a duty to enforce it on others. I'm coming to realize that there is no reasoning with these people, and that is because, when it comes to anything attached to their religious beliefs, there is no reason there. It is impossible to defeat dogma via reason and evidence. That's what makes it dogma.

So, where are you, moderates? Danforth has come out, and, while I may disagree with some of his beliefs, it seems much more likely that unbelievers and people who have faith in the way that he does would be able to work together. I'm on board with Danforth - the rest of you moderates need to come out of hiding. You need to make your voices heard. You need to come together with your unbelieving and "spiritual" brethren to work against the radicals in this country. Because they aren't stopping. They don't believe you are "true Christians". And if you really are out there, and as numerous as we've heard, then it is really only with your help that we'll be able to stop the crazy fundamentalists. If you don't come out and stand up against the well funded and very powerful religious right, your moderate stance may eventually put you in the position of atheists in this country. And believe me, you don't want that.

Read Full Post

Pharmacists and Plan B

Another idiotic ruling with regard to pharmacists and Plan-B has been handed down. At the core of this dispute is, to my mind, the special treatment given to religion in our society. If a vegetarian got a job at McDonalds and then refused to serve meat products because he believed their consumption to be grossly immoral, do you really think a judge would claim that he has a right to keep his job but not fulfill all the obligations that come along with it? Of course not. I have a personal hatred of guns. It's part of the core of my belief system, but I'm pretty sure that if I started working for Walmart and refused to sell the guns they keep in stock, no judge would say that I should have an exception. But because these pharmacists are objecting on religious grounds, they can get away with not doing their job and denying women much needed services. What a load of BS.

Read Full Post

Georgia Anti-Choicers Have Lost It

A bill is being pushed in the Georgia state legislature by anti-choicers in that state. The bill criminalizes abortion, enshrines in law false statements about the effects of abortion, but also, most shockingly, defines a fetus as a person from the moment of conception.

Now, attempting to criminalize abortion is the full out goal of the anti-choice movement, and it is not shocking that they would attempt to legitimize some of the false claims they make about abortion by having them included in legislation. What's really crazy about this bill is the fact that it makes the bald assertion that personhood begins at conception. I'm seriously wondering how the anti-choice movement in Georgia could have failed to consider the implications of making this actual law.

First off, contrary to the reasoning in Roe, a woman's right to an abortion has nothing to do with personhood status, or lack thereof, of a fetus. The right to an abortion derives from the human right to bodily autonomy. No person can use the body of another without their consent. This is what grounds our right not to be raped, our right not to have our organs forcibly removed from us, and our right not to be used in crazy experiments without our consent. Whether a fetus is a person or not may very well impact the moral status of abortion, but it has no relevance to whether or not a woman has a legal right to an abortion.

So defining a fetus as a person from the moment of conception doesn't impact the reasoning behind the conclusion that a woman has the right to choose. But it seems to me that the Georgia legislators who introduced this bill, and the anti-choicers that are pushing it, haven't thought about the implications separate from the abortion issue that result from defining an embryo as a person. Would every embryo be given a social security number? How would that work? Would parents of this embryo get a child tax credit? Would the presumptive father have to start paying child support right then and there? How are they defining conception? If they mean fertilization, this would seriously impact the question of birth control. A number of methods allow fertilization but prevent implantation. Would use of those methods be murder? It seems like they must be, if these anti-choicers are right. And many of them stand behind this conclusion, holding that birth control is an abortifacent - and hence murder.

Invitro fertilization would also seem to lead to murder, since many fertilized embryos created in the process are never implanted, and are eventually destroyed. Guess that means that barren couples will just have to suffer despite the fact that the science exists that would allow them to have their very own child.

Additionally, a goodly number of fertilized zygotes fail to implant and are flushed out of the body. Are those to be counted as deaths? How will we know when such a death has occurred? Will we have to start mandating monthly pregnancy tests for women? Will we be reduced to checking tampons and maxi-pads for the remains of the dead? If they are really serious about this, then, on pain of inconsistency, it seems as though we would have to go through serious privacy violating measures in order to keep track of all these zygote-persons.

If a woman miscarries, or if a fertilized embryo that failed to implant is flushed out of her system, will we be holding her accountable for the death of this "person" if she, say, exercised too much? Or smoked? Or had a glass of wine or two? Or didn't eat enough? How much jail time should a woman who exercises vigorously be given if we happen to find a zygote on her tampon?

The Georgia anti-choicers apparently haven't thought about all this. But then again, that's not surprising. If anti-choicers thought a bit more about the implications of their views, they probably wouldn't be anti-choice.

Read Full Post