Perhaps somewhat egotistically, Barton apparently likens himself to a biblical prophet who has been ordained by God to rebuild the religious foundations of the nation.
Barton aims to do that by rediscovering an allegedly lost or suppressed Christian history of America. It's an odd task for him, because although he poses as a historian, Barton isn't one. . . .
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors voted 8-3 to ban drugstores from selling tobacco products. Mayor Gavin Newsom proposed the amendment to San Francisco's Health code. Any pharmacy found selling tobacco products could be fined $1,000.
A spokesman for the mayor's office Nathan Baird said "A pharmacy should be a place you go to get better, not a place you go to get cancer".
Well, I guess the Straight Talk Express cannot get any straighter than this. McCain opposes gay and lesbian couples adopting children and thinks they would be better off without parents than having gay parents who love them. Nothing like having a presidential candidate admit he is a bigot and sucking up to the Religious Right. Could anyone say family values more times in such a short clip? Too bad our families are not considered families by this ancient dinosaur.
Last year, President Bush blessed us with Dr. Eric Keroack, a family planning czar who not only taught that condoms don't work, but who told us that women have much in common with rodents in heat.
Now, once again, a zealous opponent of birth control from the ranks of the Religious Right has been awarded the prize of running family planning programs for the entire country. That appointment gives Regent University alumna Susan Orr, Ph.D., the powerful position of advising the Department of Health and Human Services on "a wide range of reproductive health topics, including adolescent pregnancy, family planning, and sterilization, as well as other population issues."
As one astute commenter observes, that's "like the Flat Earth Society overseeing NASA."
Like both James Dobson and Tony Perkins' pro-war Family Research Council prayer team, Conservative Woman is hell on both Islamist plots and abortion - but what happens when their twin "Christian" crusades collide?
What is happening is exactly what anyone should have expected. Pregnant Iraqi women and their babies are dying in unprecedented numbers - and women who fear adding to that horrendous death toll with their own lives and those of their children are taking what they see as a lesser gamble by seeking out illegal and unsafe abortions.
The War on Terror is making us all safer, one tiny terrorist at a time.
In Life's Dominion, Ronald Dworkin posited that although most people believe that abortion is sometimes justifiable, they also believe it "a kind of cosmic shame when human life at any stage is deliberately extinguished."
Dworkin concluded that "because opinions about abortion rest on differing interpretations of a shared belief in the sanctity of human life, they are themselves essentially religious beliefs" -- which made the banning of abortion an unconstitutional establishment of religion.
But as self-styled political "moderates" decide that some forms of human life count more than others -- and that Christian conservative votes count most of all -- there's plenty of cosmic shame to go around.
Equipped to Serve is a popular training resource for crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) or, as they call themselves among themselves, "pregnancy center ministries." The first of the "Seven Fundamentals" at Equipped to Serve begins as follows.
"Truth is a very different thing from fact. ... Truth in the inward parts is a power, not an opinion."
Maybe that explains why the "truth" presented by CPCs strays so very far from the facts.
Human Life International (HLI), "the largest international, pro-life, pro-family, pro-woman organization in the world," is directed by Fr. Thomas Euteneuer. Euteneuer is a well-connected activist who has logged over 700,000 miles in his tireless crusade to eliminate safe abortion care both here and around the world. Now he's written a book about exorcism, and one of the demon-worshipers who's simply got to go is ... me.
The HLI site is headlined by an article titled "Abortion: The Devil's Masterpiece." It's heavily larded with the inflammatory language of hatred - including a charge that my colleagues and I literally worship the demon Moloch by supplying him with blood sacrifices of children - and Father Tom means every word of it.
If he wasn't such a man of peace, I'd think he was trying to get us killed.
My step daughter (among others) dotes on this Christmatic woman preacher, Joyce Myers. She is not the most knee jerk right winger I know but apparently, she takes her legislative orders from the more nutty elments of their side. Here is a message from her:
As Glen Lavy of the Alliance Defense Fund has documented, the Hate Crimes Bill is a "discriminatory measure that criminalizes thoughts, feelings and beliefs [and] has the potential of interfering with religious liberty and freedom of speech."
Now, how can a hate crimes bill be a threat to religious liberty and freedom of expression? I explain on the flip side.
What do you call a woman who has an abortion? A "murderous mom"? A victim rendered mentally incompetent by the hormone rush of pregnancy?
Do you call her your wife, your lover, your sister, your daughter . . . or somebody else's criminal?
Thoreau said, "The soul of man exists in the Contemplation of the nature of women behind bars." In this, as in so many things, he appears to have been right.
As the Army of God honors executed murderer Paul Hill in Milwaukee and Operation Save America descends upon the same clinic bombed by Eric Rudolph, Operation Rescue prepares to host its own event in Wichita. Its target is Dr. George Tiller, the object of a years-long crusade by former Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline.
Besides the usual gang of suspects with shadowy pasts and dubious friends, this year's list of high-profile guest stars includes the president of a United States delegation to the United Nations.
Or be maimed, beaten, robbed for people to realize that Hate Crimes are real and something must be done? The sickening part is that the number of hate crimes reported by the FBI are way low as many victims are afraid to report the crimes, police departments file reports incorrectly , or states just fail to turn in the numbers to the FBI.
While the Bible that the Christian Right is substituting for the Constitution these days maintains that "her price is far above rubies," those same people have decreed in various bans on abortion that the worth of any woman, no matter how virtuous, plummets at "that point in time when a male human sperm penetrates the zona pellucida of a female human ovum." From that moment forward, not only her body, her hopes and her dreams, but sometimes -— despite the hollow promise of tacked-on provisions allowing "a medical procedure designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother" — even her very life can be forfeit.
In their avid thirst for the blessing of the Christian right, GOP presidential hopefuls Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback lined up last fall to prostrate themselves before James Dobson and Tony Perkins. In the grip of his own presidential fever, John McCain joined them in pimping the religious right's agenda.
Catholic bishops are frustrated by Rudy Giuliani, who says he is personally opposed to abortion, but would not impose his beliefs on the nation. Some Catholic bishops condemn Giuliani's more moderate position on abortion as "pathetic," saying "he shares the identical position on abortion as John Kerry and Hillary Clinton.”
John Allen Jr., a senior correspondent for the ... National Catholic Reporter, said U.S. bishops who want to withhold Communion from Catholic politicians can find support in Pope Benedict XVI's comments — made to reporters en route to Brazil this year — that essentially endorsed the idea that Mexican legislators who voted to legalize abortion have separated themselves from the church.
"If you are an American bishop who is inclined to move in that direction, you're going to feel like the pope has got your back."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has drawn guffaws from the pro-life community for comments saying that embryonic stem cell research, which involves the destruction of days-old human embryos, is a "gift from God." Her remarks came after the House approved a bill to force Americans to fund it.
"Science is a gift of God to all of us, and science has taken us to a place that is biblical in its power to cure... And that is embryonic stem cell research," Pelosi said.
As Pelosi speaks of God’s gift of science, a Democratic Congress votes to spend $27 million more on abstinence-only programs and crisis pregnancy centers (CPCs) than Bush had even asked for — thereby ensuring an increase in the rate of sexually transmitted infections and abortions among young people — while dumping millions of our tax dollars into the coffers of the same Religious Right abstinence-only industry working to criminalize safe abortion care, abolish stem cell research, and defeat the Prevention First program that Democrats claim to consider a high legislative priority.
While these politicians might fudge their positions on "a woman's right to choose," this action undeniably stamps them as just what the Religious Right accuses them of being: pro-abortion — because despite all their meaningless cant about "reducing the number of abortions," increasing the number of abortions is the only thing that abstinence-only programs guarantee to accomplish.
As Rick Santorum, Hillary Clinton, Sam Brownback and Barack Obama packed to attend Jim Wallis' Pentecost 2006, some wondered about Wallis' true agenda.
The source of Wallis' appeal is his apparent moderation, both political and theological. His argument is compelling in its simplicity: An overriding commitment to social justice is more basic to Christianity than the issues championed by Christian fundamentalists. But to prevail he must avoid seeming too militantly progressive. "The country is not hungry, I don't think, for a religious left to counter the religious right," Wallis [said]. "The country is hungry for a moral center."
Before his elevation as an "evangelical progressive" celebrity, together with a Who's Who of the Religious Right -- Gary Bauer, Charles Colson, James Dobson, Robert George, William Kristol, Beverly LaHaye, Richard Land, Bernard Nathanson, Frank Pavone and Ralph Reed -- Jim Wallis signed a lengthy document that said plenty about his moral center, culminating in a call for a constitutional amendment to criminalize abortion entirely.
And to this day, Wallis has yet to repudiate a word of it.
In The New Republic, Christine Stansell writes on "Partial Law: A Lost History of Abortion."
"Thank God for President Bush, and thank God for Chief Justice John Roberts and Associate Justice Samuel Alito," intoned Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention last week, after the Supreme Court announced its decision in Gonzales v. Carhart, the so-called partial-birth abortion case. But Land also should have thanked Justice Anthony Kennedy, whose majority opinion dangerously reframes the abortion debate.
Kennedy ... reasons that the ban on D&X procedures--the medical name for what the anti-choice movement calls partial-birth abortions--should be permitted because it is meant to protect women from making a choice that goes against their nature. "Respect for human life finds an ultimate expression in the bond of love the mother has for her child," Kennedy declares. Concerned that women may learn the details of how the procedure is performed only after the fact, he writes, "The State has an interest in ensuring so grave a choice is well informed."
[:::]
In Kennedy's words, one hears the echo of the anti-choice movement's new emphasis on abortion as a de facto violation of something at the very core of women's being. Medical technicalities take up the bulk of the Court's majority opinion, but the reasoning concerns the nature of women and the integrity of their moral choices--an implicit rejection of the most mainstream tenets of modern feminism.
An implicit rejection of women's moral capacity or authority, an echo from the past - and a recapitulation of the arguments that made abortion illegal over a hundred years ago.
"Well, I used to do them-there is less blood loss, and in some situations, it just seems safer. I'm not sure what I will do now."
The speaker is Dr. Jacob Clark (not his real name), a fit man in his 60s, an obstetrician/gynecologist who has spent his life serving poor women in an East Coast city. Over coffee, he is discussing over with me his deep frustration and confusion over the recent Supreme Court decision, Gonzales v Carhart, upholding an abortion ban.
President George W. Bush signs the "Partial Birth Abortion" Ban
The banned procedure-referred to by medical professionals as "Intact Dilation and Extraction", and by antiabortionists as "Partial Birth Abortion"-is quite rare, less than 1% of all abortions performed in the United States. But Dr. Clark is one of those who performs this procedure, when the situation, in his judgment, calls for it.
Dr. Clark and I are attending a medical conference, shortly after the Court announced its decision. We've just heard the medical director of a large clinic address her colleagues from across the country, and succinctly state the dilemma that abortion providers now face: "We've got to keep our patients safe-and ourselves out of jail."
America has never been perfect and most likely never will be. We have seen things happen in the last six that I never thought I would see happen in America. I have seen a President believe that lying to Americans was a noble thing. I have seen the Constitution abused and many Civil Liberties stripped away at the whim of a Political Party which seems to only care for the Rich, Religious or Bigoted. I have watched Legalized Discrimination written into many State Constitution and watched a President break his oath of Office by asking for the same discrimination to be written into the U. S. Constitution. I have watched the Religious Right and Ultra Conservatives try to change our America into a Theocracy and rule by their narrow interpretation of the Bible instead of by the Constitution and Laws of the land. They have taken everything our Founding Fathers worked hard to build and in six have almost completely destroyed it. This is not the America I want to live in or have my great-nice grow up to inherit.
Many professed shock after last week's attempted bombing of an Austin women's clinic. Others felt shocked by their shock, since the religious right's thinly disguised rhetoric of hatred has so permeated our public discourse as to have become the norm. But for some it is easier to pretend not to see what is before their faces, far easier to remain willfully blind.
In 1998, nurse Emily Lyons lost her left eye, was partially blinded in her right and sustained other horrific and disabling injuries when another bomb - similarly packed with nails that flew as deadly shrapnel - was detonated at a Birmingham clinic by Eric Rudolph.
"Many may find the graphic images of my trauma ... to be offensive. I hope so. Violence is ugly. You should be offended by the senseless damage caused by the attack. It isn't the photographs that are bad; it is the act of hate that created them."
Hers are powerful words. But are Emily's courage [pdf photo link] and Emily's words more powerful than the rhetoric of hate that made them necessary?
