Facing Which Direction?

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published in the Atlanta Journal Consitution April 26, 2012.  Click on image to enlarge, and then be good enough to return.)

Sometimes the editorial board of the Washington Post gets it right, and this is one of those times.

AT ABORTION clinics, the presence of awnings, the width of doorways and the dimensions of janitorial closets have little to do with the health of patients. But by requiring that Virginia’s 20 abortion clinics conform to strict licensing standards designed for new hospitals, the state has ensured that many or most of them will be driven out of business in the coming months. ...

...According to a survey by the state Health Department, just one of the 19 surviving clinics meets the requirements. Fifteen of the remaining facilities estimated their combined costs of compliance at $14.5?million.

Some of the clinics, including those operated by Planned Parenthood, which has a national fundraising network, will survive. Many others, which are run as small businesses, probably will not. Most have no means to raise hundreds of thousands of dollars to widen corridors, install state-of-the-art surgical sinks and expand parking lots.

What’s more, the upgrades they face are arbitrary manifestations of the state’s overweening power. Other types of walk-in clinics, including those that perform oral and cosmetic surgery, are unaffected by the regulations. ...

Regulation is essential for all health services. But there is no evidence that unsanitary conditions or slapdash procedures are common at abortion clinics in Virginia nor that women who seek services from them are at risk. The state’s assault on women’s reproductive rights is an ideological crusade masquerading as concern for public health.   [Emphasis added]

Exactly so.

The Republican  Party continues to claim it is returning to its roots, that it has much to offer minorities and immigrants and women, but those claims are usually offset by its basest base:  Limbaugh, the Tea Partiers, the Religious Reich.  So who are we to believe?

I guess we'll have to wait until 2014 to find out.

Out From Under A Rock

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Actually, the title for this post is not very accurate.  The critters living under rocks and skitter away when the rock is moved fulfill a useful function in the biosphere.  The critters David Horsey references in this column do not.

Nearly as soon as I heard about the bombings on Monday, I was certain that somewhere in the nutty right-wing blogosphere someone was already concocting a storyline that would blame the crime on President Obama and the federal government. Alex Jones came through with impressive rapidity.

Jones runs a radio show from Austin, Texas. He describes himself as a libertarian and an “aggressive constitutionalist.” The Southern Poverty Law Center says he has stirred up racial animus “to appeal to the fears of the antigovernment Patriot movement.” He certainly appeals to fear. Jones asserts that both the Oklahoma City bombing and the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were perpetrated by the U.S. government as part of a scheme to promote a New World Order through “exploitable hysteria.”

So it is no surprise that he is now pushing the idea that the Boston bombings were the nefarious handiwork of federal agents. ...

Jones is asking Americans to believe that their own government is responsible for all of the worst terrorist attacks in the country’s history and that the motivation for the latest one is a desire to grope sports fans. All of this is, of course, total ping-pong-balls-for-brains nonsense. It would be laughable if it were not for the fact that this conspiracy kook claims 2 million radio listeners and more online followers than Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh combined.

Jones is a purveyor of the neo-Confederate brand of “patriotism” that has gained currency on the far starboard side of American politics. I do not think he should shut up or be shut down; he has the same 1st Amendment rights as I do. But he deserves to be exposed for what he is: a delusional, self-promoting bully who is slandering the very people who are right now doing the truly patriotic work of bringing the Boston bombers to justice.   [Emphasis added]

To be fair, people like Alex Jones, Glenn Beck, and Rush Limbaugh find it easier to garner an audience when the press stumbles and bumbles as it has from the very start of this horrendous event.  Speculation, baseless assertions, flat-out wrong assumptions kept pouring out from all of the MSM outlets, often by way of streaming tweets.  Yes, tweets.  One wag at Eschaton referred to the "twitterfication" of the news. And,, several days later,  the "news" still keeps pouring out in that fashion.

And we haven't even had the blasts from the Religious Reich now that we know the suspected perpetrators are Chechnyans, i.e. Mooslims.

And we haven't heard yet what our federal government has in store for us after all of the suspects, however many there may be, are captured/killed.

Interesting times, these.  Far too interesting.

Say What?

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First, some back story.  California never gets the benefits of regular campaign stops from presidential candidates or either party's campaign committee.  California is considered a lock for the Democrats, so to actually speak to us peasants would be a waste of time.  Candidates and  their committees come here only to raise money.  We're like a huge ATM machine.

So you can imagine my surprise (and that of David Horsey) when the RNC selected Hollywood, California for it's annual Spring Conference.

Like Nixon going to China, the Republicans have entered hostile territory. Ostensibly, this interesting choice of venue is part of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus’ outreach to communities that Republicans have long considered unreachable. But Priebus and his party have about as much chance picking up votes in Hollywood as they would in Harlem.

The location is merely symbolic, akin to Barack Obama showing up at a National Rifle Assn. conclave just to prove he is man enough to do it. Assembling the party’s governing body in such an unexpected place is really meant to focus attention on the findings of the GOP’s Growth & Opportunity Project. That report, released by Priebus a couple of weeks ago, says the party organization needs to make its message more appealing to Latinos, blacks, women and young people and then figure out ways to deliver that message in technologically innovative ways.

The underlying concern is that in 2012, the Obama campaign sank Mitt Romney’s presidential bid by scooping up the vast majority of nonwhite voters, micro-targeting other likely Obama voters, such as single women, and driving up turnout among heretofore undependable young voters by smartly exploiting social media. The report says Republicans need approaches to match what the Democrats have done.

The report also bears an implicit message that not all Republicans want to hear. The message is that the party can no longer be held hostage by tea party zealots and the religious right. The party establishment managed to move in that direction at the national convention in August when several measures were approved that gave more clout to party officials and enhanced their ability to maintain order in the rowdy process of choosing a presidential candidate.   [Emphasis added]

 Rules changes were debated during the early part of the conference, and the far right wackaloons got mostly beaten back.  On a couple of issues, including releasing convention delegates to vote their conscience rather than represent the caucus or primary vote, they got a hearing, but it will take a 75% vote to get those stands through.  That doesn't look likely.

Whether the GOP will remain fractured remains to be seen.  I suspect 2014 will be key in that regard.  In the mean time, Republicans held a convention here, pouring dollars into our economy.  This is getting funnier and funnier.

More popcorn, please.

WWJD

(Editorial cartoon by Mike Luckovich and published 3/19/13 in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.  Click on image and then zip on back.)

For Christ's sake!  Republicans and their Religious Reich are giving Christians a bad name, and that's beginning to wear on my last nerve.  The latest "outrage" has to do with (of all things) the selection of the Google doodle for March 31, which happened to celebrate Caesar Chavez day instead of Easter, because, of course, they are mutually incompatible.  It obviously rankled Robin Abcarian of the Los Angeles Times as well.

There’s no intolerance like good conservative intolerance.

On Easter Sunday, Google incurred the wrath of the conservative Twittersphere when it chose to feature on its home page a portrait of California civil rights pioneer Cesar Chavez instead of Jesus Christ. Chavez, of course, was the co-founder, with Dolores Huerta, of the United Farm Workers union.

March 31, as it happens, is Cesar Chavez Day, declared in 2011 by President Obama to honor the man who did more than almost anyone else to improve the condition of migrant farmworkers in this country by leading boycotts, non-violent protests and collective bargaining. ...

To pick on Google for its "doodle" celebrating a man who devoted his life to helping the most downtrodden among us -- living, in other words, the values expressed by Christ -- smacks of the kind of bullying that conservatives are so quick to see in others. ...

This is what illusionists call “misdirection.” The real issue is not Google’s disdain for Christians. The real issue is the Republican Party’s disdain for Latinos. (Did I mention that Chavez was Mexican American?)   [Emphasis added]

First of all, let's make something clear.  Not everyone in the US is a Christian.  There are Jews, Muslims, pagans, atheists, Buddhists.  To expect to impose any version of Christianity on businesses and government is far more of a danger to our democracy than the imposition of Sharia law the morons of the Religious Reich keep mouthing off about.  There is no "War on Christianity," only a war on religious freedom being waged from the basest of the base in the GOP.

Second of all, it's time for real Christians, those of us who take the Sermon on the Mount seriously, to make it clear that this kind of behavior is nothing more than patent bovine excrement designed to catapult the propaganda of the Right Wing of the Republican party. This is shorthand hate speech:  Caesar Chavez worked hard to ensure the rights of farm workers, most of whom were Mexican.  And he did so in a manner consistent with the teachings of Jesus, whether avatar or exemplar. But we must call out the perverters of Jesus' message out with every opportunity. If the Religious Reich and the Tea Partiers can't deal with that, well, then, that's their problem. 

I'm just sick unto death that it is becoming mine.

I'm Still Optimistic

(Editorial cartoon by Jack Ohman and published 3/27/13 in the Sacramento Bee.  Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

Doyle McManus had an interesting column up this past weekend.  It was sort of bifurcated, dealing with two separate issues, but I still think it hung together nicely.  Here's the first segment.

The court seems ready to strike down the federal Defense of Marriage Act, while ruling quite narrowly on California's Proposition 8, allowing a lower-court decision to stand. Such an outcome would make gay marriage legal in California without deciding whether state bans on same-sex marriage are constitutional.

And that would allow more of what we've seen up to now: a growing number of liberal blue states moving to legalize gay marriage, and a growing number of conservative red states enacting bans.

But there will be one big difference: Gays who live in states that allow gay marriage may have an array of federal privileges unavailable to those living in states that ban such marriages. And that raises complex questions.    [Emphasis added]

 If that is how the Court rules in the two cases, there will indeed be some complex questions and some chaos, at least for awhile.  Even so, however, I don't believe for long, and that's where the second part of McManus's column comes in.

... Most Republicans still oppose same-sex marriage by a wide margin, with only about a quarter in favor in a recent Pew Research Center poll. But the survey also suggests that the issue will grow as a wedge that divides the party, in part because of a big generational divergence: 76% of Republicans over 65 oppose gay marriage, while only 54% of those under 30 do.

And when the question is changed from marriage to equal rights, the wedge potential is even clearer: Republicans divide right down the middle as to whether homosexual couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples, 49% to 48%, with young people again more permissive than older voters.

One leading GOP fundraiser described the conflict to me as "between the Christians and the donors" — Christian social conservatives who want the party to stand forthrightly against gay marriage, and donors who want the GOP to broaden its appeal to young people and moderates as a path toward winning the next election.

Speaking on condition he not be identified, this veteran of conservative campaigns noted that the GOP needs to keep all those groups inside its tent, which will make gay marriage a problem for any would-be presidential candidate in 2016.   [Emphasis added]

The Republican Party wants a big win in 2016: White House, Senate, and House, but that isn't likely if the the Religious Reich and the Tea Party loons continue to drive the agenda.  Party stalwarts don't want to be left out in the cold the way they are in California.

Furthermore, public opinion on equal rights for gays is moving quite rapidly, far more rapidly than it moved on a prior contentious issue, inter-racial marriage.  Atrios has a post up on that, one with a graph which makes the point clearly.

And that's why I'm still optimistic. 

Moral Degenerates

(Click on image to enlarge and then please bring your eyes back here.

The Supreme  Court has agreed to hear two cases dealing with gay marriage:  one concerning the Defense of Marriage Act and the other concerning Proposition 8 in California. Although the legal issues of the two cases are different and may have a decisive impact on each case, the subject matter is, of course, the same.

David Horsey has a very sane and a very compassionate column on the two cases and what ultimately stands behind them.

The Supreme Court will be deciding whether to uphold the appeals court ruling that struck down Proposition 8. In addition, the justices will be deliberating on the constitutionality of provisions of the federal Defense of Marriage Act that deny legal benefits to same-sex couples who are married. A range of outcomes is possible including a broad decision that opens the way to same-sex marriage in every state or a narrow ruling that says Proposition 8 supporters lack legal standing. Many legal experts say the odds favor elimination of Proposition 8 and reinstitution of the California Supreme Court’s ruling that gays and lesbians have a constitutional right to marry in the Golden State.

Throughout this country’s history, the high court has often been the arbiter that sorts out knotty social disputes. The burgeoning conundrum now is that there is a growing number of American citizens who are legally married under the laws of several states (including California before passage of Proposition 8). Yet, these people are unable to gain the full benefits of marriage because either the federal government or states that do not recognize same-sex marriage deny them those benefits. Is such unequal treatment constitutional? The court is set to grapple with that question.

Horsey notes the usual arguments from the Religious Reich:  homosexuality is an affront to the Omnipotent God;  gay marriage is a sign that our society is in a disastrous moral decline, just like ancient pagan Rome;  one man and one woman is how we have been designed.  All of these arguments ring hollow when we look to the very people making these arguments and to the divorce statistics in this country. 

That Omnipotent God created homosexuals, as scientists discovered decades ago.  What, is that Omnipotent God some kind of monster, designing people to suffer, to fail, to go to Hell?  And what about those "holy" people who have been caught engaged in homosexual trysts.  I'm talking priests and preachers, congresscritters and Villagers.  Or the serial monogamists who add to the divorce rates with astounding regularity (I'm looking at you, Newt!).  Why should not all of us have access to the benefits of a recognized marriage contract so that we can avail ourselves of tax laws and custody laws and even the right to sit at the bedsides of our dying partners?  Why does a civil government, one which was founded on the principle of the separation of church and state, intrude on the issue, telling us who we can marry?

Horsey's conclusion is more sanguine than I am as to the outcome than I am (Scalia, Alito, Thomas, Roberts, and who knows which of the other five), but it does summarize the argument beautifully:

The naughty old Romans are always dragged out as an object lesson by people who think society is going astray, but I must say that what happened in Washington was not a celebration of something wrong. The fact that couples who have spent years, even decades, together in loving partnerships have finally been given the chance to make their bonds legal seems very much like what DeWolf described as Christian values. Same-sex marriage is an affirmation that people – all people – are made for better things, are capable of charity and concern for one another, are enhanced by living a life of virtue.

If America believes marriage is, indeed, an institution that binds the nation together, can it be wrong to bring more citizens into that virtuous circle? Perhaps the Supreme Court will settle the question once and for all. In the meantime, voters in states that are progressive (not pagan) are deciding for themselves that the law must give everyone a shot at wedded bliss.

Yes.

Stupid. Crazy. Evil.

(Click on image to enlarge and then please return.)

It's been amusing on some levels to hear the weeping and wailing of those unhappy with the election results.  On other levels, however, it's been downright spooky.  I mean, suddenly the world is askew because the election didn't turn out the way it was promised by Fox and the GOP.  David Horsey took a look at some of the whining in Monday's column.

President Obama’s reelection has caused right-wingers to become completely unhinged. They are purple-faced and apoplectic, convinced that an ignorant horde of government-dependent social leeches has destroyed traditional America and banished God from the country. ...

All of this doomsday blather hearkens back to Romney’s infamous characterization of 47% of Americans as “victims” who only want to be coddled by government. As it was when Romney said it, this portrait of America is not only demonstrably false, it is a scurrilous slander with a racist tinge.

The most numerous voters dependent on government to keep them economically afloat are retirees who receive Social Security and Medicare benefits. This was the cohort that went most heavily for Romney. The people who put Obama over the top in the electoral vote, on the other hand, were autoworkers in Ohio; not exactly a dependent bunch.

They were also young people who do not grow faint at the thought of gays getting married or women using birth control. They were middle-class white Americans – as many as voted for Bill Clinton, by the way – who think it is unfair that all the economic benefits in this country flow to the richest 1%.

From Ted Nugent to Sarah Palin to Franklin Graham to Rush Limbaugh:  all see a future in which America slips into a Godless-Communist state run by storm troopers rushing to herd most of us into death camps and/or gay marriage and forced pot-smoking.  This once proud hard-working Christian nation is now being run by takers who simply want something for nothing.  What's worse, they are not White.

Still living in their reality-defying bubble, the Right Wing cannot handle what happened.  That their idols were rejected is inconceivable.  Horsey's conclusion suggests the reason this is so.

Right-wingers will not let go of their own misleading mythology. They have a constricted vision of who the “real Americans” are and who they are not. Until election night, they still believed that people like themselves constituted a majority in this country. Now that they are faced with the truth of their own diminishing numbers, they are rejiggering reality. Incapable of accepting that the millions of people who voted for Obama are overwhelmingly hardworking, family-loving, patriotic Americans, they have to imagine them as the “takers” that Ayn Rand warned them were coming.

This is a necessary self-deception. Otherwise, conservative crazies would have to face an inconvenient truth: On election day, a majority of real Americans rejected them.

My Hair Is Not On Fire

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A confession:  this post is written before the debate.  Since I don't have television, I won't be watching it, and it's entirely possible I won't listen to it on NPR and check in on the internet to see what folks are saying about it.  I am that tired of the campaign.

But David Horsey's cartoon and column did get my attention, if only because it addressed one of my profound peeves about politics in this country.  To be fair, Horsey does raise some good points about Mr. Etcha-A-Sketch and his campaign.  Obama missed a lot of easy opportunities in the last debate, and apparently it has cost him.

The Republican nominee came prepared to disavow his own nasty comments about the allegedly government-dependent 47% of Americans, but President Obama failed to bring it up, so Romney had to do the disavowing on his own the next day. Perhaps Obama's failure to fully engage in the debate can be ascribed to the shock of seeing Romney abandon his entire campaign persona with such ease.

And Romney has been rewarded for it. Apparently, undecided voters admire a candidate who can turn on a dime and abandon yesterday's convictions in favor of today's more convenient ones. But what happens if Romney has run out of convictions to abandon? Is there anything left, any small principle to which he still clings?

Well, there is one.

In tonight's debate, look for yesterday's Mormon to show up as a guy who can't remember ever visiting Salt Lake City.

Like I said, Horsey's point is well-taken, up to a point. 

Quite frankly, I don't care if Mitt Romney is a Mormon, just like I didn't care that Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were Southern Baptists or John Kennedy was a Catholic.  I know, I know, this should be fair game because Obama keeps getting smeared by the Reich Wing as a Muslim.  But I wouldn't care if he were, just like I don't care that Rep. Ellison (DFL-Minnesota) is, or, in a non-political arena, Maher Hatout is.  Professed religion should not be a touchstone for public office or for a public voice.

I don't even have to raise the "our founders" argument and their expressions in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  I can go back further.  The people from England and Europe who initially settled this country were, to a large extent, driven here by those in the old country who couldn't abide their religious beliefs and who were making life so difficult that folks like the Puritans came to this country just to exist.  While I'm not a huge fan of the Puritans, I do appreciate the troubles they faced, and I don't want that repeated now.

And it's not like we don't have the mechanisms to check any untoward intrusions into our rights by a zealot of any stripe.  We just have to have the ovaries to invoke them.

So, maybe tonight will be enlightening for those who still haven't made up their minds or those who are wavering.  I suppose that's a good thing.  I just hope I can get through the next three weeks without taking a hostage.

Oh, and all that popcorn I have on hand?  I've donated to the nice young man next door who is a NY Giant fan.  I think he'll make better use of it.

Bringing The Snark

The Los Angeles Times op-ed blogger Paul Whitefield had me chuckling with this opening set of paragraphs:

Forget voter ID laws. What this country needs are laws to keep stupid people from voting.

Now, I’m not talking about folks who can’t recite the preamble to the Constitution, or who can’t tell you what the 1st Amendment covers, or how many Supreme Court justices there are. I’ll even exempt those poor souls who don’t know who the first president was, or can’t name the two houses of Congress, or don’t know the name of their representative.

But, if you were to show up at the polls in November, and the poll worker were to ask you “Is President Obama a Muslim or a Christian?” and you answered “Muslim,” then — bzzzzzt — you’d be automatically disqualified from voting, on the grounds you’re just too dumb.

Heh.

He's referring, of course, to the recent Pew poll which shows even more Republican voters believe Barack Obama is a Muslim than ever before. Of course, even Whitefield admits that one possible reason for that is the respondents were having a spot of fun with the pollsters. Still, that is a bit disheartening.

After my giggles ended, however, I got the point behind the point, which Grade A Snark should always deliver. What difference does it make, really? What if Obama really is a Muslim? So what? Congressman Keith Ellison (D-Minn) is a Muslim. So? Why should it matter?

I remember more than 50 years ago when my mother and her sisters declared that if the Democrats nominated that Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy for president they'd never vote Democrat again, and as far as I know, none of them ever did, even after JFK's speech indicating he would uphold his oath of office to protect and defend the Constitution. I had hoped we finally got beyond that point. Clearly I was wrong.

Stupid is one thing. Vicious bigotry is something else. Michele Bachman (and folks such as John Bolton) know this, but still have no trouble playing on the fears people were taught to have by the last administration after 9/11. The equation is simple: Muslim = terrorist. Roman Catholic = Vatican control. Mormonism = bigamist cult.

So much for the promise of a new century, a new millennium.

Gay Gay Go Away

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A lot of ink and electrons were spilled this week over the resignation of openly-gay Richard Grenell as Mitt Romney's foreign police adviser. David Horsey had a few thoughts on the issue.

Richard Grenell had the right resume to be Mitt Romney’s spokesman on foreign policy -- a stint as communications director for four of the George W. Bush administration’s U.N. ambassadors, a degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, his own international PR firm and frequent stints on TV as an expert on international issues. Too bad for him he has a boyfriend.

Grenell was the first openly gay spokesman for a presidential candidate, but he never got to speak. Before he even officially started the job, enraged homophobes in the so-called pro-family community spooked Romney’s campaign staff. The campaign aides tried to stuff Grenell into a metaphorical closet until things blew over. During a major conference call with reporters in which President Obama’s national security policies were dissected, Grenell was forced to sit in silence. [Emphasis added.]

Since Mr. Grenell's resignation and the flap it engendered, Mitt Romney has gone out of his way to 'splain. He really didn't want Grenell to leave. He tried to talk him out of it. He's disappointed that Grenell is gone.

Yeah, right.

When you have a very competent spokesperson and then diss him by telling him to keep his mouth shut during a conference call with reporters on foreign policy issues lest the base-base get their tighty-whities in a bunch, you can expect him to take a hike because that is the message you sent him.

As Horsey points out, ultra conservative (for his time) Barry Goldwater warned the GOP that caving into the Religious Reich was going to mean trouble for the party in the future:

As far as I know, Richard Grenell’s wrists are firm. I can’t say the same about Romney and his team. Romney is about to become the leader of his party and, perhaps, leader of the Free World. It would be nice to see him man up and tell the medieval wing of his party that it will not dictate to him about whom he hires to run his foreign policy. Instead, as he has for months on the campaign trail, Romney continues to suck up to the anti-gay religious activists, most of whom find his Mormon beliefs repugnant.

Barry Goldwater would not have dumped Ric Grenell; he would have told the carping Bible-thumpers to go to hell. ...

After his retirement from the Senate, Goldwater warned that his party was being taken over by a “bunch of kooks.” Well, the kooks are in charge now, and, apparently, Mitt Romney knows who is boss.

Ordinarily this would give me some satisfaction, but not this time around. You see, Romney's opponent isn't much better on the issue. Obama refuses to endorse gay marriage as a civil rights issue. Most recently, he refused to issue an executive order requiring government contractors to refrain from discrimination based on sexual orientation. He's also pandering to the Religious Reich, even though those people will never vote for him and even though a majority of Americans don't harbor the same anti-gay bigotry.

Tell me again where we get these candidates and why we put up with them. When you've got the answer, pound on my bedroom door and maybe I'll pull the blankets from over my head.

I Actually Didn't Expect This

After months of speechifying by Catholic Bishops, fundagelicals, congressional Republicans and campaigning Republicans, apparently the public is growing weary of the intrusion of religion into politics.

Americans are increasingly uneasy with the mingling of religion and politics, according to a poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center, in the midst of a campaign season punctuated by tussles over the role of faith in the public square.

Back in 2001, when Pew first asked the question, just 12 percent of Americans complained that their politicians talked too much about religion.

That number has risen steadily ever since and hit a record high in the new poll: 38 percent of Americans, including 24 percent of Republicans, now say their political leaders are overdoing it with their expressions of faith and prayer.

And more Americans than ever, 54 percent, believe churches should keep out of politics. That's up from 43 percent in 1996, according to the Pew Research Center. [Emphasis added]

And as to the claim that President Obama and the Democrats (godless heathens all) are engaged in a war against religion (which is defined as Christianity) and religious liberty (which is defined as being free to be a Christian), another poll is also enlightening:

Among the public overall, 23 percent describe the Obama administration as unfriendly to religion, up from 17 percent in 2009. But another recent poll suggests the "war on religion" argument isn't gaining traction with most adults.

A national survey conducted this month by the Public Religion Research Institute found a majority of Americans, 56 percent, do not believe religious liberty is under siege. [Emphasis added]

I admit to being a little surprised. Either I've become too cynical or people are finally waking up.

Either way, I'm delighted at the trend.

He's Back

David Horsey finally put up a new cartoon and post. Both went up yesterday before the results of the Michigan primary were gathered and it appears that Mr. Horsey is a bit prescient. Rick Santorum didn't quite beat Mitt Romney in the popular vote, which might slow his surge.

What fascinated me about Horsey's column was his comparison of Santorum to another conservative Christian's run for the presidency several decades ago, back when the Religious Reich had its first blossoming in the GOP. Pat Robertson didn't succeed back then, but he certainly plowed the field for such as Santorum.

The former Pennsylvania senator has been speaking in the kind of apocalyptic terms that have long been the mainstay of Robertson’s highly politicized ministry. Santorum has not quite matched Robertson’s most provocative statements -- blaming the 9/11 attacks on pagans, abortionists, feminists and gays; calling Hurricane Katrina a punishment from God for America’s abortion policy; and predicting the world would end in the autumn of 1982 -- but he’s getting close.

In recent weeks, Santorum has echoed Robertson's belief that a second term for Obama would be calamitous for Americans, especially for people of faith. He has condemned secularism and talked about how the French revolutionaries' humanist philosophy inevitably led to the guillotine. He has warned Americans not to repeat the mistakes of the 1930s when the malevolence of Adolf Hitler was not taken seriously. He has insisted that "radical environmentalism" is a pseudo theology that displaces humans as the biblical stewards of the Earth.

Of course, all of the pious talk aside, Santorum also has the benefit of modern technology and some seriously wealthy backers which enabled him to take a page out of Karl Rove's playbook. His campaign funded a last minute "robocall" to Democratic voters in the state, urging them to vote in the GOP primary "against Romney." The calls were designed to at least sound like it came from traditional Democratic supporters, but there was no doubt of the source. Santorum admitted as much. And the calls had the desired effect. Exit polls indicated that up to 10% of the voters were Democrats. Presumably Santorum got some of those votes.

Heckuva way to treat a fellow Republican, eh?

Romney's win was not decisive enough to seal the deal for him. Republican voters still are not thrilled by his candidacy and Mitt keeps sticking his foot in his mouth when he strays from the script. The race will continue to be a rocky one and an expensive one for him and the other candidates.

In the mean time, however, Santorum has been slowed, hopefully for the reason that Horsey leaves as his conclusion:

Right now, Santorum is appealing to a lot of people who see him as more genuine than Romney, more of a straight arrow than Newt Gingrich -- just a regular guy who believes in faith and family. Will they still love him when they discover he's as full of fevered ideas as kooky old Pat Robertson?

We'll see. Super Tuesday is the next test, and it's just around the corner.

Divine Right

No, I didn't get the days confused. This isn't a Sunday Funnies post. I included this 'toon by David Horsey and published by the Los Angeles Times because the blog post which went with it was really quite interesting and the cartoon added just the right amount of snark.

Rick Santorum is pulling out all the stops in South Carolina, capitalizing on his conservative religious views in a state known for, well, conservative religious views.

In the race to be the most sincere Christian candidate for president, Rick Santorum looks like the front-runner.

Out on the edge of town here Sunday afternoon, out among the big box stores and strip malls, at a family restaurant called Percy and Willie's, Santorum came by to shake hands and speak to a crowd of diners who had likely spent the morning praising the Lord at one of the area’s many evangelical churches.

"America is a moral enterprise, not an economic enterprise," Santorum declared. The United States is successful not because of its powerful military, its economic system or its form of government, he said; it is successful because of the American people’s faith in God. The news media don’t get it, he said, “and I’m running against a president who doesn’t believe it.” But the good people of South Carolina understand “the obligation we have to lead good, moral and decent lives.”

And he's having some success:

Jamie Thompkins, an attractive, middle-aged teacher from Georgetown, described herself as an ultra, ultra-conservative who is happy to be living in the middle of America’s Bible Belt. Santorum appeals to her, she said, because “he would put God before anything else. He’s going to really rely on God and not rely on what everyone else says.”

Another woman, a local psychologist who, like a lot of people here, didn’t want her name showing up in the media, said religious faith is an extremely important factor in her choice for president. She said she could tell that, with Santorum, it is not just rhetoric: “He talks the talk that we talk.”

What I found amazing about this (as did Horsey) is that both women and all of the other Santorum supporters are aware that Rick is a Catholic, not an evangelical, born-again Protestant. It wasn't all that long ago that the Religious Reich would have had as much trouble with Santorum's and Gingrich's religion as they obviously still do with Mitt Romney's Mormonism. I would have thought that Rick Perry, a bona fide evangelical would get the votes and the imprimatur of the 100 evangelical leaders who decided, after three ballots, to endorse Santorum instead. Maybe things are changing, or maybe, just maybe Rick Perry is seen as too weak to actually get elected in a match with Obama.

Or, and I agree with Horsey on this, the evangelicals still haven't decided on a candidate and all of this hoo-hah is just more evidence of division in the ranks.

...Still, by most reports, Santorum has not sewed up the evangelical vote. And if it stays split, Romney is very likely to come out on top in Saturday’s primary.

If South Carolina is as close as Iowa was, it's going to be a long campaign for the remaining candidates. If Romney cruises to a New Hampshire-like victory, I think the real contest is over.

I'm still going to pick up more popcorn this weekend.

Speaking In Tongues

I don't often spend time reading Los Angeles Times columnist Meghan Daum, but I am certainly glad I did this morning. Her latest column examines an issue that has long puzzled and troubled me: the apparent clout of the Religious Reich. She was in Israel when the story about the young school girl in an ultra-ultra Orthodox neighborhood who was spat upon and harassed by some of the locals because, even in her long-sleeved blouse and floor-length skirt, her ankles could be seen as she walked. Ms. Daum was clearly appalled by the act of the ultra-ultra Orthodox men, but (and this is key) she was even more appalled by the fact that the rest of Israel allowed them to behave in such a manner.

She then uses that experience as a backdrop to what is happening in this country, and particularly in the GOP campaigns for the presidential nomination, using Rick Santorum's pronouncements on gays, abortion rights, contraception, and even sex outside of baby-making as a prime example of extreme religious zealotry taking over the affairs of a democracy.

...I couldn't help but notice that just as Israel tolerates, and even cooperates in, the extremist behavior of a minority of its population, GOP leaders, especially in election season in the U.S., seem willing to pander to the furthest reaches of the right wing. ...

Why does Santorum persist with his rhetoric? Well, in fairness, he's a conservative (and an intensely literal-minded) Catholic, and he seems to believe most of it personally, even if hardly anyone else does. But zealots in Israel believe it's OK to spit at schoolgirls, even if hardly anyone else does. In both cases, the problem is what happens to democratic principles when such personal beliefs intersect public policy.

In the U.S., we too often grant the noisiest, most threatening zealots too much power to set the agenda. We're complicit in creating the illusion that religious fundamentalism is so rabid and so monolithic that we must appease it in order to keep it from turning against us. What we have in Santorum, who's clearly banking on South Carolina rolling quite a bit holier than New Hampshire, is a man enthralled with that mythic power — and it's making him speak in tongues. [Emphasis added]

Amen.

Divine Citizenship

The candidates for the big GOP slot in 2012 made their proper obeisances to the evangelical wing of their party, each trying to convince their audience that s/he had the right qualifications when it came to religious values. Even Mitt Romney dropped his moderate stance to woo the Religious Reich. It was quite a show, one that Los Angeles Times opinion writer Michael McGough found amazing, even if not exactly compelling:

"This century must be an American century," Romney said. "In an American century, America has the strongest economy and the strongest military in the world. God did not create this country to be a nation of followers."

This takes the invocation of the Deity a step further than George W. Bush's much-criticized 2003 State of the Union address, in which he said, "The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity." Bush's line is actually anti-chauvinistic, whereas Romney is claiming a divine blessing for his assertion that "We're No. 1."

But that makes sense. God is an American, isn't he? [Emphasis added.]

Snark aside, McGough is making a good point. By way of a rather weak circumlocution, Romney is asserting that God made the US, not the founders who were assiduously trying to erect a wall separating church and state. That's called pandering, something Romney, like his colleagues for public office (and I mean all of them, not just Republicans) is pretty good at. In front of this particular audience, however, it was a rather dangerous and disingenuous move. Romney is a Mormon, a fact that makes most in this wing of the party very nervous, if not downright hostile.

Romney's religious beliefs shouldn't be the focus of the race, and it's something that up to this point the candidate has been able to avoid discussing. By injecting God into the discourse, however, he lost the reins and a supporter of one of his opponents was only too happy to pick them up.

At the Values Voters summit in Washington, prominent evangelical leader Robert Jeffress told reporters that Mormonism was a cult and that Romney was not a Christian.

So, the shoe finally dropped, or, more properly, was thrown.

Not such a good move, Mitt.

What's Next, Duelling Preachers?

Michele Bachmann has been retooling her campaign. She has decided to add her personal "spiritual ally" to her campaign team.

U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, looking to boost her flagging presidential campaign, has turned to a longtime spiritual ally, Twin Cities Rev. Mac Hammond, to lead her outreach with the nation's evangelical community. ...

Hammond preaches "prosperity gospel," which teaches that financial riches are the will of God for faithful Christians. He told his congregation that Bachmann has invited him to be chairman of a national faith and family council, but that he is still considering the "possible legal ramifications." He told the congregation he has been Bachmann's personal minister for some time.

Hammond said he has to be careful about his support for her because "the political opposition she faces is very poisonous." But, he said, he and his wife, Lynne, plan to travel with the campaign to "talk about the vital importance of the church rising up to take this nation back."

Rev. Hammond got his congregation into a little trouble a couple of years ago by endorsing Bachmann from the pulpit, something not allowed by churches who want to keep their tax exempt status. The IRS swooped down and audited the church. He's being being a little more careful this time, making it clear that this is his personal work and doesn't involve his church.

Bachmann's campaign has lost a lot of steam, especially with the entrance of Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who is not only another Tea Party Darling, but also another conservative Christian who reminds everyone constantly of that fact. He's already making the rounds to the right evangelical leaders and speaking at religious colleges. Michele is getting right on that track herself, presumably with Rev. Hammond at her side.

So, Michele has a couple of new bases covered. The first, of course, is the Religious Reich which is an important part of the GOP base. The second, in many respects an offshoot of the first, is the "people are rich because they deserve to be" wing of the party (e.g., the Tea Partiers) which doesn't believe the rich should have to pay taxes commensurate with their wealth.

While I don't think it's going to work, it should provide some very interesting campaign stunts from Bachmann's camp, and you know how much I enjoy that.

I might have to go out and buy some more popcorn.

Things That Make You Go "Ouch!"

When I saw the headline crawl across the top of my screen I immediately clicked on it because it looked so wrong. Pat Robertson, one of the long time leaders of the Religious Reich and a former GOP candidate for president, told his followers that it's OK to divorce a spouse with Alzheimer's.

Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson told his "700 Club" viewers that divorcing a spouse with Alzheimer's is justifiable because the disease is "a kind of death."

During the portion of the show where the one-time Republican presidential candidate takes questions from viewers, Robertson was asked what advice a man should give to a friend who began seeing another woman after his wife started suffering from the incurable neurological disorder.

"I know it sounds cruel, but if he's going to do something, he should divorce her and start all over again, but make sure she has custodial care and somebody looking after her," Robertson said. ...

Terry Meeuwsen, Robertson's co-host, asked him about couples' marriage vows to take care of each other "for better or for worse" and "in sickness and in health."

"If you respect that vow, you say 'til death do us part,'" Robertson said during the Tuesday broadcast. "This is a kind of death."

My first response was one of outrage because it sounded so cold and unfeeling, like something Newt Gingrich would do and say when a sick spouse became inconvenient. No, Pat, people with Alzheimer's, at whatever stage, are not walking, breathing corpses, suitable for throwing away.

Now, as most of you know, I have a horse in this race. My father and brother both died of complications from this horrible disease and I have been diagnosed with the early markers. My mother was the primary care-giver for both my dad and brother. She told me that it broke her heart when she went to see my father on their sixtieth wedding anniversary and he didn't have a clue as to who she was and what she was doing there at his bedside. Yet that didn't stop her from going to see him every day when she could no longer care for him at home and I don't think she ever considered divorcing him so she could start over even after she secured his care. That was simply out of the question. He was her husband and she loved him.

As conservative a Christian as my mother was, she would have been both appalled and outraged by Rev. Robertson's suggestion, even as I was upon reading this short blurb. But the issue isn't really all that easy once the sexist and faux "ethics" employed by Mr. Robertson's clearly hypocritical answer are stripped away.

My mother was in many respects one of the lucky victims. My father had a good pension, one that guaranteed a good health insurance policy to supplement Medicare. Their mortgage had long been paid off before he required custodial care. She could afford to get him the care he needed around the clock. Most families, especially these days, aren't so fortunate. The economic cost of this disease, like most catastrophic illnesses, is horrendous. I can easily imagine a scenario in which divorcing the Alzheimer's patient might be necessary for the surviving spouse to ensure both decent medical care via Medicaid for the patient and to avoid total economic collapse for the family.

This country's health care system, even under the new-and-improved plan of Obama care, doesn't even come close to dealing with issues like these. It could, of course, but it doesn't. And that's to our shame and the shame of our owners.

And it doesn't excuse Rev. Robertson's tone-deaf, cold, and hypocritical stance. I hope I'm around when he tries to explain that clunker to St. Peter. In the meantime, I'm going to go wash the bitter tears from my face so that I can start the day without taking hostages.

Still Crazy

When last I looked at the Republican candidates for president, I noted the religious elements injected into the campaign. Things haven't changed much since then. Rick Perry feels called to run, so he's had some preachers pray over him. Michele Bachman is still issuing God-talk.

Herman Cain, the pizza magnate who would be king, found a new tack for the issue: religious bigotry:

"If you mess with Israel you're messing with the United States of America," the Georgia businessman laid out plainly in his "Cain Doctrine."

“Option A is, 'Folks, we are not going to allow you to attack Israel,' " the GOP presidential hopeful told the Washington Times.

"If they call my bluff, they already know — they will know — what Option B is," Cain said.

The official religion in Iran just happens to be Islam. Cain took a controversial stance Sunday when he said that he felt communities, like one in Murfreesboro, Tenn., have the right to ban mosques.

"Let's go back to the fundamental issue that the people are basically saying that they are objecting to," Cain said on "Fox News Sunday".

"They are objecting to the fact that Islam is both religion and a set of laws, Sharia law. That's the difference between any one of our other traditional religions where it's just about religious purposes," Cain said.

The Muslim-bashing is always good for a few votes, and Mr. Cain needs all he can get. He's down at the bottom tier of candidates. Iran's a pretty good target as well, especially on Fox, the GOP's chosen venue (at least for now). The bit about Sharia law adds an interesting twist only insofar as it is a handy code for the bigotry involved.

I recommend a small investment in popcorn futures. We still have a year to go in this particular race.

Tiresome

Here's the thing: ultimately, I really don't care what religion a politician holds, or even if s/he holds any religion. That shouldn't enter into the mix in a country which has declared freedom of religion and which has traditionally kept intact the separation of church and state. Jewish, Muslim, Atheist, Christian, Rastafarian, Pagan: it shouldn't matter.

It shouldn't, but apparently it now does. I thought that with the election of John F. Kennedy, a Roman Catholic, we could finally put the religious test behind us. I clearly was wrong. Religion is a qualifier. Mitt Romney is a Mormon, and the fundagelicals are unhappy about that. Will that be enough to keep him from the GOP nomination? Probably not, but the mere fact that it is a matter of discussion saddens me.

Somehow, the idea that we are a "Christian Nation" has taken root in our discourse, especially around election time, even though the founders of our nation deliberately refrained from such a position and even spoke against any religious test for holding office. Those founders would be surprised and appalled at the insistence of a particularly noisy sector of the population that not only does one have to be Christian to lead the country, one has to be a particular brand of Christian.

Unfortunately, some politicians, particularly on the right, are buying into that nonsense, dragging their piety credentials on stage at every opportunity. Michele Bachman does so relentlessly, and that's why I wasn't all that unhappy that she got bit on the backside this week.

According to CNN, the church that Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus had attended for more than a decade, Salem Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn., granted the couple’s request to be released from their membership last month, a week after Bachmann told a national audience that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination.

The Bachmanns had approached their pastor and verbally made the request “a few weeks before the church council granted the request,” said Joel Hochmuth, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the governing body for the church.

Bachmann had apparently been distancing herself from the church for some time. Hochmuth said the couple had not been worshiping with the congregation in more than two years.

Why the breakup? Well, one of the tenets of this particular denomination is that that the Pope is the Antichrist. Initially, Bachman denied that her church held any such stand, but she soon discovered that it did, and that meant her political career just might be jeopardized if enough people realized that. So she split. So much for brand loyalty.

What her church and what she herself believes is actually none of my business, but it becomes my business when she and other candidates continually shove it in my face with smug superiority. It also becomes my business when candidates make it clear that those religious beliefs will become national policy.

So this time I'm actually glad that the Los Angeles Times made an issue of her religious beliefs. I don't expect it will make much difference in the long run, but at least we got past the truthy stage for a brief moment.

Confounded Facts

Meghan Daum should not be allowed to do snark. She is terrible at it, as her latest column makes clear. Still, she did get things right when it comes to the recent brouhaha over Planned Parenthood.

In the ongoing rancor surrounding federal funding of Planned Parenthood, misinformation has a starring role. There have been, of course, predictable gusts of hot air from pundits like Bill O'Reilly, who asserted last month that "nobody's life is affected by Planned Parenthood," and Brian Kilmeade and Steve Doocy of "Fox & Friends," who suggested on April 9 that Planned Parenthood's non-abortion-related services were redundant because you can get your blood pressure checked and get a pap smear or a breast exam at Walgreen's. (Blood pressure, yes; the rest, uh-uh.)

Then there are those who deep down must surely know better but who seem to think they have ... a right to waive the facts. When Republican Sen. Jon Kyl wrongly proclaimed on the Senate floor recently that abortions constitute "well over 90% of what Planned Parenthood does," his office responded to the blowback by saying that "his remark was not intended to be a factual statement."

I must admit I was stunned at the Reich's selection of this venerable organization as a target. Planned Parenthood, for crying out loud! This group has done an ocean of good when it comes to contraception and testing for sexually transmitted diseases. As Ms. Daum points out, abortion compromises only 3% of its programs, a fact born out by all the reporting required by Title X for federal funding. Abortion may be the reason given by those trashing Planned Parenthood, but I suspect more is at work.

Meghan Daum suggests that some people are uncomfortable with the idea of planning for a child, but I think it is beyond even that. I think those people want to control sex completely, which is another way of saying that they want to control women completely. If it were merely a concern with "murdering the preborn," the Reich would go out of its way to protect the postborn rather than cut funding to WIC programs. It would go out of its way to make certain prenatal care was given to each and every pregnant woman. It would also make a massive commitment to education.

But it doesn't.

Instead, it spews lies about groups like Planned Parenthood which attempt to provide for the health and safety of women and children. It's what they do, and when caught in the lies, they issue lame excuses like Senator Kyl's.

Evil stuff, this.