Thank you Chris Hayes "Up" geeks.
But the reality of life here is that Mr. Gulbranson and many of his neighbors continue to take as much help from the government as they can get. When pressed to choose between paying more and taking less, many people interviewed here hemmed and hawed and said they could not decide. Some were reduced to tears. It is much easier to promise future restraint than to deny present needs. – Even Critics of Safety Net Increasingly Depend on It
The title above is part of my cross-post over at The Moderate Voice. It’s true, as I’ve already written.
Pres. Obama has left Republicans, the Catholic bishops and the men who support them behind. The purposeful misinformation on cable, as well as in the Wall Street Journal won’t change this fact.
Let’s also not forget that the 1st Amendment swings both ways and that individuals are as protected from religion as institutions are from the government, something that is getting lost in all this. Considering one of the primary reasons the New Americans fled England, this is rather stunning. As an Episcopalian who now practices daily meditation as my primary mode of spiritual connection, the dishonesty being used when citing the 1st Amendment during this discussion has been as telling as the purposeful misinformation.
Republicans and the Catholic bishops are on the wrong side of the future gap. “RealDem1″ explained in the comments:
One of the reasons I am no longer a practicing Catholic is because the Catholic Bishops and the Pope, more specifically Pope John Paul (the Polish one) by preaching their untenable doctrine of no contraception has consequences that are immoral and unjust. I posted this last night:
“I remember being turned off of Pope John Paul for various reasons especially re/women in the church and his refusal to even consider having women ordained as priests (even as there was a huge shortage in the priesthood) but the one that really turned me off of him and the Church’s teachings over contraception was when he would visit third world countries and preach against the use of birth control (except for the Rhythm Method – which has a high rate of failure) for impoverished women in these countries who have been “brainwashed” into blind devotion to the Church and most particularly to the Pope. So, they believed and obeyed every word he said and didn’t practice birth control. How many children could that family not afford and how many of them because of his preaching died from malnutrition or were prostituted out by their families to make ends meet? Or those women who died in childbirth from so many pregnancies? Where is the moral responsibility for those consequences?”
Until the Catholic Church changes this “man-made” doctrine of theirs (I don’t recall Jesus ever weighing in on this topic), the immoral and unjust outcome will be on their heads.
The 20th century rules for women have been smashed to smithereens. Given a choice of a church that respects personal freedoms and the difficulty in maneuvering in the modern world economically, versus any church that denies women’s needs to plan their life and protect themselves through reproductive health care policy, that church will be abandoned, if not the faith.
You cannot separate the spiritual needs to connect to something greater from the person who is navigating in the material and physical world. Women long ago rejected that they need a man as middle man between however they define God.
Too many religious institutions and the men who run them are in denial on this fact, while their male parishioners get it. Joe Scarborough said this week that he believed women should be Southern Baptist deacons. Years ago former presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter split from that faith when genuflection became a demand for women through their church.
When Catholic bishops and other men also demand subservience to the physical when modern science long ago provided women with the means of liberation and control they deny the difference between freedom and bondage for women in the modern era.
Any leader or church institution that doesn’t understand this fundamental difference will continue to wane in influence, until they no longer are relevant, except to the most subservient.
The future demands all of us gear up so it can be met. Women’s freedoms are a personal, emotional and economic imperative to this goal being achieved. Liberation through free mandated reproductive health care is an equalizer for women, who are not only being asked to help fuel the new American century, but are also being given the tools to do it.
TM NOTE: “UP” with Chris Hayes is aired every Saturday and Sunday. It’s the best show on cable.
Taylor, I still can’t believe there is debate about this issue in 2012. I feel those in the media are trying to help Republicans with non issues to gin up the dwindling GOP base, for the general election. These people are so desperate to beat Obama they will do anything. Its pathetic!
I really don’t understand the Republicans, if Obama was as weak as everyone claims then it should be easy to beat the guy. There would be no need for all these fake non-issues they keep creating.
Oh! What a great comment, Marie205. You are so right and it’s something I hear every day & read in my inbox.
I still can’t believe there is debate about this issue in 2012.
It’s a fool’s errand, which says a lot about religious conservatives & Republicans who think the 1st Amendment only swings toward institutions.
For a group of people always expounding about the U.S. Constitution, they don’t know much about what it means or holds.
ps-Please share on Facebook if you can & feel so inclined. It’s important to keep pushing on this issue, because it’s not going away. Thanks!
Yep, religious conservatives, cultural conservatives, whatever you want to call them … they are living in a time warp. It’s election time, which must mean it’s time to haul out the same old cultural standbys, except the country (and its demographics) has moved on. This stuff works against Republicans now, and they don’t even realize it.
Obama would be easy to beat if the GOP had an economic message but they don’t. With both Obama and the GOP practicing voodoo economics there’s just fake controversies about birth control to be ginned up at this juncture i guess. I’m kind of with you–birth control pills are radical in the year 2012? What i think is that the beltway crowd is so out of touch with the rest of the country that they really think that’s where it’s at.
Marie205:
Amen!
Seconded.
Shared, FB and Twitter.
Unfortunately and from personal and activist experience, I can believe that “church and state” remains an issue. It’s high visibility now is great, hopefully helpful. But as a woman who had to wait a few years in order to be eligible for ordination, because the American Lutheran Church (later to join with other Lutheran denominations to form the ELCA) wasn’t ready to ordain women; and as a lesbian, who was later kicked off the ELCA clergy roster, because at that point (since changed) you couldn’t be in a same gender relationship; and as an activist and advocate of women’s and LGBT’s equality, I’ve heard these same arguments for decades, on a number of occasions, very directly.
Like LGBT equality gaining support, so are the number of people growing who do not want any particular expression and understanding of any particular faith to determine government policy. The opponents of equality for anyone who isn’t like them know they’re losing ground, and their efforts are growing, and again becoming more noticed by the media. I’d guess that will remain the case through the November elections. Then it will likely return to local and state levels.
Thanks for the shares, Joyce! They matter.
This thing isn’t over by a long shot, though unless Republicans get a frickin’ clue & turn it to government overreach, their only angle that comes close to passing the smell test, the GOP & religious conservatives will be on the losing end. See TaosJohn’s comment.
Just post the full text (with English translation) of Roy Blount’s bill.
Hi Taylor!
I haven’t been here much after making a jackass of myself by wildly overestimating the Perry campaign, but on this issue, which I take extremely seriously (the CONSTITUTION, forgodssakes), I have to say:
I just can’t believe this. The Republicans & the bishops are driving me to vote for Obama this year.
That is all, for now.
HA! Oh, that is priceless, TaosJohn.
Yep, I’ve been hearing from A LOT of people saying the exact same thing. The GOP religious conservatives & Catholic bishops may turn out to be THE best GOTV team Obama has behind them.
It did not take long, did it, for the bishops to pivot from paying for birth control to not even allowing their female employees access to birth control. What a surprise, I’m shocked, truly shocked! To think that what they are really against is women having sex for something other than procreation. My god, where is the inquisition when you need it.
“ Individuals are protected from religion as institutions are from the government. “ Yes. This is what many Americans must be reminded of; theocracy is never far away once religion is allowed to invade politics and government. I would like to see the bishops tax exempt status taken away, see how fast they shut their pedophile protecting mouths then.
It’s truly stunning few are reminding people that the 1st Amendment swings both ways.
What we’re hearing from Catholic Church reps, including those in the media, led by Chris Matthews, completely ignores the individual woman who also has 1st Amendment freedoms FROM religion, especially when it comes up against basic labor law. What one woman gets through a mandate in the law, another woman in a Catholic-run but non-church institution, shouldn’t be denied.
“especially when it comes up against basic labor law. What one woman gets through a mandate in the law, another woman in a Catholic-run but non-church institution, shouldn’t be denied.”
Exactly what I have argued from the start. It has NOTHING to do with forcing the Catholic nor any other CHURCH to do anything against their particular brand of superstition based heman club’s super secret rule book only available to the guys.
What it DOES have EVERYTHING to do with is applying labor law equally. If the Gawd sqwad doesn’t want to be part of Da WOILD then they should stick to their cult and leave da woild alone…ESPECIALLT da woild’s MONEY!
“Not satisfied with President Obama’s new religious accommodation, Republicans will move forward with legislation by Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO) that permits any employer to deny birth control coverage in their health insurance plans, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) said Sunday.”
WTF!!!
I really don’t get Republicans anymore, this whole controversy on birth control is beyond ridiculous, especially that many states already provide for what Obama is proposing. I think that something terrible happened to most Republicans 3.5 years ago on the day President Obama was elected: their heads exploded and they collectively went nuts. They can’t seem to be able to think and behave rationally anymore.
“their heads exploded and they collectively went nuts.”
NO…REALLY?! ya think?! Although I might argue they had already been given over to the imates at the shit house rat crazy club LONG before just 3.5 years ago. Da Black guy just REALLY pushed their WE’RE NOT RACIST buttons.
That graphic still tickles my funny bones. lol
And, I feel the same about the Chris Hayes program. It is the best on offer on Cable. it’s right up there with the programs that Bill Moyers did and has come back to PBS to do even though they’ve scheduled him in the godawful timeslot of Sunday at 6 pm. Although, in NY, PBS does a repeat on Monday’s at 10 pm right which is much better.
Taylor, I read your comment in another thread about the women of faith who appreciated what I said about the hierarchy of the Catholic Church which includes many priests, all Bishops, Cardinals and the Pope and some nuns as well. Their support for what I posted meant a great deal to me.
One of the things I want to stress here that was missing from my previous posts is this.
Although I’ve given up on all of this, there are practicing lay Catholics who continue to fight the fight from the inside. These organizations include Dignity: Gay and Lesbian Catholics, and Catholics for Choice (whom you singled out for praise in your tweets). Both of these organizations are doing yoeman/women work on behalf of homosexuals whom the church demands to neuter into celibacy before they will be accepted fully into the flock, and women who refuse to conform to their irrational refusal to change their position on contraception even for gay men whose lives can be saved by using condoms.
There are also people who are not only practicing Catholics but part of the clergy and I include nuns in that category. There are priests and nuns who don’t think the hierarchy’s position on contraception, gay rights and ordination of women is moral or just.
There is one group which I want to give a shout out to and that is The National Coalition of American Nuns, a group of nuns who push for women’s ordination, gay rights, abortion rights and an end to wars.
All of these people are in danger of being ex-communicated by the church for doing what they are doing. But, it’s the Catholic sisters of the cloth who risk everything they have dedicated their lives for when they take their vows. The National Coalition of American Nuns have especially been targeted by the Vatican. What that invokes for me are the Salem witch hunts. And, if they don’t conform eventually they will be excommunicated. I wish these women would get more coverage in the media but I’m not holding breath.
Even if you are familiar with this wonderful group, please read the article I linked to below to get the full flavor what these brave women have done and what they risk going up against Church hierarchy. So far as far as I know, they haven’t been ex-communicated to date but they have been ordered to stop their activism. I think the Vatican who is really savvy when it comes to PR is somewhat weary of the American nuns like this Coalition and some priests who are these nuns counterparts in the States and given the bad publicity over the child abuse scandal, don’t want to further alienate many in the American flock. So, I think that’s why these nuns are “safe” for now. But, I have no facts to back up that personal opinion.
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/nov/15/news/adna-prochoice-nun15
These brave people who are fighting the good fight on behalf of those flock in the church who are not treated as equal members and risk so much, represent the true meaning of what Jesus preached, imho.
BTW, I was watching my local news late this afternoon, and I saw a report about Archbishop Thomas Dolan of New York. He’s on his way to the Vatican where he will be promoted to Cardinal Dolan, for, I’m sure his gladiator-like work to make sure the supercilious, man-made doctrines of the church such as preaching against contraception, gay laity rights, women’s ordination and celibacy cinched this “elevation”. And, the reporter was falling over himself (and I’m sure the network approved) like a convert receiving his first communion and in such awe of this very dangerous and powerful man of the cloth. He has lots of power in NY and undoubtedly the local TV stations will cover his promotion to Cardinal like a POTUS inauguration. As many of us have said about the media’s agreeing (with Maddow, Hayes and Sharption the exceptions), with the Catholic Bishops’ false protests against HHS, the media is a big part of the problem.
“All of these people are in danger of being ex-communicated by the church for doing what they are doing. ”
That may be unfortunate for them but it is of no concern to me, nor should it be to anyone other then a Catholic who still goes along with this Dark Ages nonsense.
One of my complaints with the Uberchristofacists, other then their being superstitious morons and that they try to force this idiocy down this secular nations throat is they don’t follow the words of the one they claim to believe in and follow and don’t adhere to the rule book they claim is the word of their Gawd da fadda almighty
So if you want to claim the title of Catholic I would expect you gotta do what the wrinkled old ex-nazi wants you to do..
One of the attributes I admire is bravery against powerful forces and self-important authority whether it’s that coalition of nuns fighting on the front lines battling the unjust man-made doctrines that oppress women (and men) or whether it’s someone like Nelson Mandela who fought his own country’s vicious authoritarian overlords and paid a huge price until justice was done.
I admire that attribute, bravery, in a person because I aspire to it but find myself coming up short oftentimes.
And, I’m not Bill Maher. I don’t begrudge others for their religious beliefs as long as they don’t impinge on my and others sense of self and freedom. Anyone should be able to believe what the hell they want if it comforts them, I really don’t give a damn, again, as long as what they believe doesn’t harm the rest of us who are not very religious or not religious at all or who are religious but object to nationalizing religious beliefs.
What I object to with religion is what I said thus far. In addition, what I loathe are politicians who con their followers into thinking they are as religious and self-righteous as they are to gain and maintain power.
But, it’s none of my business if anyone wants to practice religion as long as they keep it their own business, and don’t try to bridge the wall separating church from state.