Presidential candidate Rick Perry released the following commercial:
Only #RickPerry is bold enough to release a commercial affirming his lack of shame in belonging to the same religion as 83% of U.S. citizens, as well as insulting homosexuals, who amount to a whopping 1.5% Who will stand behind Perry as he faces such overwhelming odds?
There is apparently nothing nobler than serving in the U.S. military… unless you’re gay. What sort of fiends are we dealing with who wish to put their lives at risk for the safety of others, many of whom often vote to deny them basic rights? They must have some insidious master plan — like when the Legion of Doom pretended to be the Legion of Good.
Perry insists that Obama has launched a “war on religion.” It’s unclear what the president has done to attack Christianity (what conservatives usually mean when they say “religion,” just as they mean “heterosexuals” when they say “Americans”). The best I can come up with are any efforts for inclusion Obama’s administration has made for groups or belief systems that conservative Christians don’t like.
When Perry talks about kids not being able to openly celebrate Christmas or pray in school, he seems to have confused the United States with Sombertown and Obama with the Burgermeister Meisterburger from “Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town.”
Christians have complained about the apparent secularization of Christmas (while taking their kids to see Santa at the mall) for years. The expression “war on Christmas” dates back to 2005 when Bush was in office, so yet another attack on the U.S. that occurred on his watch and for which conservatives blame liberals.
Children can pray in school. Teachers don’t smack a kid in the head if they spot them saying grace before a meal — and you might want to pray before eating a school lunch these days. What can’t occur is school-approved prayer. There are several logical reasons for this, as David E. Ross details:
- Non-sectarian prayers are impossible. A prayer is an expression of hope, praise, or thanksgiving directed to God. If religion is removed from prayer in an attempt to make it inoffensive to all religions, it become meaningless and offensive to those who are truly religious. A “sanitized” expression is no longer real prayer.
- Public schools are funded by taxes collected from persons of all religious beliefs. It is wrong to tax a person of one religion in support of the practices of another religion or to tax an atheist to support religion in general. It is even more wrong to tax parents to provide facilities and supervision where their children will participate in a religious activity that may differ from their own family’s practices. In any case, these taxes are collected to operate systems of public education, not public religion.
- A teacher’s direction, “Let us pray!” is insufficient. (For a government employee — a public school teacher — to give such an order is offensive.) True prayer (even for adults) requires a state of mind that is not obtained immediately upon command. Often, this state of mind requires several minutes of contemplation, ritual, or even hymn singing. Different religions reach this state differently. This is an inappropriate activity for a group of individuals with differing religious beliefs and practices.
- “Optional” prayer among children is not really possible. Peer pressure among children is very strong. They have trouble resisting pressures to engage in disapproved activities such as drinking alcohol and premarital sex. When officially approved and endorsed by government, pressure from peers to conform in prayer would be impossible to resist. In this manner, children will thus be led into an activity that may be contrary to their parents’ religious beliefs.
You can debate the Constitutionality and suitability of school-approved prayer — arguably not the best debate to have as the U.S. education ranking continues to drop, but you can’t claim this is anything new. It goes back decades.
Conservatives groups do point to Obama’s 2009 stimulus bill, which they claim was “an attempt to prevent religious practice in schools.”
According to the bill, which the Democratic-controlled House passed despite unanimous Republican opposition, funds are prohibited from being used for the “modernization, renovation, or repair” of facilities that allow “sectarian instruction, religious worship or a school or department of divinity.”
You know, all this talk about gays and prayer doesn’t come close to addressing any of the real issues the country faces (though, rampant homophobia and religious fanaticism are serious concerns). I would venture to hope that Perry realizes this, as well, and with his campaign faltering and having no real solutions to offer, he does what any desperate, shameless man would do:
You gather a group of middle-age, middle class, middle income voters who remember with longing an easier time, and you talk to them about family, and American values and character.
If Americans believe in values and character, they should also know that you can’t build either by denigrating other Americans, other nations, other faiths, other orientations. What leader is remembered today for having invented enemies and threats of their own creation rather than going after the ones they help enable?
Rick Perry probably knows this, but as Andrew Shepherd would say, the problem isn’t that he doesn’t get it, it’s that can’t sell it.
Sebelius vs. Science…
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius overruled the Food and Drug Administration Wednesday and stopped plans for the Plan B morning after pill to be sold over the counter. It is still available without a prescription but only to women (and I suppose men) over 17 who show proof of age, which at 17 would mean sulleness and a propensity for texting. Explaining her decision, Sebelius says she was “worried about confusing 11 year olds.”
Forget the 11 year olds; I’m 37 and her actions confuse me.
“I don’t think 11-year-olds go into Rite Aid and buy anything,” much less a single pill that costs about $50, (said American Academy of Pediatrics) member Dr. Cora Breuner, a professor of pediatric and adolescent medicine at the University of Washington.
Plan B is emergency contraception but not an abortion pill; it won’t affect an existing pregnancy. The FDA believed no age limit was necessary, but is there an actual risk to minors who take the pill? Sebelius isn’t talking but Greg Pfundstein at the National Review explains his support for the decision.
The general outline of the controversy is familiar enough. Plan B and similar drugs are controversial because in addition to their contraceptive effects they are known to have abortifacient effects by preventing fertilized embryos from implanting in the uterine wall. Advocates for wider availability of the drug decry those who stand in the way of a simple means of decreasing the number of abortions and out-of-wedlock births, all for the sake of very early fetal life. Imagine the “scramble — often in late-night or weekend panics after having sex without protection.” Opponents of trivializing sex, on the other hand, think that we should be concerned about how we treat all, even inchoate, human life, and, moreover, wonder why on earth we would want to decrease the caution in that late-night scenario. Do we really want to make it easier to have irresponsible sex and then run along to the nearest 24-hour retailer to pop a pill?
The sentiment here would not confuse an 11 year old. This is the standard, generally offensive judgment of women who are sexually active. Plan B wouldn’t make it “easier to have irresponsible sex.” Irresponsible sex is already easy. It’s an absolute. You can’t improve its simplicity. However, birth control — even when responsibly used – does fail. When that occurs, it’s responsible to take action.
This decision forces a minor to go to her parents if she wants the pill, which removes the choice over its usage and potentially her own pregnancy from her. Forcing women over 17 — presumably even those twice that age — to show proof of age and purchase behind the counter also restricts their privacy and needlessly so without a compelling medical reason.
Dr. Margaret Hamburg, the head of the FDA, disagreed with Not-a-Doctor Pfundstein, saying in The New York Times that the “studies and experts all agreed that young women would benefit from having easy access to the pill and did not need the intervention of a health care provider.”
The agency’s scientists, she wrote, “determined that the product was safe and effective in adolescent females, that adolescent females understood the product was not for routine use, and that the product would not protect them against sexually transmitted disease.”
A mandate to purchase health insurance is a constitutional crisis, but the Obama Administration placing an age restriction on the purchase of a health-related item that’s proven safe is met with applause from the same people who thought the administration overreached with health care. You’d think they were the guy from “Memento.”
I suppose it’s important to ensure that women don’t have irresponsible sex but if they do, they become irresponsible mothers and eventually raise irresponsible kids who can walk into an Arizona gun show and buy semiautomatic pistols without a background check.
Arizona is the state where a punk with a gun almost assassinated a congresswoman. It’s also where you can carry a concealed weapon into a bar or a school. There have ben no recommendations for sensible changes to our gun laws since then. The Second Amendment is inviolable in this country, but a woman’s autonomy apparently is not.
Posted by Stephen Robinson on December 8, 2011 in Political Theatre, Social Commentary
Tags: Kathleen Sebelius, Margaret Hamburg, National Review, Obama, Plan B