Monday, April 9, 2012

Is there a Conservative "War on Women?"

I want to begin by saying that I've become something I never expected to be. I'm going to come out of the closet. OK, those who know me, don't get excited, I'm not about to announce that I'm gay. I totally support the rights of gays and lesbians, of all people, to live as they choose, marry whom they love, and to be accorded in society the same rights as everyone else.
That being said, the title of this post should tell you where I'm going with this. I here and now declare before all the world that I am an avowed and active feminist.
Is there a war on women? Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell says the war on women is manufactured, and I say yes it is; manufactured by the radical right Republicans in Washington and in states across the country where the GOP has control of the legislatures and the Governor's mansions. I've lost count, to tell the truth, of the number of anti-choice laws that have been passed in states and even in the US House of Representative in the last year. I do know that it's way up in the hundreds. Abortion rights, contraceptive rights, and even equal pay have been ruthlessly savaged - equal pay was actually repealed in Scott Walker's Wisconsin. And even renewal of the National Violence against Women Act has fallen prey to GOP obstructionism. (I'm actually astonished that a law against beating women should even be debatable, let alone need to be renewed periodically.) These are things that are in the public record, have been all over the news and in the blogospere.
So it naturally begs the question why a United States Senator would say that the "war on women is a manufactured issue," as McConnell put it. But I know why he says so. In the view of these people it isn't really a war, but more of a Crusade. It has its roots in radical right wing Christianity, that perversion of the message of our Savior that focuses more on what they believe the  Lord excludes and condemns rather than on what he calls us to embrace. As a born again Christian myself it breaks my heart to see people perverting my faith into such a ghastly caricature of Jesus' teachings. Their religion is not one of redemption by grace, it is a doctrine of works, a return to Calvinism/Puritanism.
It's a critical point in the history of the Church. Republicans, bombarded by the bigotry of preachers like Pat Robertson, telling us that every tornado, hurricane, earthquake or terrorist incident is somehow God's punishment. It's the perversion of truth that motivates the Westboro Baptists to try to disrupt funerals.
God does not hate - not gays, not liberals, not even independent women. Some forty years ago, I turned my life over to a Savior who offers redemption and peace for all.
And it is that God, that Gracious Saving presence in my life that brings me to say  that I am now an avowed femisnist, and will remain so until their Crusade has failed.

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