Where the Women At?
Not at the Issa Inquisition Into Dirty Sluts Who Might Use Contraception in Furtherance of Sexual Behavior Ross Douthat Does Not Approve Of, that’s for sure.
And if it had to be all men, I would suggest that Garry Wills should have been one of the invitees:
Some Republicans are using the bishops’ stupidity to hurt the supposed “moderate” candidate Mitt Romney, giving a temporary leg up to the faux naïf Rick Santorum; others are attacking Barack Obama as an “enemy of religion.”
Pusillanimous Catholics—Mark Shields and even, to a degree, the admirable E. J. Dionne—are saying that Catholics understandably resent an attack on “their” doctrine (even though they do not personally believe in it). Omnidirectional bad-faith arguments have clustered around what is falsely presented as a defense of “faith.” The layers of ignorance are equaled only by the willingness of people “of all faiths” to use them for their own purposes.The bishops’ opposition to contraception is not an argument for a “conscience exemption.” It is a way of imposing Catholic requirements on non-Catholics. This is religious dictatorship, not religious freedom.
Contraception is not even a religious matter. Nowhere in Scripture or the Creed is it forbidden. Catholic authorities themselves say it is a matter of “natural law,” over which natural reason is the arbiter—and natural reason, even for Catholics, has long rejected the idea that contraception is evil. More of that later; what matters here is that contraception is legal, ordinary, and accepted even by most Catholics. To say that others must accept what Catholics themselves do not is bad enough. To say that President Obama is “trying to destroy the Catholic Church” if he does not accept it is much, much worse.
Is Issa *still* trying to compensate for being tossed over for the Gubernator all those years ago?
I’m torn between the women walking out as a force of good or not. A part of me would like them to use their time to be farcical about this topic and its presentation. Another part applauds the “I’m not going to be a party to this”.
Nice to know my tax dollars are well spent. Yet again.
A part of me wants to see some women come rushing into the hearings screaming Itae Bacchus! and tear all the men present into bloody gobbets.
If there were any complaints, they could say they were just exercising their religious freedom, and preventing them from doing so in the future would be an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.
Gotta love the obscure but extremely appropriate Euripides reference.
What a beautiful image. I’m adding some sound effects in my head for the whiny GOPers.
But do they Mortal Kombat the witnesses first or Congressional Men? Maybe they divide them up – yes, they divide. It’s efficient and expedient.
Viva la First Amendment!!
It’s efficient and expedient.
The Kindly Ones are kind.
A part of me wants to see some women come rushing into the hearings screaming…
That would be GREAT if they were there to discuss the constitutionality of the exective branch to muscle religious organizations and force them to do things that are against their faith in contrast to the protections of the first amendment.
Because that’s what the hearing was all about….and not much else.
That would be GREAT if they were there to discuss the constitutionality of the exective branch to muscle religious organizations and force them to do things that are against their faith
Sooo…jihadis should be able to chop your head off. Interesting.
They can discuss religious intrusions, yes.
OK, so two priests, a minister and a rabbi walk into a congressional hearing . . .
. . . and the Democrats say, “Is this a joke?”
“So let me get this straight: you don’t have sex and you don’t have any kids…but you want to be able to tell people when to have sex and when to have kids?’
The ultra religious have no sense of humor.
“So let me get this straight: you don’t have sex and you don’t have any kids…but you want to be able to tell people when to have sex and when to have kids, after being caught having sex with kids. ”
FTFY
Rope here! Getcher rope heah!
Don’t want to be caught without enough rope, now! Getcher rope heeeaaahhhh…
I don’t understand these Republicans.
I don’t understand how professional, career politicians who have managed to reach such heights within their profession can screw up their politics of this issue so badly.
they’ve been sniffing each others farts for so long that they believe that this is a winner. notice how none of the propagandists like rove have weighed in on this, only the true believers? it’s wile coyote time.
How can this still be so, after the last two weeks?
How can they not realize, today, that it’s a bad idea to not only keep pushing this loser instead of quietly letting it die, but have an all-male cast for their political theater?
because empirical evidence and facts hold no sway with these people. the recovery act was a massive failure because they’ve been telling each other that for three years. obama is a coward and an appeaser and w bush got bin laden because lalala i can’t hear you. they’ve created an alternative reality and they’re sticking to it.
or
they _do_ rationally realize that their time is coming nigh, and are pushing everything through that they can, before they are thrown out of power for a generation or longer. a la scott walker in wisconsin. they’ll wreak so much havoc and make it so difficult to undo that they will leave a legacy no matter if they are in power or not.
or maybe these two things are not mutually exclusive. the republican party has gone insane because it realizes that it will forever be thrown out of power within a generation. because yeah, they’re not even trying to hide it anymore.
But they’re politicians! Good ones, who can get themselves elected to high office!
They’ve therefore demonstrated a certain level of political instinct and self-preservation. We’re not talking about disbelieving a briefing book or a white paper from Brookings.
I think it is because we (women) have been tolerating the abuse for so long that they think we will always tolerate the abuse, and so they ratchet it up.
Sorry, Joe: it’s most likely that from from Darrel Issa’s POV, the “politics of this issue” are being well-served by this sort of idiot kabuki: he gets to posture self-righteously in a public forum, push his ideological talking-points with “official” Congressional cover, and garner a load of publicity he, and other Republicans, can use on the campaign trail to flog the inane “Obama’s War on Religion” line to the GOP “base”.
That the public, at large, doesn’t care about this crap, or believes it to be just so much nonsense, is an irrelevancy to Cong. Issa and his ilk: it’s about reinforcing the hate among the already-faithful. Which, sad to say, is what too much of politics has become.
Maybe this is it. Polarization and gerrymandering mean that you don’t really have to pay attention to the general public’s response.
I don’t understand these Republicans.
WHY CONSERVITIVES SUCK
Because they can’t even spell “conservative”?
“Where the Women At?”
Why they’re at home making babies and submitting to their husbands, as they should be.
Maybe they’re busy marrying each other.
This flap will eventually cost, not gain, the GOP marginal and independent Catholic votes.
The consensus omnium fidelium has a power all its own, which bishops cannot brook, but cannot overcome.
Sometimes an unpopular stunt can be popular with political donors. You might lose a small amount of votes, but raise a lot of money. I don’t think this is one of those stunts, though. It’s just not marketable.
Old Testament: God in the Trinity says, eating shrimp is an abomination.
New Testament: Jesus in the Trinity says, eating shrimp is ok, you just poop it out.
The RCC tends to be less backwards than many protestant denominations in scientific areas.
It’s a little bit of a head scratcher why they’re so dead set for anyone in their sphere of influence only touching genitals to mate with their spouse.
In what way is E. J. Dionne “admirable,” I wonder?