Abortion is health care! PJM Exclusive!

It’s pretty clear the author does not understand the principles he espouses.

Government-owned health care will place bureaucrats in Washington in charge of your health care options. This is wrong. Health care decisions must be made by you and your doctor.

If you really think that health care decisions should be made by the doctor and patient, covering abortion seems pretty logical. Are you sure that you believe that placing “bureaucrats in Washington in charge of your health care options” is not what you are advocating?

It also seems the author doesn’t understand that taxes are not apportioned according to taxpayer earmarks.

Americans who are morally opposed to abortion should not have to pay for abortions with their tax dollars against their will.

I am an American morally opposed to pointless foreign wars – but I continue to pay my taxes because I understand that it is the legislative process that makes changes in policy – not petulance. Abortions should not be treated differently from other medical procedures. Coverage that does not include abortion is deficient – a specific exclusion is simply bad medicine. If you don’t want to pay taxes, that’s your call. But compromising reproductive health care for political purposes is, in the author’s own words, “wrong”. Leave the health care decisions to the doctor and patient.

Banning Burqas is Bad

So now, instead of a war on terror, we should start a war on Islamic fashion?

Is this really the current thinking in the shallow end of the pool?

This is an issue of the most fundamental freedoms guaranteed in our Constitution. Banning the garb of a specific religious sect with no rational justification is a frontal attack on civil liberties.

I believe each and every person on the planet should have the right to choose what they want to wear - or not to wear. Banning the burqa is not the answer.

Religious garb should not be subject to discriminatory laws. If you don’t like the burqa, don’t wear one. But grow up and face the fact that some do choose it, and show some respect for that choice.

Fundamentalism: Iran v. USA

Apparently Frank F did not understand what Frank S wrote. Let me summarize.

Iran is one example of what can happen when religious conservatives control the political landscape. The author was formerly part of an American Christian movement with aims very similar to those of the Iranian Muslims currently ruling that country.

Mandatory prayer in school, anti-gay laws, abortion bans, elective wars, capital punishment, rolling back civil rights, defeating the union movement - all of these are issues that the Iranian Mullahs and the American Christians would see eye-to-eye on.

Frank Schaeffer provides a unique insiders perspective into the motives and tactics of the fringe elements that promote theocracy in the USA. Oppressive religion is offensive to American values, whether Christian or any other faith.

The similarity of Christian Fundamentalists with Islamic Fundamentalists is not imaginary - it is real, and a very serious threat to the Republic. Our secular government is our greatest innovation, and the basic reason that the American system has been so successful, and so widely emulated. Continued vigilance is required to protect and defend our Constitution from being perverted in the service of religion.

Marriage for Procreation, or Recreation?

Marriage vows don’t typically say anything about children. The purpose of marriage is the union of two persons in a legal bond. Regardless of the gender of the spouses, supporting long term relationships is the proper role of the government in sanctioning marriage.

There is no special reason the government should prefer that people raise their biological children rather than adoptees. The argument on grounds of procreation is quite strained, and ultimately fails because it is clearly not reflective of the current practice of hetero marriage.

Gay marriage is not a threat to anyone, and is pretty clearly being resisted for religious reasons that have no place in public policy.

Hate Speech and Conservative Vigilantism

The big problem is that so much of what passes for political discourse now depends on hyperbole. “Baby Killer” would be the recent pertinent example. Talking points and language are important.

The choice to use inflammatory, violent and hateful imagery is a conscious one, with predictable outcomes. It is possible to have civil discourse without so much frothing at the mouth, or at least without the deliberate provocation.

Violence in the service of religion or politics is a very dangerous tool. When in the service of both, it is decidedly deadly. I don’t see this dynamic as a significant part of the left wing - this violence is a conservative and reactionary response to liberal society.

So long as belief in imaginary omnipotents continues, the deranged adherents of such ideologies are likely to find cause to spread the word by the sword. The only long term solution is secular government and education.

Tiller Murder is Not Fiction

The pattern is pretty clear. Religious fanatics, whether Taliban or Born-again, appear to be losing the long-term cultural battle. Rather than try to adapt to a changing world, the response of the religious fanatic is to lash out in violence against the “other”.

Women’s rights, freedom of speech and thought, and other “liberal” values are simply not compatible with the backwards thinking of right wing zealots.

True Christians?

It’s nice to see a Christian who understands that followers of Jesus have strayed from the path, and wants to correct the error.