After witnessing the spectacle of two morally ambiguous humans being crowned king and queen in England, I suppose the increase in evangelical mockery of all things Christian should come as no big shock. Clearly, the roots of the church are disintegrating on both sides of the pond in favor of personal preference as the rule.
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| Adam Peters |
From the meeting’s opening prayer to the ending prayer, a divine calling was made clear: Republicans must purge the state of anyone who disagrees with their extremist positions on the LGBTQ community, reproductive health care, education and race.
“If you can make it hostile to that group of people, that small sliver of society, and have them move elsewhere, that does a huge amount to shut this down,” Peters said. “It’s both sides of it: You need to attract the good people here, and you also need to make it clear to the bad people, this isn’t gonna go well for you.”Yeah, I know; it's Kansas. But folks, they are not alone on this road.
Nowhere in the Constitution of these here United States are the words separation of church and state ever mentioned. Nope. Nowhere. What the Constitution does say in the First Amendment is:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
But the writers are not done yet. In Article Six, they add:
All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be Required as a Qualification To any Office or public Trust under the United States.
That one line is gonna be important to remember, because right now, as I type, religious tests are happening all over this country. Remember what Adam Peters said?
You need to attract the good people here.
And how do you know who "the good people" are? You start with some kind of ideological litmus test. You vet people for their positions and beliefs. And if they don't line up with the party line, you drive them out. No matter how that couch that litmus test, it's an establishment of their religion and the rest of us are supposed to sign up.
What's next? The stake for non-believers?
Gilead, here we come!
Abortion restriction legislation is a phenomenal litmus test for the conservative movement in America because it drives out the professionals first. Medical personnel who work with women's reproductive health are leaving states where they face murder convictions for helping women in medical emergencies. We're not talking about abortions here...we're talking about ectopic pregnancies, placental abnormalities, fetuses incompatible with life...that sort of thing...and the mother's health be damned. Once you drive out the medical experts, those who can afford to follow will, leaving the poorest of the poor to suffer the consequences of unavailable maternal health care. Women and children will die...sacrificed on an altar of some sort of evangelical purity church.
But it won't stop there. LGBTQ and Trans families, unable to get health care, will face their kids being taught their family is evil and sinful. Those people, too, will leave the states where they no longer feel safe from vigilante actions to protect the children who will no longer be safe in school.
Colleges and universities will be next to suffer the effects of litmus testing when the state government, as Florida did today, enact laws that ban the teaching of inclusion. As explained quite clearly in AXIOS, DeSantis signs bill banning DEI degrees at Florida colleges
Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation Monday defunding diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs at Florida's public colleges and allowing the state to remove programs, majors and minors that teach "identity politics." ...
SB 266 prohibits the state's colleges and universities from spending any state or federal dollars on programs and campus activities that advocate for DEI policies or social activism.
- The restriction, however, carves out an exception for campus activities required for "compliance with federal laws or regulations" and retaining institutional accreditation.
- It also creates a mechanism for the state to review existing college courses, majors and minors, and remove ones with lessons "based on theories that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, and privilege" are inherent in the U.S.
Really? Just what is the criteria for living in your world, Governor DeSantis?
Yet, there are some pockets of reason. There are places where women are slowly coming out to say "NO." Yeah, it's slow, but as hospitals with maternity services dwindle and women no longer have safe places to give birth, much less get prenatal or neonatal care, the crisis intensifies.
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Senators Sandy Senn, Katrina Shealy, Mia McLeod, Penry Gustafson & Margie Bright Matthews. Photo: Audra Melton for The New York Times |
“I don’t think the Republican Party saw us coming, because we didn’t do what they thought we were going to do,” Ms. Shealy, the senior member of the group, said in an interview with the other women around a table in her State House office. “They thought we would do just what they told us to do.”
"Women and their doctors and their husbands or partners should be making these decisions; 170 legislators in the state of South Carolina don’t need to be making these choices." - SC Republican State Senator Katrina Shealy
I cannot see mothers and grandmothers standing idly by as their young women are denied access to prenatal care, face uterus-losing complications, bleeding out from miscarriages when treatment was denied, and watching babies die who are born with such severe abnormalities that their very existence is incompatible with life.
Never mind WWJD. Try WWMD? What would Mary do? I'm not even Christian but my Christian friends who hold the Sacred Heart of Mary in such high esteem cannot possibly believe that she would let babies suffer and women die unnecessarily.
Or do they?
I don't know.
What I do know is that all these prohibitions being signed into law are not for the benefit of We, The People, much less We, the Female People. They are for the benefit of a small group of small minded people who believe with their heart and soul....not to mention wallet...that their way is the only right way and the rest of us should take a hike outta the country. (And that includes the Indigenous Peoples who were here before them, and who count even less.)
As a side note, following Adam Peter's model of Righteous America, not too many regular folks are gonna be left to do all the menial tasks because they're gonna be too sick or dead without health care and all those socialist programs his kind hates and wants to cut. Wives will be stay-at-home perennially pregnant moms, but will a man's income increase enough to keep food on the table and a roof overhead? And who's gonna pay the medical bills when insurance is out of reach? Maybe it won't matter because environmental regulations will be repealed and the earth, itself, will become increasingly dead, unable to support crops. Let's not even mention air quality.
It's all interconnected. Do away with one aspect, and the building is weakened. Do away with a few more...well....you can all guess the outcome.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....my admiration and thanks go to the Sister Senators of South Carolina. And to North Carolina Congressman Jeff Jackson for his blunt, transparent posts about how this government really works. These folks are unicorns. Go find the unicorns in your local, state, and federal government. Encourage them. Volunteer for them. We're gonna need them. BIG time.
The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week
And speaking of Jeff Jackson....this is worth watching:
Say what you will, Jeff Jackson,
freshman Democrat from North Carolina
does the best videos.
Watching him makes me believe
there are sane people out there.
I love this guy.
Seems we are in the state of Gilead acording to some of the writings which is pretty awful. Amazing article.
ReplyDeleteSliver of hope, when Adam Peters says the "small sliver" he's seems to forget that the good people of Kansas voted against adding restrictions on abortion to the state constitution by a 60-40 margin. Some would say a landslide.
ReplyDeleteWP - Most of the Kings and Queens of England. (Apart from our own dear late QEII of course) have been morally ambiguous human beings. Btw - the last actual “English” King was probably Harold II. The rest are foreigners. Danish, French, Welsh, Scottish, Dutch, German and Greek. Who says the UK doesn’t welcome immigrants!
ReplyDeleteThe people who want to turn America into a theocracy, have a very tenuous grasp on history. They want to convince us that the founding fathers were Christian Nationalists, when they were anything but. Based upon their writings, they included, Deists, Agnostics, and less than pious Christians. Their families had come from a Europe with state mandated religions and they wanted to avoid that at all costs. To interpret otherwise is disingenuous at the very least.
Ed.
We love Jeff Jackson here in NC too! He's the only good thing about North Carolina politics. Well, except for young Anderson Clayton, our new head of the NC Democratic Committee. She's great. She recognizes the importance of retail politics. I'm just afraid it's too little too late.
ReplyDelete