The Vagina Ideologues

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The Vagina Ideologues
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"A firestorm among 'many' Catholics? Or the old dudes who run it?"

Exactly! Polls show that most American Catholics agree with Barack Obama about this (even the nuns who run the Catholic Health Association agree with Obama), and, in fact, most disagree with their church on the whole subject of contraception.

Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich are both Catholics. Under America's Constitution, they're free to believe anything they want, and I'd defend that right, myself. But what they want to do is force their own religious beliefs on everyone else. That's where I draw the line. That's where every American, Catholic or not, should draw the line.

Of course, I blogged about this yesterday. But I particularly wanted to post Jon Stewart's follow-up segment here:

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The Vagina Ideologues - Sean Hannity's Holy Sausage Fest
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This is the part I really had to post here, even though putting two Comedy Channel clips into a single post sometimes causes problems. (My apologies, if you have to refresh this post to get them to work right.)

Could you believe that "holy sausage fest" on Fox News? Those were the people Fox has talking about, primarily, contraception for women! Those are the religious experts, supposedly, on women's health and reproductive issues. Those are, in fact, the men who want to control women's bodies for them.

Oh, sure, "contraception" includes vasectomies for men. Indeed, among the Catholic men I know, vasectomies are the preferred birth control device, once their families are the size both parents want. But most of this uproar is about contraception for women. It's about women controlling their own bodies.

When Rick Santorum complains that contraception is just a license for sexual activity, do you really think he's talking about men? Of course not. These people think of child-birth as punishment for sluts. Without that ever-present threat, why, who knows what women might do?

And nothing shows this as clearly as Sean Hannity and his "holy sausage fest" - all men, complaining about women's rights. Of course, they're over-the-top - maybe even flamboyant? - in their denunciations of some non-existent "war on religion." Yes, they'd die for their religion,... not that anyone is actually asking them to do so.

In their minds - again, the minds of right-wing men (celibate men, many of them) determined to maintain control of women - their religion is under attack when we don't force their beliefs on everyone else in this country.

Yeah, freedom of religion and the strict separation of church and state is "war on religion." Well, maybe it is. But it's produced the most religious developed nation in the world. Funny, huh?

But what's really funny, what's really over-the-top, is that inevitable comparison of the Obama administration with Nazi Germany. Right. The problem with Nazi Germany was their separation of church and state, huh? And our mixed-race president is exactly like those Germans who obsessed over racial purity. Could these people be any more ridiculous?

The answer is,... yes, of course they can! Quoting Martin Niemoeller? "I didn't speak up when they came for the Communists, because I wasn't a Communist..." Heh, heh. Can you imagine these right-wing loons speaking up for Communists now?

[Note that I was quoting that priest, not Niemoeller himself. Also, note that Martin Niemoeller wasn't exactly the shining light you might think, if the only thing you know about him is this quote: "First they came for the Communists but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists but I was not one of them, so I did not speak out. Then they came for the Jews but I was not Jewish so I did not speak out. And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."]

Well, I don't want to get off on a tangent (as I so often do). Let's just say that, if you really think there's any comparison between the Obama administration and Nazi Germany, you clearly know nothing about either of them.