The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their proper name – Chinese proverb
I am tired of the conservative religious nuts who lie about their true agenda. In the past, these religions had enough power to enforce their ideas without the need for subterfuge.
Now, they have to lie.
Their goal is to re-frame the debate in order to convince everyone that they are not the misogynistic, homophobic assholes that we have come to know. I am tired of listening to it, so now I’m calling bullshit.
Fascists for freedom
One of the catholic church’s latest agendas is the whole “freedom of conscience” stupidity.
Under freedom of conscience laws, a doctor or pharmacist can refuse to participate in any practice that goes against their personal morality. For instance, doctors can refuse to prescribe birth control if it is against their religion, and pharmacists can refuse to fill a prescription for birth control if it is against their religion.
Come to think of it, all of the discussions on this issue seem to revolve around abortion or birth control. Maybe we should open the discussion up a bit just to see how silly these laws really are.
How about we start with a jehovah’s witness. They do not believe in blood transfusions. You can read all about it at Wikipedia. If a surgeon suddenly converts to this crazy religion, would he be allowed to deny blood transfusions to his patients? If there were no other alternatives available for some reason, would he still be allowed to refuse such treatment against his patient’s desire to minimize the risk of an operation?
Maybe we should even expand this discussion beyond the medical field.
How about some ultra-orthodox jews who work at McDonald’s. Should they be allowed to refuse any orders for a cheeseburger? Maybe muslim employees could join them in not serving bacon burgers, and a hindu person could refuse to serve hamburgers altogether.
Employers are required to make reasonable accommodations for an employee’s religious beliefs, but an employee who flat out refuses to do the job that they were hired to perform is not reasonable.
When a person goes to a hospital, they assume that the doctors will not withhold treatment based upon some arbitrary personal beliefs. Consider a woman who goes to a hospital emergency room after she is raped. She is already dealing with the trauma of the rape itself, then she may have to deal with a long period in the waiting room, the invasiveness of the rape examination, questions by police, etc.
As you can imagine, she may also be worried that the rapist made her pregnant.
To alleviate her concerns about pregnancy, she asks the doctor to prescribe emergency contraception. Whoops. It turns out that she made the mistake of going to a catholic hospital. They do not give out emergency contraception because of their beliefs about abortion.
Of course, she can always leave this hospital, go to another emergency room, and spend another few hours in their waiting room to see a doctor who isn’t a religious asshole.
Sure, no problem. It’s not like she was just raped or something.
Of course, we can pass these kind of laws for abortion and birth control because these are “women’s” issues. A surgeon would never be allowed to refuse a blood transfusion for a patient on religious grounds. That surgeon might kill some poor man.
The ludicrous nature of this whole debate is that it is being put forward by people who have never had the slightest respect for freedom. The catholic church has a two thousand year history of punishing people for not being a catholic. This is the same church who once burned people at the stake for heresy. Now, we are supposed to believe that they care about freedom conscience.
Losing your job because you flat out refuse to perform the duties that the job entails is not a violation of your rights. The church only cares about freedom when “freedom” means giving themselves special privileges.
Dignity my ass
But wait, there is even more catholic manure all hot and steamy. The catholic church now cares deeply about the “dignity” of women: Benedict XVI Supports Greater Respect for Women. Pope Ratzinger wants every woman to “live and fully manifest her particular abilities, obtaining complete respect for her dignity.” Of course, being a priest, a bishop, or even the pope is not listed among a woman’s “particular abilities“.
Certainly, the church would also like to remove abortion or birth control from the list of abilities granted to a woman.
In this case, the church’s goal is to change the debate to be about dignity rather than freedom. They are not trying to trample on your freedoms. They are concerned for your dignity.
When some male pharmacist wants to deny birth control to some woman, he is exercising his freedom of conscience in order to uphold her dignity. What a guy.
Islam has been peddling this same type of bullshit for a few years now. How many times has some muslim cleric claimed that forcing women to be covered from head to toe is for their own protection. If a woman does not wear a tent in public, men might ogle her. She may even be raped.
Of course, muslim societies refuse to solve the rape problem by actually passing decent rape laws. Wearing a tent is a much better solution.
When women in America were demanding the right to vote, many men argued that women should not be exposed to politics because it is such a dirty business. These men were not trying to deny a fundamental human right to an entire class of people, they were just trying to “protect” women from being exposed to such political ugliness.
The same type of statements were made as women began to enter the workforce in positions previously reserved for men. Apparently, the business world can also be ugly. Why should a woman expose her delicate sensibilities to such ugliness instead of staying within the sanctity of the home raising beautiful children?
Remember women, these assholes are just looking out for your best interests. Just allow them to deny your choices. If you only understood what was best, you would let them run your life for you.
Wait, isn’t there a name for this? Patriarchy or something.
Homophobic assholes for jesus
Finally, I am sick of all of the anti-gay fascists who say that they are not “homophobic“.
This one has been going on for a while. It can usually be found among conservative politicians and religious leaders who claim that their opposition to gay marriage or non-discrimination measures does not mean that they “hate” gay people.
It was not all that long ago when these people could say how they really felt about gays and lesbians without any repercussions, but gay people are winning the debate. Conservative politicians and religious leaders know that people can see them for the closed-minded, intolerant bigots that they really are.
Now, the more politically savvy amongst them try to re-frame the debate. It’s about preserving traditional marriage. Tampering with the ancient institution of marriage is a dangerous sociological experiment that will undermine the very foundations of our society. One steaming crock of shit coming right up.
Here is the problem. They are seeking to deprive an entire group of people of some basic human rights. If violence is one way that hatred manifests, creating unjust laws that target a specific group of people is certainly another way to express hatred.
Any society which rests upon a foundation of hatred and unjust discrimination deserves to be undermined. Maybe, the foundation should be replaced by something a little more stable.
How about justice and freedom. These might work a little better for you, and they are already a part of our tradition in other areas.
These assholes know better than to call someone a faggot or dyke in public. You will never see them do the limp wrist thing when referring to a gay man. The name calling has stopped, but the hatred goes on.
Conservatives can whine all they want about how they are not homophobes, but their actions speak volumes about the hate filled logic of their homophobic agenda.
