Jeannieology of a not–Poe

I’ve seen any number of ridiculous objections to the birth control mandate in the US, but this one has got to be one of the loopiest. I found it at Sadly No!, and I swear that it is not a Poe. It’s by someone named Jeannie DeAngelis, and is titled “Is Obama purposely altering America’s religious complexion?”. Considering that Ms. DeAngelis’ writing has also been found at websites like The American Stinker pretty much sums up all you need to know about her. And since I haven’t done a fisking in so long, DeAngelis’ screed provides the perfect target.

Just like a benevolent government that has worked hard to help provide naïve young girls with parent-free abortions,[...]

All women and girls have reproductive rights. Parents don’t own their kids, and they shouldn’t suffer because they happened to be born to fetus fetishist parents. Abortion (and contraception, although DeAngelis didn’t mention it in this context) are legal.

[I]t stands to reason that ‘patriarchal’ Christianity would be next in line to be undermined.[...]

If patriarchal religion is being undermined I’m all for it.

When it comes to challenging authority, the President seems to be particularly obsessed with using birth control and abortion as a weapon.

“Birth control and abortion as a weapon?” You have until the count of ten before I pump your guts full of pills!;)

[...]Barry seems excessively concerned about ensuring that everyone, regardless of age, credo or upbringing, can obtain free condoms, morning-after pills, sterilization, and abortion-on-demand.

Actually, economic and other barriers ensure that most women don’t have abortion or contraception on demand. Additionally, the Hyde Amendment and other laws ensure that federal tax dollars and none of your money™ are not being used to fund (most) abortions (cite).

The only religious group Obama respects and is careful not offend, whether religiously or parentally, is Muslims.

Bush emphasized on a number of occasions that he was fighting Islamic terrorists and extremists and not the vast majority of Muslims who are neither.

The Muslim faith has drawn a line in the sand and the President, who feels very comfortable defying every other authority from the Vatican to the parents of 14-year-old girls[...]

The Pope runs his own country. And again, children shouldn’t suffer because they had the misfortune to be born to parents who abuse them by denying them legal health care.

[A]cquiesces, without question, to the tenets of the Koran.

This conspiracy theory that Obama is a secret Muslim has been debunked a million times.

Barack Obama knows full well that “Muslims believe that health insurance is ‘haraam,’ or forbidden, because they liken the ambiguity and probability of insurance to gambling.” Thus, without question the Obama administration has decided that, unlike other faiths, “This belief excludes them from any of the requirements, mandates, or penalties set forth in [Obamacare].” Obama respects the Muslim stance on gambling, and presto! Muslims are exempt from health insurance, and more specifically the birth control, sterilization, and abortion mandates that accompany it.

Actually, as Snopes and FactCheck make clear, while some Muslim groups object to life insurance, most Muslims have no problem with health insurance or other insurance required by law. Considering that no Muslim groups objects to Social Security, which Christian groups granted exemptions under the appropriate laws do, it is unlikely that any Muslim would be granted an exemption. As Snopes puts it, “[N]o Muslim group has ever qualified for an exemption under the guidelines which define which religious groups would be exempt from the health care law.”

And furthermore, there is no abortion mandate.

DeAngelis then goes on to quote some Catholic dogma about human reproduction and sexuality. The appropriate response to this is, of course, to point out that if one is concerned about abortions (like DeAngelis herself mentioned as recently as last month) and wants to reduce the number of abortions, improved access to contraception is the number one way to do it. That, along with better sex education, is how places like the Czech Republic (cite), Georgia (cite), and elsewhere (cite) have reduced their abortion rates.

Barack Obama, who’s obsessed with everyone else’s sex life[...]

“[O]bsessed with everyone else’s sex life?” I thought this article was written by Jeannie DeAngelis, and not Yagotta B. Kidding.

The question arises as to why a President so focused on controlling so many Americans’ reproductive habits and overriding religion[...]

98% of sexually active Catholic women use contraception. A Majority of Catholics support no–cost contraception (cite). The only religion being overrided is that of the professional virgins almost no one listens to anyway. In addition, as David Frum (a Republican) pointed out, those who oppose the birth control mandate on the grounds of “freeddom of religion” are incoherent, much less the fact that several states have required churches to follow similar rules several years already.

[...]Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Barack Obama have joined forces, blocked the exits, and are distributing free condoms at the contraceptive circus.

Contraceptive circus? Really?

Meanwhile, Islam is exempt.

See just above. DeAngelis mentioned this in the part of the paragraph that I skipped over. She sure does know how to rant, doesn’t she?

The President is urging and actively assisting in lowering birth rates in a Christian community whose tenets reject contraception and abortion and stands by while, according to Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life population projections, “Globally, the Muslim population is forecast to grow at about twice the rate of the non-Muslim population over the next two decades.”[...]

Ooooh, alert alert, it’s the scary foreign people! That aside, if you read such demographic reports, you’ll find out that the fertility rate in the Muslim world is plummetting. The reason for the continued increase is, of course, population momentum: When you have a large cohort of people of prime reproductive age, the population will almost certainly go up even with a low birth rate.

DeAngelis continues ranting the same stuff for her last paragraph, reiterating her previous wingnut word salad about Muslim exemptions and pretty much nothing that hasn’t been debunked above.

Update: This post used to have a picture, but I removed it on the grounds that it added no value to this post.

I thought they were fiscal conservatives

For people who claim to hate government spending so much, they sure had no difficulty finding the money to triple the budget earmarked for defending the Preservation of Bigotry Defense of (heterosexual) Marriage Act.

Hat tip.

Why not just admit that you want women barefoot and pregnant?

At least he’s honest:

The goal is to get government money out of the abortion process and if contraceptive services have to suffer a bit of collateral damage in the process, so be it. When The Texas Tribune asked state Rep. Wayne Christian (R-Nacogdoches), a supporter of the family planning cuts, if this was a war on birth control, he said “yes.”

“Well of course this is a war on birth control and abortions and everything, that’s what family planning is supposed to be about,” Christian said.

Family planning clinics are routinely referred to by many Texas Republican legislators as “abortion clinics” even though none of the 71 family planning clinics in the state that receive government funding provide abortions. Texas and federal law prohibits that, but most women’s health clinics will refer women or teens who want an abortion to a provider.

“They’re sitting here, referring women out to receive abortions,” Christian said in an interview with NPR. “Those are the clinics, including Planned Parenthood, we were targeting.”

If he truly wanted to eliminate abortion, he’d be pushing birth control endlessly.

When people like me say that the religious right and faux–lifers are really motivated by a desire to control women, we’re not kidding. People like Wayne Christian really are reactionaries who want women back in their homes.

Norwegian terrorist is a misogynist terrorist

Now, virtually everyone knows that the terrorist likely responsible for the attacks in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, is a wingnut–type extremist, with virulently anti–Islam and anti–atheism views. What you might not know is that he’s also an evil misogynist.

From his 1500+ page manifesto, a partly plagiarized collection of the mad ravings of a maniac mass murderer:

Worst US presidents?

At Lawyers, Guns, & Money there is an interesting discussion of who the worst American president is. As you might expect, the usual suspects are named the worst.

What about my view? As a Canadian I am tempted to choose Madison. Frankly, invading your country* is an excellent way to get anyone to hate you. But nevertheless, other considerations must come into play, and these compel me to conclude that Madison is certainly not the worst.

I know this might be an unpopular position, but I retain my view that George W. Bush is not the worst president. As a matter of fact, it might be argued that it is too early to rate him. Consider Truman. When he left office, he was absolutely hated. Since then, he has become more and more highly ranked amongst historians. The distance of time allows people to move beyond partisanship and get a more objective look, while the president’s legacy gets time to develop and become fully apparent. For these reasons, one could make the case that it is too early to rate Bush (and Clinton and Obama, at least).

I think James Buchanan was the worst US president. Bush, whose achievements include an expansion of the surveillance state, statist reactionaries on SCOTUS, blowing the budget on deficits, the rise of torture, creeping theocracy, the Iraq War, and having a really smooth outgoing presidential transition, at least kept the goddamn country together. Buchanan, on the other hand, came in as President of the United States of America, and left as President of the Untied States of America. You can’t do worse than that.

This still doesn’t justify opposition

Many opponents of marriage equality often justify their opposition on religious grounds. The essence of all this is basically the belief that gay sex (or homosexuality), is a sin. In actuality, such a belief does not actually provide justification for being against marriage equality. This is the case even if we put their premises in the best possible light.

To show why, the first thing I’ll do is grant, just for the sake of argument, that gay sex is a sin. But the sinfulness of gay sex does not provide justification opposition to marriage equality. If gay sex was their only problem, then they would have to have no problem with a sexless same–sex marriage. After all, if both parties in a sexless same–sex marriage remained celibate, there would be no gay sex and therefore no sin. Since there’s no sin, no justification for opposition remains.

Analogous reasoning can be used for homosexuality. If we grant for the sake of argument that homosexuality is a sin, then they would have to have no problem with a same–sex marriage between straight people. In such a same–sex marriage, there’d bo no homosexuality, and therefore no sin.

But of course, it’s obvious that wingnuts’ opposition to same–sex marriage isn’t really about any deeply–held beliefs, or any real concern for the sanctity of marriage, but rather due to animosity towards LGBT people. And besides, coherence from fundies and wingnuts is as likely as snow falling on Tarawa.

So much for family values

The so–called “family values” of GOP presidential candidates are getting worse over time. This chart from Salon is instructive.

Nothing more to say, really.