In preparation for the Point/Counterpoint section of this article, I donned a tie and nice shirt. What you can see is it's immediate effect on my cognitive skills- what you can't see is that I'm not wearing any pants.
The feminism unit in history class is usually just about the easiest thing for a coach to teach the entire year. There are no complex geopolitical realities behind it, no battle dates to memorize, and there’s no worries of getting bogged down in any political debate- no one except Ann Coulter is possibly going to say that women shouldn’t have the right to vote. But something happened to me during a lecture just a few weeks ago that made me realize just how split people are on the idea of women’s place in the world.
“Man,” said some guy in the desk in front of me, to his friend. “This is all Eve’s fault. She should have just had sex with Adam and then never ate that apple- maybe died after that. Then there wouldn’t be so much shit wrong with the world.”
That brought up a lot of questions. How could she have carried the child to term if she’d been dead? How would they have had sex if there had not been enough sin in the garden for them to shed their conveniently placed fig leaves? If there was no sin, would our entire existence be worshiping God round the clock like some Twilight Zone North Birmingham All-Black Chorus? Was it not God’s plan to have Eve eat the fruit the entire time? Most importantly, how are all of the world’s problems the fault of a fictional character created by some sexist fucking goat herders 2000 years ago?
Women have made a lot of strides since the time of those sexist fucking goat herders- they’ve gained the right to vote and they’ve made their way out of the kitchen and into the workforce. Despite this, there’s still a lot of ground to be made because people think like that asshole in my history class: that the only good thing the first woman ever did was pump out some babies and that after that, there wasn’t really much use for her. Now, I’m not saying he believes what he does because of the bible or that the Christian story of Genesis caused all the sexism in the world. You didn’t just open up Bitch magazine. But it is an indication of how people think that it’s still accepted, despite the fact that, let’s face it, the story is about as fucking stupid as the latest Tim Allen pilot.
It would seem like the issue of women’s access to birth control would be a no-brainer, but sadly, that doesn’t seem to be true. It turns out the only thing that conservatives are more afraid of than a woman having equal reproductive rights is any black teenager with Skittles and Iced Tea. I wasn’t sure on exactly what terms someone could possibly disagree with what should have been a legislative slam dunk for the President. What kind of stupid arguments and ridiculous logic would a claim so facile even use? I decided to do something unprecedented for the website- to probe the conservative blogosphere like the asshole of a man attempting to get a Viagra prescription in a feminist joke bill. It started out as merely an investigation, but it ended up as Zopp Zopp… Point/Counterpoint.
The full article can be read here. The godly conservative crusader’s words will be in red, like those of Jesus. Mine will be in black.
The pill has accomplished a lot more than the mere regulation of hormones this month. It has unmasked the Obama administrations’ steps toward unlimited power for the central government and its unique disdain for people who don’t think like the aristocratic left, who prefer to regulate the great unwashed from safe distances in the nation’s capitol and Manhattan cocktail parties.
We know as soon as the article begins, we’re in the territory of a Sirius XM Patriot: Conservative Talk Radio/ NASCAR Updates show host: we don’t know what Obama did, but for some reason, it’s the worst thing that’s ever happened. The authoress seems mad because the President wants the government to cover contraception on insurance, which is apparently really overstepping the line. But honestly, I’ll take a federal government with the power to enforce equality than one that lets people do whatever the hell they want. Shit, if the feds had this same attitude toward regulating equal rights after the Civil War, the South would have voted to move all black people to Negro reservations in the Florida Everglades.
President Obama asserts with his policy tweak Friday that insurance companies will now do – for free – what faith-based organizations do not wish to do. Nonsense. Companies will price their products based on actual costs, and all will cover that expense.
She talks about everyone covering a healthcare expense like it’s a government phone tap or seizure of private property. “Barack wants to allow people access to healthcare… and people will have to pay for it fairly!” The easiest argument against the “government spending on social programs is socialism” idea is that it’s just fucking selfish to think that. Poor people getting free medical service, getting lifesaving procedures that they can’t afford is a fucking tragedy to this woman, and yet she’s somehow on the side of the moral majority. Look, rich people. We don’t have to live in a world where the choice is between your yacht and Government-Sponsored Skid Row Tenementopia™. There’s the alternative, that sure, you earned your money and that’s fine, but maybe you can be selfless enough to pay into the government enough to, I dunno, save lives, and you can put money in your piggy bank for a month or two to get your fucking yacht.
In the controversy over forcing faith-based organizations, charities and non-profits to include coverage for life-ending drugs, sterilizations and contraception – against their religious beliefs – the Obama administration has stepped in not one – but two – constitutional quagmires. Much has been said about the obvious violations of the First Amendment right to religious freedom trampled so obviously by the administration’s decree that all faith-based organizations have one-year or else to comply with administration thinking – or else. But what about the constitutional protections that the Founding Fathers insisted upon that no one would be forced to pay monies to the church of the ruling class or to be punished for not being a member of the philosophical temple of choice.
Listen, just because people who happen to be Catholic have to pay (maybe) for equal rights they don’t agree with doesn’t mean they can’t express that they disagree with it. Racist bakers can’t have “Whites Only” pie shops, but they can bitch and moan about it all they want. This is something Catholic doctors have to do, stupid sense of morality or not. Statistically, physicians don’t really love touching people’s assholes, and it’s gay enough to be a theological issue to morons. But people need prostate exams, and if you really have that much of a problem performing it or any other medical procedure, you shouldn’t have become a doctor, you goddamn idiot.
The issue is not whether contraception is available. The issue is who pays. And whether all, including the Catholic Church, must be made to kiss the ring of the American monarch and swear loyalty to his value system. Henry the Eighth would be proud. The contraception wars have begun to play out like an epic struggle between the Tudors and the known world, and all must subscribe to the viewpoint of the ruling class or lose business and favor and fortune. One looks for the ghost of Sir Thomas Moore to emerge with the timeless message that it is not always possible to bow to the demands of the ruling class.
Obama’s an American monarch? That’s pretty harsh. People are still hesitant to call Andrew Jackson that, and he decided that all Indians needed a free mandatory vacation to Florida, courtesy of their feet.
For the record, I am not Catholic, nor do I share all the views of the Catholic Church on contraception. (Interestingly, the Obama administration has chosen to include life-ending drugs like ella under its definition of “contraception” as though there is no moral difference between killing a life and altering a cycle. Such moral lapses seem common to this administration.)
The morning after pill is not an abortion pill, but it doesn’t surprise me you didn’t know that, given that you didn’t even want to use the word “tampon” a couple of paragraphs back
If first the government comes for the Catholics, and we say nothing, who will there be to protest when a powerful, emboldened, secular government turns its attentions on the rest of America? ObamaCare and all the forming tentacles of its coercive programs must be overturned to protect the freedoms we all rely on.
I learned a lot on my journey into the world of Conservatics. I learned that the slightest action toward equality made by a Democrat president, let alone a black one, is (in order), Secularism, Dogma, Monarchical Absolutism, Autocracy, Theocracy and Nazism, somehow all at the same time. I learned that Fox News.com will publish practically anything, and that anyone who thinks, at this point, that the network is “fair and balanced” is a god damn lunatic. I learned that the idea of women’s rights is extremely scary for some reason, and that the only thing more horrifying to the average Republican is the idea of the government using one person’s money to help another. I realize now that I shouldn’t have really been surprised that taking two of the GOP’s least favorite things- women and effective government- and putting them together resulted in a political quagmire. So, sorry, girls- thanks to people who think like this chick, it might be a while before you’ll be able to make decisions about your own genitals. But it’s not that bad. If the past 6000 years of human civilization have shown us anything, it’s that letting men make all the decisions has just been swell for everyone.
