Soldiers of Gawd
I know people, some of them long time friends, who are opposed to any reproductive choice for women that includes abortion. They are religious people who belong to either a Catholic or Evangelical Christian Church (to be specific, although I'm sure all Churches have members who feel the same way) and they believe that abortion is murder and that by opposing it they are doing Gawd's work here on Earth.
A couple of these people are friends of mine who otherwise think very much like me, politically - so - we don't talk about abortion.
But, it occurs to me that so much of our side's fight to secure, maintain, enhance reproductive choice for women is focussed on these people because they're the ones who are the foot soldiers for this particular mission - when the focus should be on their Churches, you know, those institutions that enjoy a tax-free status because they aren't supposed to be political movements out campaigning against female human rights.
Unless they enjoy tax-free status BECAUSE they are political movements out campaigning against female human rights. Hm... Chicken/egg, chicken/egg, chicken/egg...
So, why are we so reluctant, on our side, to take on organized religion when it is "The Church" that is so clearly funding and politicizing what should be, quite simply, a medical matter? I mean, really, the gloves have to come off, I think, or we're just yelling in the wind - or worse - at our friends who are mere foot soldiers. There's nothing sacrosanct about any church in our society - I've been to a couple - and yet we still treat churches as if they are holy places of worship and not hotbeds of misogyny, off-limits to a good hammering in the media light of day.
"The Church" is just a freeloader, livin' large off the fat of my land while it tries, using a shitload of political influence and money and power, to make me a second class citizen. In my opinion, what we need is a good ol' Heny VIII to come along and swat them ALL back into place. "The Church" stands in the way of female human rights and I'm not sure why we aren't shouting that out from rooftops, and, more importantly, the media - in this country, where we can.
Or can we?
