Libby Anne: “Who Are the Real Babies? House-Proofing and Modesty“
When you’re raised in the movement, even the smallest children are taught to have self control and to not touch what is right in front of their eyes. In fact, it’s considered quite the accomplishment to be able to leave an expensive vase or dish of candy on a coffee table and know that even the child just learning to pull herself to standing won’t touch them. It’s a way of showcasing your children’s obedience and you’re success at child training.
For some reason, doing the same for adult men – i.e. placing a woman in a miniskirt or low-cut shirt in his line of vision and expecting him to not act on his desires – is unacceptable. Babies have to have self-control. Adult men can’t be expected to have self-control. Parents shouldn’t remove objects of temptation from babies’ line of vision. Women should cover up everything that might prove tempting from men’s line of vision.
Frank Schaeffer: “How could they believe this stuff?“
It takes training for years to reject what is true. That training starts in a million Sunday schools and carries on through home schooling or private religious “education” and is completed in a hundred alternative Christian “colleges.” It is sustained by a network of magazines like Christianity Today, World and many more. It has its own celebrity culture with heroes that no one outside the religious ghetto has heard of but who are selling literally millions of books to their followers.
Is it any wonder that a bedrock article of faith in the Republican Party is now that public schools are evil? Is it any wonder Santorum says he objects to President Obama saying all kids should work to go to college? In fact anything public and open to accountability is to be feared. Education is feared most of all.
All public space is hated because in that space, from infrastructure projects to the Federal Reserve to the UN to all government agencies, there has to be an acceptable baseline of fact that everyone buys into. Universities and the media — both places where ideas are discussed openly — are hated most of all.
Brian Cahill: “Religious liberty and credibility“
American Catholics and the rest of the country know that the real agenda of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops is to stop any government health care mandate. This is sad and ironic because the Catholic Church has historically been a strong advocate of health care access for those who need it. Worse, the conference is specifically demanding an exemption for any employer who would have a “conscience” problem with providing contraceptive coverage for employees. In other words, in the name of “religious liberty,” these bishops want to force their religious belief on employees who do not share their belief. Not only is this effort turning religious liberty on its head, but it ignores the reality that affordable health care, including contraception, is the most effective way to significantly reduce abortion.
… The Catholic bishops who have led the charge on this issue have succeeded only in showing how wide the gap is between the Catholic faithful and some of its bishops, have left the impression that the issue of conscience only seems to arise over matters of sexuality, have ended up intentionally or otherwise in bed with the likes of Newt Gingrich, have inadvertently become a potential obstacle to affordable health care for those most in need, and have further diminished the moral influence and teaching authority that many Catholics used to respect and desire from their bishops.
Barack Obama: “Remarks by the President to UAW Conference,” Feb. 28, 2012
You want to talk about values? Hard work — that’s a value. Looking out for one another — that’s a value. The idea that we’re all in it together, and I’m my brother’s keeper and sister’s keeper — that’s a value.
They’re out there talking about you like you’re some special interest that needs to be beaten down. Since when are hardworking men and women who are putting in a hard day’s work every day — since when are they special interests? Since when is the idea that we look out for one another a bad thing?
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