Richard Nixon ushered in the War on Drugs. George W. Bush, the War on Terror. And now Rick Santorum introduces the War on Porn.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum says that “America is suffering a pandemic of harm from pornography” because the Obama administration favors “pornographers over children.”
In an undated statement on his official website, the former Pennsylvania senator promises that he will “vigorously” fight to make sure porn isn’t easily available in the U.S.
“Pornography is toxic to marriages and relationships,” the statement says. “It contributes to misogyny and violence against women. It is a contributing factor to prostitution and sex trafficking.”
“Current federal ‘obscenity’ laws prohibit distribution of hardcore (obscene) pornography on the Internet, on cable/satellite TV, on hotel/motel TV, in retail shops and through the mail or by common carrier,” the statement continues, adding that these laws should be “vigorously enforced.”
So, to review.
Extending health insurance to 30 million people = socialist tyranny.
Instructing the Attorney General of the United States to prosecute Marriott for showing boobies = small government.
Frank Schaeffer is the go-to guy for the scoop on what the Religious Right is up to. Wednesday he appeared with Thomas Roberts to discuss Rick Santorum, Mitt Romney, and the sudden preoccupation Republicans have with religion and wedge issues like abortion and contraception.
Schaeffer had three really important observations. First, he points out that this is something that's been brewing for a long time, that there's absolutely nothing unexpected about it. His father and cohorts set up the strategy and laid the groundwork. He specifically mentions Robert George of Princeton University who is founder and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions is largely funded with donations from the Bradley, Olin and Scaife foundations, all of whom are known for donating very large sums of money to right-wing causes. As Max Blumenthal notes in his excellent article for The Nation, Robert George is a culture warrior, virulently anti-gay, and the point man for the "50-year project," Schaeffer also mentions Richard John Neuhaus, the Lutheran minister turned Catholic priest who advised the Bush administration.
Moment of snark: Surely this wasn't what Rick Santorum was thinking of when he criticized President Obama for encouraging kids to get a college education, was it? This wouldn't be snobbery at all, right?
For this one, let's start with a good definition of "theocracy."
the·oc·ra·cy
a form of government in which God or a deity is recognized as the supreme civil ruler, the God's or deity's laws being interpreted by the ecclesiastical authorities.
Rick Santorum, who is a radically conservative, pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic, has said that birth control is "not okay," has argued that states should have the right to ban contraception, that the federal government should require schools to teach creationism, that both homosexuals and adulterers should be imprisoned, and that doctors who perform a legal medical procedure are criminals.
Now, I'm not sure who Lewis is referring to when he writes "people" in that tweet -- but I do think it's deeply ironic that someone like Santorum is expressing alarm about theocracy in Iran.
I didn't think I could have any less respect for the institutional Catholic church, but they keep setting new lows. This is simply appalling.
The Catholic Church is known for its poor treatment of its workers (I know someone who's taught in Catholic schools for 30 years, and I make more on unemployment than she does in her weekly paycheck) and since the Church climbed into bed with the American right wing some decades back, they've dropped any pretense that they're applying the spirit of Jesus' teachings:
Employees at Catholic Charities were told Monday that the social services organization is changing its health coverage to avoid offering benefits to same-sex partners of its workers -- the latest fallout from a bitter debate between District officials trying to legalize same-sex marriage and the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington.
Starting Tuesday, Catholic Charities will not offer benefits to spouses of new employees or to spouses of current employees who are not already enrolled in the plan. A letter describing the change in health benefits was e-mailed to employees Monday, two days before same-sex marriage will become legal in the District.
"We looked at all the options and implications," said the charity's president, Edward J. Orzechowski. "This allows us to continue providing services, comply with the city's new requirements and remain faithful to the church's teaching."
Catholic Charities, which receives $22 million from the city for social service programs, protested in the run-up to the council's December vote to allow same-sex marriage, saying that it might not be able to continue its contracts with the city, including operating homeless shelters and facilitating city-sponsored adoptions. Being forced to recognize same-sex marriage, church officials said, could make it impossible for the church to be a city contractor because Catholic teaching opposes such unions.
After the council voted to legalize gay marriage, Catholic Charities last month transferred its foster-care program -- 43 children, 35 families and seven staff members -- to another provider, the National Center for Children and Families.
Orzechowski said Monday that the change in health benefits will be the last move necessary in response to the legislation.
"We do not anticipate any further changes whatsoever," he said. "Taking the action we have on foster care and spousal we feel has addressed everything the new law requires of us."
Maybe this wouldn't stick in my craw so much if they'd taken the same "principled" stand against the Church's numerous child abusers and pedophiles -- before the multi-million dollar payouts, I mean.
Washington — On a recent Saturday afternoon, after completing his Sabbath morning prayers, Senator Joe Lieberman of Connecticut braved a four-mile, snowy walk to the Capitol building from his Georgetown synagogue.
“I have a responsibility to my constituents, really to my conscience, to be here on something as important as health care reform,” Lieberman told the congressional newspaper The Hill, describing his wish to combine his Jewish beliefs with his duties as a lawmaker.
By walking to a special Saturday Senate debate on health care reform, Lieberman was complying with the traditional religious ban against driving during the Sabbath. But Lieberman’s many critics in the Jewish community claim that the Connecticut independent is missing the broader Jewish concern.
Well, yes. This is exactly the kind of pious showboating Joe likes to substitute for actual faith. The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism released a statement back in 1993 on Judaism and Health Care Reform, in which they pointed out the thinking behind their stand:
It is a positive commandment to save the life of a person in danger from illness. This duty falls under the general obligation of saving life, which is grounded in a number of biblical verses, including "Thou shalt not stand idly by the blood of your fellow," (Lev. 19:16) "And your fellow shall live by your side," (Lev. 25:36), and "You shall restore it [in this case, life] to him" (Deut. 22:2). So great is the mitzvah of saving life, that nearly all other religious obligations are subordinated to it: we violate the Sabbath to save a person's life (Pikuah nefesh doha et ha-shabbat, Yoma 85b), and there is a general principle in Jewish law that danger to life and health is of greater religious concern than ritual matters (Hamirah sakanta mi'issura, Hullin 10a).
Tzedaka -- Communal Obligations to Meeting Basic Human Needs: Just as the Jewish community recognizes an obligation to provide for such basic needs as food, clothing, and shelter through the collection and distribution of communal funds, so, too, have Jews insisted that no person be denied access to health care on account of inability to pay.
While physicians are not required to provide their services for free ("A physician who takes nothing is worth nothing" -- Baba Kamma 85a), communal subsidies matched by reduced rates for poor patients have been the norm.[Shulhan Arukh, Yoreh Deah 249:16; see also Responsa Ramat Rahel of Rabbi Eliezer Y. Waldenberg, sections 24-25]
Yes, Joe. It's about saving lives. Danger to life and health is more important than ritual matters. But then again, it seems like you're more concerned with making yourself look "religious." Shame on you for using your faith as a protective cover for hardball corporate politics.
“Health care reform is the key moral issue facing the country right now,” said one of those critics, Rabbi Charles Arian of Beth Jacob Synagogue in Norwich, Conn. “I will be personally disappointed if it stops dead in its tracks because Senator Lieberman invokes a filibuster.”
Lieberman has vowed to vote against ending a Republican filibuster of the health care reform bill that the Senate is now debating if it includes a government-run insurance program. Due to the Senate’s current balance of forces, that would effectively kill a historic effort to reform the country’s ramshackle health insurance system, which now excludes millions of people from obtaining health coverage.
[...] Lieberman’s threat is being met with harsh criticism within the Jewish community in Connecticut, where public-opinion surveys show that strong general majorities support a government-sponsored insurance option.
Widely seen as the key domestic cause for American Jews right now, health care reform has several national Jewish groups actively lobbying for it. Among them is Jewish Federations of North America, the umbrella organization for the nation’s local Jewish philanthropic federations, which are deeply involved in funding health care. But national Jewish organizations are not, by and large, focusing on Lieberman.
It's time they start, because he's the main stumbling block. From the Hartford Courant last week:
A group of religious leaders is still trying to sway U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman to drop his opposition to government run health insurance, also known as public option.
They drew hundreds of supporters to a candlelight vigil outside the senator's Stamford home last month. Nine days later, they gathered outside his Hartford office and delivered hundreds of prayers for health reform with a public option, written by supporters, to Lieberman's staff.
Leaders of the group, called the Interfaith Fellowship for Universal Health Care, met with Lieberman on Monday but said he maintained his opposition to the public option.
Their latest attempt to lobby the senator will appear in newspapers across the state today, an advertisement featuring a letter from Norwalk Rabbi Joseph Ron Fish describing the imperative of multiple faiths to seek the welfare of everyone, particularly the meek and vulnerable. The advertisement includes the signatures of 240 Connecticut religious leaders and will argue that Lieberman must support "real reform" as a matter of conscience, according to the group.
Joe doesn't care what happens in Connecticut, because he probably won't run again. But he does care what the national media thinks about him, and those shallow scribes take his "faith" on faith. I'd love to see one reporter from a major publication or network ask him how to justify his opposition to his bill in light of his faith - and they should have a rabbi who supports health care reform to challenge him.
It's possible that Brit Hume's statements on Fox News Sunday show he's getting forgetful in his later years. How else to explain it when he so solemnly says Obama can't engage with Iran because of the unrest over the election? After all, he was saying the same thing last year! Via Media Matters:
WALLACE: So, a fiercely fought campaign in Iran; results that show that Ahmadinejad won in a landslide. And now we have people in the streets, supporters of the more moderate challenger, Mousavi, saying that the election was stolen. Brit, where does this leave things inside Iran?
HUME: Well, it looks as if Ahmadinejad will cling to power. He is supported by the key elements of the theocracy that runs that country. Whether these protests will grow or spread is in doubt. They seem to have subsided today after all of the trouble they had yesterday.
I think it leaves Iran about where it was, but showing the world an even clearer picture, as if any were needed, this is basically a police state. And it is difficult, therefore, to see how President Obama's dreams of a more constructive relationship with the powers that be there can go forward, given the fact that this election appears to have been defective if not utterly fraudulent. I mean, after all, Mousavi -- Ahmadinejad is, according to the results, was supposed to have carried Mousavi's hometown by a large margin.
See, Brit's kind of a broken record. Here's what he said in May 2008:
WALLACE: Brit, you made it clear that you think that, on substance, that Obama's wrong. The idea of holding these meetings without preconditions is a bad idea.
Obama goes back and says, "Look -- look at the Bush policy over the last seven years. Has that made Iran weaker or stronger?" Isn't that a fair point on his --
HUME: It's a fair point, but who says it isn't -- who can seriously argue that if President Bush had had some kind of meeting and direct negotiation with [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad that that would have -- would have weakened Iran's aggressive posture in some way?
That makes no sense. In fact, what it would have done would be to elevate this slightly crazy guy who says these unbelievably nutty things to the level of a world statesman, which his present situation does not suggest he is.
Now, some people on the Obama side will say, "Well, you wouldn't really meet with him. You might meet with one of the mullahs." Oh, that would be -- that's a great idea.
I mean, you just stop and think about it. When you sit down at a table with somebody, you expect them to offer you something, but you have to offer them something in return. It's not for the point -- it's not for the purpose of just having a nice chat and getting to know one another.
Why doesn't he just come out and say it? He's against diplomacy, especially when a Democrat does it!
