NY Times Sept 21 editorial “The Pope and the Birth Control Ban”

Edd Doerr

The NY Times Sept 21 editorial “The Pope and the Birth Control Ban” is one of the best ever.

 It made all the right points and could not be condensed. Actually, it made exactly the same points that I have long been making in various venues. It needs to be read and circulated far and wide.

The only thing that could be added to it is that Pope Francis’s good words about action on climate change and social justice will fall well short if the Vatican does not reverse its perverse, damaging, misogynist bans on birth control and abortion. I made this point in a short piece published in the National Catholic Reporter in February. Overpopulation will thwart nearly all efforts to deal with climate change and its concomitants – atmospheric CO2 build-up, fossil fuel overuse, environmental degradation, toxic waste accumulation, deforestation, desertification, soil erosion and nutrient loss, rising sea levels, increasing sociopolitical instability and violence.

BTW, I recently  noticed that Bertrand Russell brought up the overpopulation problem in his 1929 book Marriage and Morals, when world population was about ¼ of what it is today.

THE TIDE OF HISTORY FLOWS LEFT

By James A. Haught (provided by Edd Doerr) 

Tribune News Service (TNS)

One of my history-minded friends has a long-range political view summed up
in three words: Liberals always win. Complex social struggles may take
centuries or decades, he says, but they eventually bring victory for human
rights, more democratic liberties and other progressive goals.

Look how long it took to end slavery. Generations of agitation and the
horrible Civil War finally brought triumph for liberal abolitionists and
defeat for conservative slavery supporters.

Look how long it took for women to gain the right to vote. In the end,
liberal suffragettes prevailed, conservative opponents lost.

Look at the long battle to give couples the right to practice birth control.

Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger was jailed eight times for the
crime of mentioning sex - but she eventually transformed U.S. society. A
Supreme Court victory in 1965 struck down contraceptive bans for married
couples, and a follow-up victory in 1972 struck them down for unwed ones.
Liberals won, conservatives lost.

The same pattern applies to the struggle for Social Security pensions for
retirees - and unemployment compensation for the jobless - and equality for
blacks - and Medicare and Medicaid - and equality for women - and food
stamps for needy families - and expanded health insurance under the
Affordable Care Act - and equality for gays - etc. These stormy social
conflicts ended the same way: Liberals always win. Conservatives always
lose.

Of course, history doesn't move in a clear, predictable manner. Germany was
advanced and modern - yet it sank into the horrors of Nazism. Other setbacks
occur. But the overall tide of civilization flows in a progressive
direction.

In his landmark book, "The Better Angels of Our Nature," Harvard
psychologist Steven Pinker concludes that all sorts of human evils - war,
genocide, murder, rape, torture, dueling, wife-bashing, attacks on
minorities, etc. - have faded enormously from the Western world.
International warfare has virtually vanished. Pursuit of such humane goals
lies at the heart of the liberal agenda.

When I first became a news reporter in the 1950s, conservative Bible Belt
morality was enforced by laws. It was a crime for stores to open on the
Sabbath. It was a crime to look at the equivalent of a Playboy magazine, or
to read a sexy book. (Our mayor once sent cops to raid bookstores selling
"Peyton Place.")

Back then, it was a felony to be gay, and those who were caught were sent to
prison under old sodomy laws. Back then, it was a felony for a desperate
girl to end a pregnancy. It was illegal for an unmarried couple to share a
bedroom. Divorce or unwed pregnancy was an unmentionable disgrace. Jews
weren't allowed into Christian-only country clubs. Public schools had
mandatory teacher-led prayer. It was a crime to buy a cocktail or a lottery
ticket.

That world disappeared, decade after decade. The culture slowly evolved.
Sunday "blue laws" were undone. Teacher-led prayers were banned.

Gay sex
became legal. Liquor clubs were approved. Abortion became legal. State
governments became lottery operators. Censorship ended. Other conservative
taboos gradually disappeared.

Within my lifetime, morality flip-flopped. Conservative thou-shalt-nots lost
their grip on society. Liberals won - yet it happened so gradually that
hardly anyone noticed.

For several decades, the strongest indicator of politics was church
membership. White evangelicals voted overwhelmingly for Mitt Romney. People
who don't attend worship voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama. The latter
became the largest group in the Democratic Party base.

Today, survey after survey finds American church membership fading, while
the young generation ignores religion. Sociologists think the secular trend
is unstoppable. People who say their faith is "none" already comprise
one-fourth of the adult population - 56 million Americans - and they seem
destined someday to be the largest segment. The social tide is flowing away
from conservative fundamentalism and its Puritanical agenda.

All these factors support my friend's maxim that liberals always win. The
progressive worldview is called humanism - trying to make life better for
all people - and it's a powerful current. In 1960, John F. Kennedy said in a
famed speech:

"If by a 'liberal' they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone
who welcomes new ideas without rigid reaction, someone who cares about the
welfare of the people - their health, their housing, their schools, their
jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties - .then I'm proud to say
that I'm a liberal."

Amid all the chaos and confusion of daily life, through a thousand
contradictory barrages, the struggle for a safer, fairer, more secure, more
humane world never ceases. Thank heaven for progressive victories that keep
on prevailing.
---
ABOUT THE WRITER:  James A. Haught is editor of West Virginia's largest
newspaper, The Charleston Gazette.  Readers may reach him by email at
haughtwvgazette.com or phone at 304-348-5199.
This essay is available to Tribune News Service subscribers. Tribune did not
subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer
and do not necessarily represent the views of Tribune or its editors.
---
C2015 James A. Haught
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency - Aug. 1, 2015

In addition to the info at the  end of the piece, Haught is also a fellow
columnist for Free Inquiry. -- Edd)

All Male Panels and the Culture Wars

By Gary Berg-Cross

Thursday on Capitol Hill in Washington Rep. Darrell Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, invited a panel for a four hour plus hearing on what he called a “federal rule's impact on freedom of religion and conscience” before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives. What we saw in the now infamous first panel was a Lutheran, 2 Baptist clergymen and an Orthodox rabbi who joined a Roman Catholic bishop on an all male panel. They proceeded to tell gathered lawmakers that President. Obama’s latest policy of shifting the responsibility for paying for such things as contraceptives and prenatal screenings from religious institutions to their health insurers was unworkable. I guess they are policy wonks too. But they had much more to say about their fears. The compromise did not allay their concerns about government entanglement with religion. In the words one hears from Republican candidates, its more of a broad, moral, "theological" argument. That seemed to be the big topic although to many it was about women’s rights to health care including contraception.

Why no women on the first panel? Well according to California Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Vista), who heads the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, it was all clear. She is not a member of the clergy, unlike the five men who did testify in the first panel. Representative Joe Walsh, Republican of Illinois, defended the choice this by dodging from individual rights to some vague combination that mixed organized religion rights and freedom:

“This is not about women. This is not about contraceptives. This is about religious freedom.”

The representative might have been better informed on such things if he had attended Rob Boston’s recent talk on what the Founders really intended here.

As someone at CNN said “welcome to the culture wars 2.0, where the front lines now are religious freedom and contraceptives.” This indeed may be a political gambit to switch the topic from a winning liberal issue on preventive and women’s health to a cultural-religious one. That was somewhat of Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va) who addressed the 5 very clerical men during the first half of the hearing:

"I believe today’s hearing is a sham. I have to believe each of you came here in good faith." But he added, "Surely you are being used for a political agenda."

I’ve now seen pictures of the 5 men in a number of venues, but I knew little about them. Who were they? Well here are their names and affiliations:

1. Rev. William E. Lori, Roman Catholic Bishop of Bridgeport, Conn., who testified on behalf of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in opposition to the rule.

2. Reverend Dr. Matthew C. Harrison, president of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and moral philosophy professor. (wow, a Rev. Dr. !)
   

3. C. Ben Mitchell, Graves Professor of Moral Philosophy at Union University in Tennessee

4. Rabbi Meir Soloveichik, Director Straus Center of Torah and Western Thought at Yeshiva University, and
   

5. Ethics professor Craig Mitchell of the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary

What they had to say had quite a bit of dog whistling. Lori, the Catholic bishop of Bridgeport, Connecticut, testified on behalf of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, which denounced the compromise last week, saying it still raised "serious moral concerns." Bishop Lori is known as a “conservative cleric who has carried out controversial church mandates in the past. Some critics, however, say he does not question the church hierarchy and, at times, has acted harshly in order to please his superiors (from Wikipedia).” I think that Stephan Colbert did a reasonable job of laying out the hypocrisy of the Bishops on the contraception topic.

The Rev. Matthew Harrison, president of the large Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, told lawmakers that the St. Louis-based denomination:

"stand(s) with our friends in the Catholic Church" in opposition to a recent government ruling on contraception.

Harrison went on to say that the synod's opposition to "abortion-causing drugs" was one reason the denomination maintains its own health plan. He’s worried that the provision in the government's
new ruling would "grandfather" the Missouri Synod's plan, meaning its 50,000 members would not have to participate in the new mandate. Isn’t that a solution?

No, apparently he wants a total capitulation that imposes his values on others. It’s about moral conscience as defined by organized groups. It’s about violating the consciences of these group members, who feel they can impose their values on others. Sort of like the White Man’s moral burden idea. We should understand what a solution is to group like this.

C. Ben Mitchell of Union University told the committee the rule "is an unconscionable intrusion by the state into the consciences of American citizens."

"Contrary to portrayals in some of the popular media, this is not just a Catholic issue," said Mitchell, Graves professor of moral philosophy at the Baptist school in Jackson, Tenn. "All people of faith - and even those who claim no faith - have a stake in whether or not the government can violate the consciences of its citizenry. Religious liberty and the freedom to obey one's conscience is also not just a Baptist issue. It's an American issue enshrined in our founding documents."

There they go with that slanted view of the Founders again. They should have come to Rob Boston's talk to hear what the Constitution says and what the Founders thought about freedom of religion.

Rabbi Meir Soloveichik an Orthodox rabbi described in an Israeli paper as of impeccable pedigree at Yeshiva University. He testified orthodoxically which I guess is the old fashion word for fundamentalist:

"The administration impedes religious liberty by unilaterally redefining what it means to be religious." “The putative accommodation is no accommodation at all,” said the rabbi, from NYC:

“Religious organizations would still be obligated to provide employees with an insurance policy that facilitates acts violating the organization’s religious tenets.”

It’s all about violation and what it means to be religious? This seems like more than a bit of a stretch. As a BBC article points out Judeo-Christian ideas about contraception come from church teachings rather than scripture, as the Bible has little to say about the subject. But then again the rabbi is probably more comfortable in a religio-centric national environment.

Craig Mitchell, associate professor of Christian ethics at the Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas told members the requirement

"is wrong not just for religious conservatives.It's wrong for all Americans, because it takes away the freedom of the citizens while emboldening the federal government to do whatever it wants,",. "It's wrong because it violates the Constitution. It's wrong because it violates religious liberty. It's wrong because it forces people to violate their consciences. ... This ruling is just plain wrong for America."

There’s lots of culture war bricks to be thrown about in rhetoric like this and I hope that we are saved by some sensible discussion. As part of more discussion we might get to the uncomfortable issues of contraception and sexual activity.

This very recent discussion which started as a health care discussion now seems like a regressive, perhaps reactionary one, with a subtext of group’s attitude toward sex and sexual morality. We had moved towards a more progressive attitude from our Puritan days. Even mainstream religious groups had come to see sex as other than a pure danger. Some Christians moved to the view sex as one of God's great gifts. One can rationalize this since sexual bonding helps preserve the institution of marriage and birth control helps mitigate the stresses caused by too many children.
This pragmatic view of mainstream Protestant churches on the use of birth control lead to a more tolerant policy of quietly letting its followers use birth control as their own consciences dictated as opposed to a doctrinaire view centrally imposed.
In a tide of fundamentalism we’re back to an intolerant and centralized view with imposed morality. As a result modern family planning/birth control "cannot be spoken of without repugnance. " It's now denounced as "demoralising to character and hostile to national welfare." All of which means that Culture War Part 2, with such things as silencing of women, may be with us for this political campaign period at least. We should all gear ourselves up with well-considered, humanistic moral arguments.

Behind the Scenes in the Attack on Planned Parenthood

By Gary Berg-Cross

Edd Doerr, Explicit Atheist and others have discussed the “brou ha ha” around HHS mandated regulations on birth control and the claim of a religious exemption for Catholic institutions based on conscience. Some conservative pols have characterized that struggle as another front of the war on religion, while many see it as an attack on vulnerable, often poor women, ever a silenced majority.

I find it interesting that while this has been going on we’ve seen an attack on Planned Parenthood and its funding. Activists had been applying political pressure on Komen for years to not support health care provider Planned Parenthood because it offers abortion. An example was the deceptive Video ‘Sting’ attacking Planned Parenthood which as called a “Dishonest Hit Job is Part of Religious Right’s Campaign to Deny Women Access to Reproductive Health Care” by People for the American Way.

The anti-abortion crowd found a vehicle for their attach by getting some leverage on the Komen Foundation. Karen Handel, a Republican who once ran for governor of Georgia on a platform calling for the defunding of Planned Parenthood, seems to have been at the center of that effort. During her campaign for office she wrote when she pledged to eliminate all state funds for breast and cervical cancer screening to the group if she were elected governor:

“[S]ince I am pro-life, I do not support the mission of Planned Parenthood,”

After failing to become governor in a tea-party like campaign. Handle became senior Vice President (for public policy) of the Susan G. Komen charity almost a year ago and seems to have continued her campaign. According to the Huffington Post Komen insiders say Handel got defunding on the agenda and spent months pushing a plan to shift the organization's grant strategy and collaborate on a bit of a witch hunt. Emails reveal that handle was the prime instigator and argued that Komen could just say that the change is policy came about because Planned Parenthood was under investigation no one can blame us for being political HuffPo has internal emails. This lead Komen’s apparently passive and narrow thing Board to cut off funding for 17 of the 19 Planned Parenthood affiliates in December.

This is surprisingg to many but an examination of Komen leaders by Mother Jones and others shows them to be consistently conservative and opposed to Planned Parenthood. Founder and CEO Nancy G. Brinker ,who is the face we largely see in TV defending the action, served under George W. Bush as chief protocol officer for the U.S. She later served as ambassador to Hungary. Reports have noted that both she and her now late husband, Norman, have been major Republican donors.

Another member of Komen’s Advocacy Alliance Board is Jane Abraham. She is the General Chairman of the anti-choice and anti-science Susan B. Anthony List. She seems pretty political since she is on its Political Action Committee. One of Abraham roles has been as a leader to establish what they call “crisis pregnancy clinics”. These are designed to prevent any abortions. What they do is mislead women about their health and reproductive rights. Want to know another interesting connection. Abraham works with Maureen Scalia, well known wife of Supreme Court Justice Antony Scalia.

And there are other interesting political and perhaps religious connections. Ari Fleischer, former press secretary for George W. Bush pops up. I’ve been surprised and disappointed to see him and Ralph Reed on CNN as “political” commentators. It seems that discredited, conservative voices have vampire like abilities. Ari, a prominent right-wing pundit of Pinocchio level lying fame who some identify with political Chabatists, was apparently quietly involved in hiring Handel, and making the interviews of prospective candidates discuss how to handle controversy about Komen’s relationship with Planned Parenthood. Fleischer views on Planned Parenthood are documented in his book, Taking Heat. He criticized it as a partisan, ideological organization that receives undeserved positive coverage in the press. Such things seem like fuel for tea party activists, who act like bullies and are the real promoters of culture war with hot button issues that divide people. And of course Ari was available to discuss how to give Komen positive press and shield it from backlash. One hand washed another in conservative political circles.

But all that has failed and Handle has resigned. Sensible things can happened when people pay close attention to a scandal and what it reveals. And part of what it reveals is a confluence of influence makers who get leadership roles in institutions with good missions and sterling reputations. This allows work behind the scenes on conservative, often hybrid religious-political agendas. This is an old story. Some might remember how the Red Cross provided a leg up on the political career of some Republican chairman going back to Elizabeth Dole and Bernadine P. Healy, M.D. More recently Bonnie McElveen-Hunter was head of American Red Cross. She has a nice resume. Before that job she was ambassador to Finland, and before that worked for Eliz Dole's presidential bid!

The Democratic Underground argues that such things were rewards for her:

“financial support of the Bush campaign. McElveen-Hunter was reported to be one of just 15 people who raised more than $1 million for Bush's presidential run. She headed Bush's effort to raise money from women, a campaign called "W is for Women."

She personally gave $102,750 to Republican candidates and party committees during the campaign, including $100,000 in soft money to the Republican National Committee. She also contributed $5,000 to the Bush-Cheney recount effort.”

None may dare call it a conspiracy, but it does show a bit of how the system and money work and how organizations collaborate to accomplish their agenda. Such top down, power elite control occasionally get frustrated by energetic, truly grassroots responses. OWS comes to mind here, but in this case it had come from women and progressive activists who have found a voice and shone a light on a wicked brew of politics and power pushing its agenda hidden away from view. It's perhaps another episode in the struggle with reactionary forces that insist on looking back rather than ahead for wisdom.