Regrets Of An Anti-Abortion Activist

I’ve been thinking for a while that the Trump presidency will be the final death of Evangelical Christianity as we know it. I’ve said for years that politics corrupts religion, and Evangelicals’ gross distortion of Scripture to match its politics has resulted in some truly hilarious moments. Anyone remember Andy Schlafly’s “Conservative Bible Project”? Or Tea Party Nation founder Judson Phillips’ wish to disband the United Methodist Church, a denomination with some 12 million members?

Anyway, I stumbled across this fascinating interview with Evangelical minister Rob Schenck, “once a militant leader of the anti-abortion movement, blockading access to clinics to prevent doctors and patients from entering,” who now disavows his militancy and believes abortion should be a personal choice.

It’s a fascinating interview with lots of good insight. One of the most pointed reflections is how those involved in movements like this lose sight of the mission’s original goal:

This became more about us, about me, about our need to win, to win the argument, to win on legislation, to win in the courts.

And, I’d add, the need to “win” some relevancy in an increasingly secular culture.

Of course, the pro-choice movement has been saying this forever. If you really care about stopping abortion, then you know legally banning abortion doesn’t do that. Instead, you will embrace policies that support women and families. You will favor policies like universal healthcare, paid family leave, affordable day care, etc. Because the problem is that abortion is an economic issue, not a moral one. Anti-choicers have had this one wrong forever. They think it’s about sluts wanting to have sex without consequences.

Being so “pro-life” that you murder abortion providers is the gross, inevitable conclusion to this distorted view. Pastor Schenck says,

I will tell you that my acceptance of that responsibility had to come only after a long period of reflective prayer, of listening deeply to those who were gravely affected by those murders, in therapy with my own — I will be careful to say — Christian therapist, who helped me come to terms with what really happened and how I may have contributed to those acts of violence through my rhetoric, and eventually in a confrontation, a very loving one but nonetheless an encounter, a very strong, very powerful encounter, with the relative of one of the doctors shot and stabbed. … And it was … actually at a Passover Seder table when I was confronted very gently and very lovingly by a relative who happened to be a rabbi of that one abortion provider. In that moment, I realized my own culpability in those in those terrible, terrible events.

BTW, this is the second time I’ve written about Rob Schenck. The first time was when he was opposing Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination to the Supreme Court because, of course, Obama. I feel like we’ve come full circle.

Why Now? Because Journalism Happened

UPDATE:

And now the locals come out to say yes, everyone knew:

“These stories have been going around this town for 30 years,” said Blake Usry, who grew up in the area and lives in Gadsden. “Nobody could believe they hadn’t come out yet.”

And …

“Him liking and dating young girls was never a secret in Gadsden when we were all in high school,” said Sheryl Porter. “In our neighborhoods up by Noccalula Falls we heard it all the time. Even people at the courthouse know it was a well-known secret.

Everyone ALWAYS knows…

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Oh, the delicious irony in learning that the Bible-banging wannabe Senator from Alabama with a 10 Commandments fetish is a gigantic creepazoid perv. I mean, who saw that coming? (Note: everyone saw that coming).

Now that we can add Roy Moore’s name to the ginormous dungheap of shit heel evangelical hypocrites (Ted Haggard, Jim Bakker, Jimmy Swaggart, Paul Crouch, George Rekers, Ralph Reed, Mark Sanford, Lou Beres, etc. etc. etc.), let’s address those excuses wingnuts are throwing out. Oh, they’re so desperate to convince themselves this story is no big deal or, worse, a “Democrat plot.” But, nope. Sorry folks.

The most compelling is the “why now?” defense, as in, Why are we only hearing about this now, a few weeks before a major election? That’s actually a damn good question, because timing is everything and I can see how it would look suspicious. And yes, we all know the myriad reasons why victims don’t come forward, the fear of retaliation, the shame, the not wanting to relive the incident, etc. I’m not talking about that.

The real answer to the “why now” question can be summed up in one word: journalism.

It took a journalist from a national newspaper following the Moore for Senate campaign to hear the rumors that had been swirling around Alabama politics for decades. And this journalist followed up on them, something no Alabama reporter had done. The current post-Harvey Weinstein climate I’m sure had something to do with it; outing creepazoid pervs and sexual predators seems to be all the rage these days. But make no mistake: the victims didn’t come forward to break this story. Two journalists sought them out:

Neither Corfman nor any of the other women sought out The Post. While reporting a story in Alabama about supporters of Moore’s Senate campaign, a Post reporter heard that Moore allegedly had sought relationships with teenage girls. Over the ensuing three weeks, two Post reporters contacted and interviewed the four women. All were initially reluctant to speak publicly but chose to do so after multiple interviews, saying they thought it was important for people to know about their interactions with Moore. The women say they don’t know one another.

[…]

This account is based on interviews with more than 30 people who said they knew Moore between 1977 and 1982, when he served as an assistant district attorney for Etowah County in northern Alabama, where he grew up.

Note the emphasis: more than 30 people were interviewed. Moore’s thing for young girls was nearly as much of an open secret as Harvey Weinstein’s predatory behavior.

Teresa Jones, who worked with Moore as Deputy District Attorney in Gadsden, AL, told CNN:

[…] Moore often went to high school events and to other local hangouts. “It was common knowledge that Roy dated high school girls, everyone we knew thought it was weird…We wondered why someone his age would hang out at high school football games and the mall…”

She also told the network that co-workers thought the situation was odd, but no one confronted him about it. “You really wouldn’t say anything to someone like that,” she said. 

When asked on Twitter why she did not bring charges against Moore, she posted: “At that time, in that atmosphere unless the girls came forward with specifics, then no, no charges could have been brought. The Weinstein, Hoffman, etc. revelations have made it far more palatable for women to come forward.” 

“Why now?” is a question Alabama voters should be asking their local political media, not Twitter, CNN, and The Washington Post. Roy Moore was a known perv and pedophile, and nobody did anything about it. Alabama voters should rightfully be angry that someone who was elected Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court in 2001, twice ran for governor, and again was elected Chief Justice in 2013 had this known history, and nobody said a thing about it. I’d be pissed. But sometimes it takes an outsider to do what those too close to the situation can’t. Sometimes it takes a change of circumstances, such as the one that we’re experiencing now, to make it “palatable” for the predators among us to be outted.

There’s a Bible verse that Roy Moore and the rest of the shit heel conservative evangelical caucus might want to remember, and it comes from Luke:

“For there is nothing hidden that will not be disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the open.”

You want to know why? Because journalism. Because the Bible said so. Take your pick.

Those Oppressed Christians

Trump used the National Day of Prayer yesterday to suck up to the Fundiegelicals, issuing a meaningless proclamation and saying,

“We will not allow people of faith to be targeted, bullied or silenced anymore,” Trump proclaimed, which were marking the National Day of Prayer. “And we will never, ever stand for religious discrimination. Never, ever.”

And by “people of fath” he of course means Christians. Certainly not the Muslims he’s trying to ban from entering the country, or the Jews he can’t remember to mention on Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The idea that Christians have been “targeted, bullied or silenced” is bullshit: have they been denied marriage licenses or the right to adopt? Have their spouses of 40+ years been refused funeral cremation services, as recently happened in Mississippi?

Of course not. But they have been witness to the secularization of American society, something they have been powerless to stop. This is the real “oppression” they decry, and yet there’s a very good reason they can’t stop it: they are part of it. They want the benefits of secularism but not the costs. They want to attend football games on Sunday but don’t want their influence on American society to wane. They want to participate in secular culture while holding themselves above it.

American Christians long ago adopted the secular value set of popular culture. As someone whose brief tenure in Christian music coincided with the genre’s 1990’s “crossover” era, I saw first-hand how the faithful coveted acceptance by mainstream culture. It was kind of gross, to be honest. Every artist’s position on the Billboard charts — not the Christian charts, mind you, but the real ones, the Billboard Top 200 and Hot 100 — was shouted from the rooftops as if it were all the proof one needed that God isn’t dead. Every one of them had to beat their chests over how Bono was a Christian, as if  U2’s success validated their faith. It was a weird time. Did listening to a Jars of Clay album make anyone a Christian? Doubtful. But plenty of people confused platinum album sales with successful evangelism.

This is part of a larger flaw in white Southern evangelical Christianity. There’s this belief that material success is the outward manifestation of spiritual worthiness. It’s proof that one has been “chosen” by God. It has to be that, right? To concede that it might more accurately be the result of privilege and decades of the cards being stacked in your favor at the expense of others would be to concede complicity in an unjust system. Few have the moral courage to admit that. Better to believe that the system is fair and success a sign of righteousness.

But consumerism and secularism go hand in hand. You can’t value material success and be part of consumer culture while professing to be apart from it. The Christian entertainment business is just the most obvious example of this; there are plenty of others.

Last week I talked to a refugee from Congo who’s working as a dishwasher at The Cheesecake Factory. He’s a Christian and he told me it upset him that he was forced to work on Sundays. “People should be at church on Sunday,” he said. That’s actually how it used to be in the U.S., back when we had Blue Laws and Sunday beer sales were banned and people were supposed to spend the Sabbath in Sunday school and Christianity really was the dominant force in American society.

Those days are long gone — good riddance, I certainly don’t miss them — but it shows how far we’ve come from the time when we really were a “Christian nation.” So enough with the hissy fits over a store clerk wishing you “Happy  Holidays.” You can go to a Walmart or Cracker Barrel on any Sunday morning and see the place packed with the faithful, who are worshipping at the altar of the cash register instead of sitting in a church pew where my Congolese friend wishes he could be.

Here’s another example, the latest entry in the Nashville retail market. Altar’d States sells stylish women’s fashions in one of Nashville’s hippest, most upscale neighborhoods. What makes it a Christian business? Well, there are Bible verses on the wall and the company donates money to charity. Weak tea, if you ask me, but I’m sure that will be good enough to bring the faithful through their doors to load up on the latest high-end fashions. Apparently that’s all it takes to be a “Christian” business these days, and nobody seems disturbed that a company is using faith as a branding mechanism.

People want to know how evangelicals could support a man like Donald Trump, who is the antithesis of all they claim to value. Easy. Consumerism and secularism go hand in hand, and once American Christianity embraced consumer culture, it devalued and cheapened its spiritual faith. American Christianity is by and large a secular religion today, in that it has embraced consumerism. This makes it easy to overlook Trump’s ickier aspects — the vulgarity, the allegations of sexual assault, the lack of humility– and lift Trump up as a member of the Christian club. As long as Trump hates all the right people — liberals, Obama, etc. — they are cool with whatever he does.

Christians aren’t oppressed, they’re corrupted. They forgot they’re supposed to be in the world, not of it. They want cultural influence but have only themselves to blame for their lack of it.

They Can Shut Up About Religious Freedom Now

Everything you need to know about the conservative views of religious freedom, summed up in one chiron:

 

 

Ummm ….. yeaaaaah. Y’all can just shut up now.

Who Is Joshua Feuerstein?

Is there nothing funnier than a bunch of Fundiegelicals getting all butthurt over the absence of a snowflake on their coffee cup? I think not! What I really love is that these useless idiots think they have “pranked” Starbucks by forcing baristas to write Merry Christmas on their cups, while they continue to pay $8 for a latte. Hilarious.

All of this fauxtrage has been ginned up by one Joshua Feuerstein, who posted a coffee cup rant on Facebook. But who is Joshua Feuerstein? Let’s ask the Great Gazoogle:

Former evangelical pastor proposes fighting LGBT rights with assault weapons
Talking head Joshua Feuerstein implies the Second Amendment is the best way to combat homosexuality

Taking a note from the disgraced California attorney who recently proposed a measure to shoot all the gays, a former evangelical pastor has recommended using guns to fight ever-expanding LGBTQ civil rights across the country. Joshua Feuerstein, a Facebook personality known for his vitriolic talk radio-style tirades, implied earlier this month that the Second Amendment is the best protection from “bigoted” anti-discrimination measures and legalized same-sex marriage.

“They are coming after our First Amendment constitutional rights,” Feuerstein said. “This is one pastor that will not bow. Why? Because my First Amendment right is guaranteed by my Second Amendment right. Think about that, ladies and gentlemen.”

The closely zoomed video backs up at the mention of the Second Amendment, so that Feuerstein can reveal he’s holding what appears to be an assault rifle, which he brandishes close to his face. He then urged his viewers to “stand up and say ‘no more.’”

Good thing Starbucks is a “gun-free zone”!

Feuerstein is referred to as a “former” evangelical pastor. On YouTube there’s an absolutely priceless clip featuring a pastor named Brother Wayne (“live, from my bedroom!”) whose guest is someone claiming Feuerstein was inappropriate with the members of his church’s youth group:

He gave an altar call, and the altar call he gave Brother Wayne? it was ridiculous. I ain’t never heard nothing about it in my life. He was talking about girls looking for daddies, and girls never experiencing the daddy figure in their life. And he had a whole altar call, Brother Wayne, just for teenage girls. I couldn’t imagine it. He was walking around praying for these girls, touching ’em and feeling ‘em and everything else and I just couldn’t believe it, Brother Wayne, and I checked it in my spirit. I checked it and I felt it in my spirit that this was not of God.

That night I came to Brother Wayne, did I not? I sure did, and I said I just feel like God is not in this. You know, every time I see his big fat head on Facebook I just feel like, it’s not of God! Christians if you’re out there, if you’re listening, you need to jump on this bandwagon. Because this bandwagon is going straight to heaven, and the bandwagon of Josh Feuerstein? Well, you know where that’s going.

All of this needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt — we don’t know anything about these people except that they say at the outset that their aim is to run Feuerstein out of town. Still, I think it’s just hilarious that even other church people despise this guy.

Even more disturbing are allegations that Feuerstein mishandled donations from a GoFundMe page that were supposed to go towards camera equipment.

There appears to be a lot hinky about this guy. He certainly likes the spotlight and our mainstream media seems happy to give him the attention he craves while saying nothing about the more sketchy elements in his background. So, thanks for playing along, liberal media! This is how the fringe gets mainstreamed.

Straight & Narrow Minded

Blount County, Tennessee, punted on its “please, God, go smite someone else” resolution: after crowds showed up to protest the item, the commission did the cowardly thing by not approving the meeting’s agenda and adjourning. That’s a principled action!

This is the part I love:

The resolution, sponsored by County Commissioner Karen Miller, has gained national attention. The resolution focuses on recognizing and protecting ‘natural marriage,’ or marriage between a man and woman.

‘I had no idea this was going to take place. I was totally in the dark. It’s a total surprise,’ said Miller.

Nobody could have anticipated. Nobody could have seen this coming. Nobody could have foreseen that a resolution that is…

…petitioning for God’s mercy and asks God ‘not to destroy our county as he did Sodom and Gomorrah’ …

… would turn tiny Blount County, Tennessee into a national laughingstock. Truly it’s a mystery to Commissioner Miller that this has generated any attention at all, forcing the commission to pull the plug on the entire meeting and scurry into their holes. Hoocodanode?

This is what I love about fundiegelicals. Putting aside for a moment the whole church/state thing, and the fact that not every person is a believer, and not every believer is a Christian, I think one of the most annoying things about the fundiegelical wing of Christianity is that they always think they’re the only Christians in the room.

They always think they speak for everyone else. In a religion with literally hundreds of different denominations and splinter groups, why do they always assume that their version of Christianity is the “agreed-upon” version?

Or maybe they aren’t assuming that, maybe they’re just asserting it. “Our version is the right version and everyone else has to live by our rules!” I mean, how rude is that? To just barge into the faith and tell dozens of other denominations that they’re wrong, we’re right, and shut up.

Look, there are plenty of Christian denominations out there which don’t buy into any of that anti-gay bullshit. And I’m not even talking about “fringe” wings of Christianity like the New Thought churches (Unity, Christian Science, Religious Science) or even those pesky Unitarian Universalists. Mainstream denominations (Presbyterian Church-USA, United Church of Christ, Anglican, Lutheran, Christian Church-DoC) not to mention splinters within the more conservative denominations (there is, believe it or not, a Baptist church down the street from me with an openly lesbian pastor).

So, you know, the fundiegelicals don’t speak for everybody, yet here they come marching in, acting as if they own the joint. No, you don’t own the joint. Shut up. Go away. Practice your faith your way and let others practice their faith their way, and let those who don’t subscribe to any faith also be allowed to live as they please. You’re not the boss of PCUSA or Disciples of Christ or anybody else. So rude. So ignorant.

And that goes for those people wanting to post the 10 Commandments everywhere, blithely unaware that there isn’t just one version. Or teaching Creationism in school: which Biblical version of the Creation are you wanting to teach? There are three in the Old and New Testaments. What arrogance to assume that your version is the one everyone else will agree with!

Get thee behind me, you useless idiots.

WTF Ron Ramsey

Tennesee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey just posted this on his Facebook page. It’s positively chilling:

Holy holy war, Batman! What the hell is wrong with this man? “It’s time to prepare”? “Our enemies are armed. We must do likewise”? Are you fucking insane? How’s that been working for us, buddy? Everyone is already armed to the teeth! Amazingly, we’ve had more mass shootings! More, not fewer! What’s that they say about insanity? Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results?

This is some irresponsible BS. Shame. On. You. SHAME. ON. YOU.

[UPDATE]:

Oregon is one of 7 states allowing CCW holders to carry on campus. And apparently there were at least two CCW holders on campus when the shooting happened. They opted not to intervene, out of fear they’d become targets themselves. This was, by the way, absolutely the right call: most of the time, the “good guy with a gun” ends up either getting in the way of law enforcement, getting shot, or hurting an innocent bystander. I just point it out by way of illustrating to Ron Ramsey and the rest of the gun loons that arming all the “good guys” clearly isn’t working. We’ve been doing that for over a decade now and all we have to show for it is more gun violence, more shootings, and a rise in the murder rate.

Watch the interview:

Kim Davis Again? Ugh

[UPDATE]: 2

But wait, there’s more:

Vatican says private ‘audience’ in D.C. was with gay ex-student, not Kim Davis

week after Pope Francis met Kim Davis, the Kentucky county clerk jailed for her refusal to issue marriage licenses for same-sex couples, the Vatican on Friday suggested that she exploited the meeting to promote her views, denied that the pope fully supports her and cast doubt on her account of the encounter.

The Vatican later noted that Francis did have a private “audience” in Washington with a former student of the pope, Yayo Grassi, an openly gay Argentine who along with his longtime partner and some friends met with Francis.

Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement that Grassi, “who had already met other times in the past with the pope, asked to present several friends to the pope during the pope’s stay in Washington, D.C.”

A video posted online shows Grassi embracing the pope and introducing him to his partner, as well as an Argentine woman and some Asian friends.

The statements together seemed intended to distance the pope from Davis.

I think that should put a stop to this Kim Davis bullshit. Back into obscurity with you, idiots.

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[UPDATE]:

I told ya so:

In a formal statement, the Vatican said Friday that Pope Francis’s meeting with Kentucky clerk Kim Davis “should not be considered a form of support of her position in all of its particular and complex aspects.”

The statement, issued by the Rev. Federico Lombardi, Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, said it was not a “real audience,” suggesting that she was among a group that gathered to greet him and send him off.

I said it was a PR ploy by Liberty Counsel, a pathetic attempt to find some influential cultural figure to endorse their position. And even that was a fail. And the entire U.S. media got pwned. Again.

Well, at least it wasn’t WMDs this time.

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Since we have to keep talking about Kim Davis because she will not go away, people! let me explain to my liberal friends why I’m not concerned at all that she met with Pope Francis last week.

When I first heard this story I immediately thought it was a hoax. Then I thought it was just sad. To see Davis and Liberty Counsel shamelessly milk this event for all it’s worth reminded me of when the National Review released its lists of the top 25 conservative movies and songs. The poor dears! So desperate for some kind of cultural relevance! Pope Francis is a transformative cultural figure, and his U.S. visit was historic. It inspired people of all faiths from coast to coast. Of course this group would try to latch on to that, just like a flea tries to jump on a big dog. Gotta grab a little of this reflected admiration (and media attention), after all!

It’s a pathetic thing to watch. Liberty Counsel’s adolescent “see, I told you so!” moment falls apart when you remember that Pope Francis said nothing about gay marriage while visiting the U.S. But he did talk a lot about climate change, Christians’ responsibility to care for the earth, ending the death penalty, welcoming immigrants, and empowering the poor. So yeah, I’ll believe Liberty Counsel and U.S. fundiegelicals give a crap about Pope Francis when they take up those issues.

*crickets*

I mean, seriously. Remember when conservatives were all like “shut up, Pope Francis!” And now they’re all like, “we love Pope Francis!” Puh-leeze.This whole bit of political theater has evolved in a completely predictable manner. And it will be forgotten tomorrow as we move on to the next shiny-sparkly thing.

Meanwhile, the culture marches on toward inclusiveness while conservatives find themselves ever more marginalized.

Never Forget

Not The Onion:

Apparently there is no event in American history that won’t be cheapened by conservative intolerance, rampant consumerism and cheap beer. I really hope some Muslims take Florida Gun Supply up on this offer. I would love to see a family of Muslims show up and say “Yes, I’m a Muslim, and I would like to save $25 on this AR-15. So would my brother Hussein and my other brother Mohammad.” Hilarity would no doubt ensue.

Happy 9/11. I remember this as the last time any Republican president dared push for a “Star Wars” missile defense program. Remember, if you will, that right before 9/11 W had unilaterally withdrawn the United States from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, all by hisownself, without the blessing of Congress. Remind me again how Obama can’t sign a peace treaty with Iran without Congress’ blessing but W could remove us from one?

Fellow Republican idiots like Sen. John Kyl of Arizona cheered W’s action. From the memory hole:

Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) also termed the move historic, but for a different reason, enthusiastically declaring June 13 that the United States “is no longer handcuffed to a policy that intentionally leaves its own people defenseless to missile attack.” Senators Chuck Hagel (R-NE) and James Inhofe (R-OK) also released statements supporting Bush’s act.

That’s all I remember from the news that summer: Republicans pushing for a bazillion dollar space missile shield, as if it was still the 1970s and our biggest threat was Russian nukes. That, and the news media distracting us with shiny-sparkly “shark attack!” news. That was the summer of 2001.

Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island was the only Senator of either party to speak about the ABM Treaty on the Senate floor. Ominously:

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI) said the U.S. pullout was unwarranted because missile defense technologies that would have violated the treaty “are mere concepts that are years away.” He also said that terrorists are more likely to use means other than long-range ballistic missiles, such as planes and ships, to attack the United States.

Give that man a fucking medal. On 9/11 terrorists armed only with boxcutters attacked the U.S., thereby rendering the missile defense shield idea irrelevant and useless.

But the defense industry more than made up for that loss with our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The military buildup that followed 9/11 is still largely in place. We have more bases in more places than ever. And now we get to milk 9/11 to sell guns, Islamophobia, and beer, too.

Murrica.

Brilliant War On Terror Idea!

Here’s some stupidity straight out of — where else? — Florida:

A Florida gun maker is marketing an AR-15 carbine that he says will be “Islamic-free” because of the Bible verse he etches on each rifle. It’s aptly named “the Crusader.”

Each Crusader coming out of Spike’s Tactical in Apopka, Florida, is laser-etched on the right side of the rifle’s lower receiver with Psalm 144:1: “Blessed be the Lord my Rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.”

On the left side, a cross and shield are etched.

Ben “Mookie” Thomas, spokesman for Spike’s Tactical, told Tampa Bay CBS-TV affiliate WTSP 10 News what led to the development of the Crusader:

“Right now, and as it has been for quite some time, one of the biggest threats in the world is and remains Islamic terrorism,” Thomas, who is a former Navy SEAL and former Blackwater security contractor, told the station. “We wanted to make sure we built a weapon that would never be able to be used by Muslim terrorists to kill innocent people or advance their radical agenda.”

This idiot might do better to inscribe his guns with an incantation I mean Bible verse keeping them away from toddlers, wife abusers, and garden-variety criminals.

FAIL.