Religionists are always complaining that they have a right to

[Skidmore]

be exempted from being held to policy or law that conflicts with their beliefs. There is a flip side to this coin which needs to be understood also. I have the right not to be held to policies or laws that conflict with my beliefs as well. I believe that women have the right to control over their reproductive health. It is a value I hold and I conscientiously object to any policy or law that requires me to do otherwise. I am not Catholic or an adherent to any specific religous group. I am a citizen of this nation and a woman.

[tblue]

1. Oh now, that's brilliant!

Me, too, all the way. Can we take that to the courts?

[Skidmore]

4. We need to and we need to have

women band together and march again to maintain our rights. They want us to work in their blue and white collar sweatshops for their profits so their use their prophets to keep us from power, monetary and political. It is time to dust off the great treatises on feminism and put them to good use. Forget the damned fashions scene and catfight prograamming, forget the stillettos and lipstick. Let's get busy.

[Winterblues]

2. While I agree basically, what do you think about laws that

say a pregnant woman caught doing drugs or alcohol while pregnant should be punished in some manner? should society have a right or obligation to protect an unborn or should Laws not be allowed in this area at all?

[MineralMan]

14. Actually, lots of pregnant mothers-to-be do that stuff.

I haven't seen any arrests, lately. It's a bad idea, but there aren't cops out looking for them.

[The2ndWheel]

3. And until everyone thinks the same way about everything, whatever way that is

our one-size-fits-all system will be inefficient, wasteful, and we'll just fight the same battles again and again.

[tblue]

6. Why is the Christo-fascist ethic the default? Why do they get to deny us health services?

[Skidmore]

7. Absolutely!

I would wager that most women want reproductive rights, regardless of their belief system.

[The2ndWheel]

9. Better organized?

The seemingly eternal struggle for power?

http://www.context.org/ICLIB/IC07/Schmoklr.htm

"The meaning of "power," a concept central to this entire work, needs to be explored. Power may be defined as the capacity to achieve one's will against the will of another. The exercise of power thus infringes upon the exercise of choice, for to be the object of another's power is to have his choice substituted for one's own. Power becomes important where two actors (or more) would choose the same thing but cannot have it; power becomes important when the obstacles to the achievement of one's will come from the will of others. Thus as the expanding capacities of human societies created an overlap in the range of their grasp and desire, the intersocietal struggle for power arose."

[Skidmore]

11. We have not had a point at which women could be

unified for sometime. They divided and sought to conquer the women's movement. It is time to return to those battlefields and resume the fight in earnest.

[The2ndWheel]

17. Tough to unify when the foundation is individual choice

That's for anything, not just the women's movement.

For example, generally speaking, our various desires for a stronger sense of community, are consistently undermined by our increased ability to not need anyone else directly. Another example could be the way that we wish to pool all of our resources for health care, yet at the same time we want everyone out of the house at 18, on their own, etc.

We just seem to want the best of everything. The best of the individualistic society, and also the best of the collective society. Well the scale only goes to 100%, so the best we can do is 50/50, which is probably not likely, outside of the moment in time where the scale is in the process of moving up and down.

[Overseas]

5. They go further than that-- Stupak and other Conservadems belong to "The Family"

Many of our most conservative Democrats are also associates of The Family, the conservative cult with the C-Street dorm, that calls itself "The Christian Mafia" and has the motto of "Jesus Plus Nothing," that puts its cult's ideas about What Jesus Would Do ahead of the constitution and their constituents.

I'd like to see the Democrats most closely tied to that cult that believes its tenets more important than US law voted out of office. Even if they seem like harmless nice guys like Stupak. Or well established standard-bearers like Bill Nelson.

Here's part of Jeff Sharlet's March 2003 Harper's article about The Family:

Ivanwald, which sits at the end of Twenty-fourth Street North in Arlington, Virginia, is known only to its residents and to the members and friends of the organization that sponsors it, a group of believers who refer to themselves as “the Family.” The Family is, in its own words, an “invisible” association, though its membership has always consisted mostly of public men. Senators Don Nickles (R., Okla.), Charles Grassley (R., Iowa), Pete Domenici (R., N.Mex.), John Ensign (R., Nev.), James Inhofe (R., Okla.), Bill Nelson (D., Fla.), and Conrad Burns (R., Mont.) are referred to as “members,” as are Representatives Jim DeMint (R., S.C.), Frank Wolf (R., Va.), Joseph Pitts (R., Pa.), Zach Wamp (R., Tenn.), and Bart Stupak (D., Mich.). Regular prayer groups have met in the Pentagon and at the Department of Defense, and the Family has traditionally fostered strong ties with businessmen in the oil and aerospace industries. The Family maintains a closely guarded database of its associates, but it issues no cards, collects no official dues. Members are asked not to speak about the group or its activities.

The organization has operated under many guises, some active, some defunct: National Committee for Christian Leadership, International Christian Leadership, the National Leadership Council, Fellowship House, the Fellowship Foundation, the National Fellowship Council, the International Foundation. These groups are intended to draw attention away from the Family, and to prevent it from becoming, in the words of one of the Family's leaders, “a target for misunderstanding.” The Family's only publicized gathering is the National Prayer Breakfast, which it established in 1953 and which, with congressional sponsorship, it continues to organize every February in Washington, D.C. Each year 3,000 dignitaries, representing scores of nations, pay $425 each to attend. Steadfastly ecumenical, too bland most years to merit much press, the breakfast is regarded by the Family as merely a tool in a larger purpose: to recruit the powerful attendees into smaller, more frequent prayer meetings, where they can “meet Jesus man to man.”

In the process of introducing powerful men to Jesus, the Family has managed to effect a number of behind-the-scenes acts of diplomacy. In 1978 it secretly helped the Carter Administration organize a worldwide call to prayer with Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, and more recently, in 2001, it brought together the warring leaders of Congo and Rwanda for a clandestine meeting, leading to the two sides' eventual peace accord last July. Such benign acts appear to be the exception to the rule. During the 1960s the Family forged relationships between the U.S. government and some of the most anti-Communist (and dictatorial) elements within Africa's postcolonial leadership. The Brazilian dictator General Costa e Silva, with Family support, was overseeing regular fellowship groups for Latin American leaders, while, in Indonesia, General Suharto (whose tally of several hundred thousand “Communists” killed marks him as one of the century's most murderous dictators) was presiding over a group of fifty Indonesian legislators. During the Reagan Administration the Family helped build friendships between the U.S. government and men such as Salvadoran general Carlos Eugenios Vides Casanova, convicted by a Florida jury of the torture of thousands, and Honduran general Gustavo Alvarez Martinez, himself an evangelical minister, who was linked to both the CIA and death squads before his own demise. “We work with power where we can,” the Family's leader, Doug Coe, says, “build new power where we can't.”

<snip one para>

There they forge “relationships” beyond the din of vox populi (the Family's leaders consider democracy a manifestation of ungodly pride) and “throw away religion” in favor of the truths of the Family. Declaring God's covenant with the Jews broken, the group's core members call themselves “the new chosen.”


Read the full article at http://www.harpers.org/archive/2003/03/0079525

[tblue]

12. I think they should disclose that when they're running for office. It's not 'private' the way they

use it.

[Overseas]

13. I agree. But The Family prefers to keep its membership secret.

So we'll have to do what we can to remind our fellow Democrats of their association with the group that puts its own rules above our constitution.

[tblue]

15. I don't like having cult members running our gov't and making laws!

[Overseas]

16. I hadn't realized how many of the Conservadems are members

of that particular cult. They've been quite successful at flying under the radar. So glad Jeff Sharlet has been tirelessly exposing them.

I wish their fellow Democrats could expose them, but The Family doesn't have a membership roster and is probably prepared to blast anyone who attacks their adherents under some kind of religious freedom argument. They'll accuse Democrats who try to expose them of being against religious freedom for attacking an organization that intends to deprive all Americans of their religious freedom. Kind of like Karl Rove plus Jesus, even if their motto is "Jesus Plus Nothing."

[msongs]

8. freedom FROM religion is America's most important possibility nt

[stray cat]

10. DUers and conservatives seem to feel the same way