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Monday, February 20. 2012
Phony Superstition
There’s this show on the History Channel called Full Metal Jousting. These guys do exactly what it sounds like: they don suits of armor, get on a horse, grab a lance and then charge at each other hoping to knock the other guy off his mount. And it hurts.That’s going back to the Middle Ages. Seems apropos, considering what’s going on in the political world. Late last week San Diego North County Representative Darryl Issa decided to have a hearing in his House Oversight Committee on “Religious Freedom.” Specifically, the Affordable Care Act requiring employers and health insurance companies to provide cost-free birth control services and medication.
As it turns out, some religious groups oppose birth control, like the Catholic Church, the religion of my upbringing. Fucking is for procreation and doing it for pleasure is a sin. One of the many reasons I found the religion lacking. Well, any of the Judeo/Christian/Muslim religions. And then there’s that whole bit about believing in a deity … but that’s a different rant, covered here many times before.
So the president, himself a Good Christian, find a solution that lets the church-affiliated groups off the hook by requiring the insurance companies to pick up the cost of providing cost-free birth control. Problem solved, you’d think.
But let’s back up a moment. These provisions of all employers being required to provide cost-free birth control have been mandated in many states, by Republican legislatures and signed into law by Republican governors, such as Mit Romney, although he had a Democratic legislature. But that list includes Arizona, Georgia, and Texas, just to name a few.There are provisions in some of these states that allow churches and such to opt out, but only with a “patch” of sorts that allows employees to get the coverage through third party insurers at no extra cost to the insured or as the Affordable Care Act provides, the insurance company provides the coverage. But in 28 states, employers are required to provide or allow coverage for birth control.
That isn’t the focus of the Republican leadership in Washington. No, Representative Issa took his cue from Fox News host Sean Hannity. This was all about President Obama’s War On Religion!
Some weeks ago Hannity had a special program that featured all these clergymen declaring unequivocally President Obama was at war with religion, that if Obama were to get a second term, the secret men in black would be coming for them. “Would you go to jail for your faith,” Hannity asked, earnestly, severely even. Why yes, all two-dozen clergymen piously raised their hands in agreement. Well, that’s it then.
The people of faith and religion are being persecuted! Here in these United States! And it’s all because of that Negro fascist-socialist-Muslim in the White House: Barack Hussein Obama!
As Jon Stewart so expertly pointed out on his show last week, religion gets such a free ride here in the U.S., the idea that it is persecuted is laughable. In reality, religion is subsidized by our tax dollars.
But Christians love to believe they’re persecuted. It makes them feel more Christ-like. Jesus was prosecuted and his followers were persecuted for several hundred years, until they gained control of the Roman Empire and then began force-feeding their religion onto the nations they had conquered. In fact, the Spanish Inquisition was mostly about converting Jews to Christianity at the point of a lance. The used the most horrific of tortures to enforce their religious views on the Jews and others, all in the name of Christ.Rick Santorum raised the bar when he said President Obama’s agenda is based on a “phony theology.” So, it wasn’t enough to claim the president was a Muslim, it wasn’t enough to claim he was born in Kenya — it wasn’t even enough to claim he didn’t have the grades to get a law degree from Harvard and become editor of the Harvard Law Review, now they want to claim his religion is phony? Seriously? Phonier than what? Catholicism?
Actually, Santorum has a point. President Obama believes this guy Jesus, who lived about 2,000 years ago, is a deity, even though science has been proving most everything taught in the various sects of that mythology is wrong. The Earth is not flat and the sun, moon and stars do not revolve around our planet. The Universe wasn’t created in six days 8,000 years ago.
Yeah, the president’s theology sounds pretty phony, but then, Santorum and all his Republican minkies believe the same thing, which means their theology is just as phony.
Since Santorum made those remarks, his supporters have been walking that back, saying the former senator wasn’t speaking of Obama’s religious theology, but his philosophical theology. What? Here’s the dictionary definition of the word “theology” from Merriam-Webster: “The study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially : the study of God and of God’s relation to the world.”
That pretty much singles out religion as the subject of theology and Rick Santorum didn’t misspeak. His claim was a deliberate attempt to cash in on the birther/Muslim fringe beliefs so many in the Republican/Conservative world hold. Santorum wants their votes in these primaries so he’ll say whatever is needed to get them.
Now, Santorum has one supporter who thinks the best form of birth control is for a woman to grip an aspirin between her knees; in other words, don’t spread her legs to have sex. You know, on the flipside (pardon the pun), a woman could actually hold that aspirin between her knees and still have sex — doggy style. I’m just sayin’. But that’s an entirely different can of worms.
No Christians, this isn’t persecution. Let me give you the dictionary definition of the word “persecution”; “To pursue with harassing or oppressive treatment, especially because of religion, race or beliefs.”
The Christian religion is so ingrained in our society, there are references to it on our money and Congress passed a law in the 1950’s to have a reference made to it in the Pledge of Allegiance.
There are idiot educators in the Bible Belt teaching the Book of Genesis as science, presidential candidates have to pass a religious litmus test just to be considered for the job — religions are subsidized by our tax dollars through our government. That doesn’t even come close to the definition of the word “persecution.”
No my fellow Americans who believe Sean Hannity and the like, this isn’t persecution, this is pushback from the rest of us who are tired of your whining. The United States wasn’t created as a theocracy, it was meant to be a secular society that gave people the choice of whether to believe superstition or not and to choose their brand of superstition and it’s all phony to me.
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