Submitting to the Christian Right: Press ignores rr influence on GOP's curving of women's rights

[Shallah Kali]

apologies for rephrasing the exact title of this article but it wouldn't fit n the subject line. Here is the full correct title:


Submitting to the Christian Right

The press ignores the influence of religious conservatives on Republican lawmakers bent on curbing the rights of American women.
http://prospect.org/cs/articles?article=women_submit_yourselves_to_the_christian_right


Whatever the wisdom of using the term "Taliban Dan," Grayson was onto something that should have, if properly examined, provided clues to the Republican-controlled Congress' fixation with cutting off funding to Planned Parenthood. That such a question doesn't get asked is a function of how Congress has already gone too far -- and not in Grayson's direction. The Webster campaign should have given ample evidence that the Tea Party was full of religious zealots bent on undermining the rights of women. By failing to fully interrogate so-called social conservatism and understand its religious motivations, the press and pundits continue to provide cover for candidates with an extreme agenda, which they're far from finished carrying out.

Despite how commonly November's elections were cast as the Tea Party's first electoral victory, they actually represented the dominance not just of Christian-right activists in the Republican base but of Christian-right candidates. Religious zealotry plays an equal if not more significant role in Tea Party politics than its obsession with budget deficits and government spending. After all, an October 2010 survey found that more than 80 percent of Tea Party activists identified as Christian, and 57 percent of those "also consider themselves part of the conservative Christian movement."

Although Webster hasn't, as a freshman, put himself in the forefront of the anti-Planned Parenthood crusade, the treatment of the "Taliban Dan" ad is emblematic of how the press and political watchdogs have been duped into whitewashing the religious zealotry that underlies the GOP's legislative goals. Without a full understanding of those religious beliefs -- and how those beliefs define women and their role as wives and mothers -- we have only a surface understanding of the motivation behind the anti-Planned Parenthood efforts. It is not solely about shutting down Planned Parenthood's federal funding because the organization provides abortion services (indeed federal funding of abortion is already banned by the Hyde Amendment). It's about shutting down Planned Parenthood because it provides contraceptives. That is a target because, as Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota has put it, "an arrogant corrupt Washington elite" has "declared war on marriage, on families, on fertility, and on faith." (Emphasis added.)

The world from which Webster emerges is one, but by no means the only, evangelical subculture promoting women as hyper-fertile wives and mothers in obedient service to God. Webster is a protégé of the highly controversial evangelist Bill Gothard, founder of the Institute in Basic Life Principles (whose board of directors is chaired by another House Republican, Sam Johnson of Texas). Gothard's other, probably most famous disciples are the Duggars, stars of the TLC reality show 19 Kids and Counting, the anti-contraception poster family.

[DCKit]

1. Prospect.org failed to mention a big player:

http://www.quiverfull.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quiverfull

[Shallah Kali]

2. Gothard is a quiverfull proponent

Christian Dominionism ~ Part 3: Bill Gothard and the Ties that Bind Extremist Politics to Christian Patriarchy (No Longer Quivering)
http://nolongerquivering.com/2009/11/04/christian-dominionism-part-3-bill-gothard-and-the-ties-that-bind-extremist-politics-to-christian-patriarchy/

More articles on Gothardism in general here:

'Cult of Character' Xtian Reconstructionist Bill Gothard, Character First!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x4004754

http://www.streetprophets.com/tag/Bill%20Gothard

http://www.alternet.org/belief/149921/cultish_christian_leader_teaches_women_should_submit_to_husbands_--_victims_of_his_%22submission_theology%22_speak_out/?page=1

'Gothard even advises a wife whose husband chastises her to say, "God, thank you for this beating.'
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x9227063

[Vogon_Glory]

3. The So-Called Librul Media Has A Whopping Blind Spot

The so-called "liberal" media has a whopper of a blind spot when it comes to noticing the powerful influence the Religious Right has on the Republican Party. Although I think that right-wing charges of "liberal bias" are usually so much horse-droppings, I strongly believe that the gentlemen and gentlewomen of the press, both the corporate types and many of the newer outlets on the web, are secular minded. Like the hopeful iranians after the Shah's overthrow in 1979, they just can't wrap their minds around the idea that here in 21st century America, right-wing pietists can force through policies not only making abortion almost impossible, but making contraception increasingly difficult to obtain.

Furthermore, the clueless members of the Fourth Estate, editorial nabobs and little reporters alike, fail to realize that these religious fanatics can get away with it. Who is going to hold them accountable? Not the rest of the Republican Party--they've caved completely and any serious opposition to the religious social-reactionaries' agenda has been crushed with the holdouts being ground down with every election or precinct caucus. And certainly not the news-critters who, despite the hype, haven't a clue as to what's really going on.

:argh:

:dem:

[mountainlion55]

4. good article

Religion broke my family apart. Religion is a primitive thought process that I would like to see end!:hippie:

[Bluenorthwest]

5. Grayson was right, but the influence is in both Parties

And many of us have been right only to be shouted down in favor of hate preaching clerics like McClurkin and Caldwell and Warren. So understand that once you make McClurkin part of your Party, you have no right to point at others for religious bigotry and hypocrisy. No right, no standing.