Christians and fake oppression--birth control edition

Fred Clark is on a roll, and my blog is in danger of becoming a "hey, look what Slactivist wrote again this week" type of place.

Anyway, in this edition, he points to the ridiculous example of Rick Warren vowing to go to jail rather than provide health coverage for women. Or something like that. Except, as Fred and others note, no one is asking him to either go to jail or provide those nasty contraceptives to women. Churches get an out. Oh, and California has had the same law for the last 13 years.

Oh, Evangelical Mind? Where the hell are you?

Jon Stewart's clip on the contraceptive wars had a lot of the same posturing bullshit, including the embarrassing Richard Land, who compared this ruling on contraceptives to the beginning of Hitler's reign. You know, "when they came for the Commies, I did nothing, because I was not a godless Commie?" Because requiring people of faith to take care of women's health is exactly what Hitler did.

Richard Land makes me embarrassed that I ever called myself a Baptist, and all of these men embarrass me for not recognizing a few key issues here: A) that the contraceptive rule has been on the books since 2001 (when whatsisname was declaring war on Christianity) and B) that their prophetic role (however they understand that) is not to be political shills.

But these people are all conservatives first and foremost, and Christians, eh, third or fourth. Have to throw "male" in there somewhere, and "jackass" somewhere. As Natalie Burris tweeted, "in actual fact they are the heirs--precisely--of the white clergymen who were standing in the way of human rights."

Let's see if we can count this up. Conservative Christians don't mind torture (that is understandable--after all, remember the fear we felt on 9-11), don't mind cuts for the disabled poor (we sadly just can't afford to help everyone), but are opposed to extending contraceptive and screening help to women. Oh, they will mandate that same woman take her rapists baby to term, but they won't have their tax money pay for her pre-natal exams, nor the baby's nutrition or shots. "Just let me know when that little bastard needs a prison term. I will pay taxes for that--well, not actually pay taxes, all taxes are evil--but I won't complain when my government builds them or privatizes them at more cost to the state."

They openly cheered Bush's invasion of Iraq and are now cheering for the next war. They sit silently or passively while white racism is on the rise, and have really nothing to say about inequality--well, in the oddest damn little Marxist way--when they say that God isn't concerned (really) with their physical deprivation, only that their "relationship" with God is sound.

Wow.