Anti-choice people are extremely disingenuous and dishonest. They like to claim "life begins at conception" and, therefore, most forms of birth control and abortion are sanctity of life issues, just like murder. The vast majority of these same people however, see nothing wrong with supporting the death penalty, with supporting invading and attacking another sovereign country who has done us no harm, with supporting torture and rendition, with supporting the denial of poor children free lunches, with supporting and denying health care and transplants for people who do not have citizenship or health insurance, and, too many more examples of their hypocrisy to continue to list.
It is amazing to me that anti-choice did not line the streets, chain their children to military equipment in protest against our war in Iraq. After all, many THOUSANDS of women, men and children were killed and many thousands more maimed all based on their sanctity of life beliefs. Nor do they behave that way at executions by the state - even those executions where it is believed that the person being executed is INNOCENT.
Catholics started this shit. Southern white authoritarian evangelical ministers who saw an opportunity to subjugate women joined them. IOW, the people behind this are religious people. They are against it for religious reasons. (I find it highly ironic theCatholic church tells the Jews they have misinterpreted their own laws of Moses! Jews DO believe in choice and believe it is a matter between a woman, her doctor and whomever else she wants counsel from.)
Here is a convenient definition for what I am about to say: by definition heresy can only be committed by someone who considers himself a Christian, but rejects the teachings of the Catholic Church. A person who completely renounces Christianity is not considered a heretic, but an apostate, and a person who renounces the authority of the Church but not its teachings is a schismatic.
I want to paraphrase this part:
When this country was formed, in May 1776, we expressed our inalienable rights (those rights we are born having that cannot be voted on, or they wouldn’t be “rights”), we expressed those rights as foundational to our government and governance, with one of those inalienable rights being freedom of religion. However, when it came to actually forming the government and governance by statutes, we purposefully did not make a law asserting, protecting and enshrining each right we listed, including the right of freedom of religion. In October 1776, though, at a general assembly meeting, the constitutional convention did repeal all English laws we had been governed by up to that point that made it a crime to “maintain any opinions in matters of religion”, the laws forcing church attendance, the laws pertaining to how people must worship, and they also suspended the laws giving salaries to clergy – which was made permanent in October 1779. Because of those repeals of the English enacted religious laws, we were left without any laws dictated to us by or through religion, and were left with only those laws coming out of the common law and those new laws we were in the process of making (and would have nothing to do with establishing or promoting any religion, religious law or theology).
When this country was formed, in May 1776, we expressed our inalienable rights (those rights we are born having that cannot be voted on, or they wouldn’t be “rights”), we expressed those rights as foundational to our government and governance, with one of those inalienable rights being freedom of religion. However, when it came to actually forming the government and governance by statutes, we purposefully did not make a law asserting, protecting and enshrining each right we listed, including the right of freedom of religion. In October 1776, though, at a general assembly meeting, the constitutional convention did repeal all English laws we had been governed by up to that point that made it a crime to “maintain any opinions in matters of religion”, the laws forcing church attendance, the laws pertaining to how people must worship, and they also suspended the laws giving salaries to clergy – which was made permanent in October 1779. Because of those repeals of the English enacted religious laws, we were left without any laws dictated to us by or through religion, and were left with only those laws coming out of the common law and those new laws we were in the process of making (and would have nothing to do with establishing or promoting any religion, religious law or theology).
In this country, the United States of America, by law passed in 1705, if a person brought up Christian denied the existence of a God, or of the Trinity, or, if they asserted there was more than one God, or denied the Christian religion as being the one true religion, or denied the Bible was an unquestionable divine authority, that person being found guilty of one of those offenses would, on the first conviction be unemployable - either in government, in the clergy, or in the private sector. A second offense and they were stripped of their right to sue, to inherit, to be given money, to be the guardian of a child, to be an executor or administrator of an estate and three years imprisonment without any possibility of bail. If that man was a father, his children were taken from him and were given out to be raised by more “suitable” (Christian) people.(During this time, church attendance was mandatory; religious “sins” were often punished by being put in the town square in the stocks. Capital punishment was also used in New England in religious law context.)
The legitimate powers of government are only supposed to be against acts that hurt others. It does not “pick your pocket” nor does it “break your leg” if someone else has one or twenty abortions or prenatal tests or uses birth control. It is none of your business and does not pertain to you. Therefore, it is not the business of government to intervene. (As for the argument of abortion being “murder”, that is a religious definition, not a legal one, not a secular test such as whether or not the woman medically needs an abortion.)
This is the what Rick Santorum and others would take us BACK to. This is what we rebelled against. Keep your religion to yourself. Stop trying to force me to your religious view. I don’t particularly like misogynists and you have little chance of converting me to your way of thinking.
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