I was disgusted, but not surprised, when I heard yesterday that the Senate was entertaining something called "the Toomey amendment," which would allow employers to discriminate against LGBT employees because of their -- pardon the expression -- religious values.
Not surprised because the religious tyranny wing of the republican party was able to get away with this lame rationalization for religious groups when in June the Obama administration allowed religious groups to exercise a religious exemption by not covering contraception, which would be somehow covered by other means. Good deal, right?
Not good enough for the rabidly religious. This was a mere victory en route to the next battle. That next battle was that employers, whether a religious group or not, should not have to pay for contraception if it conflicts with their religious beliefs. Nor should they have to pay the penalty for failing to cover this required benefit. And the D.C. Appeals Court did in fact last Friday, strike down the requirement.
And of course, there is the battle raging over whether a pharmacist should have to fill a prescription for contraception if it burdens their conscience. Even a waffling bill which allows an employee to refuse to fill as long as there is someone at the pharmacy who will do so has been unable to make it through Congress. And why should it? Refusing outright has been the raison d'etre of our current republican legislators.
What does contraception have to do with LGBT rights? That religious exemption is the key to wiping out a whole lot of our civil liberties. Because the same god who thinks women should not have protection from pregnancy believes that being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender is wrong. According to the god who talks to these folks, a person of faith (i.e. christian) should be able to deny workplace rights to any of the above based on the perversion known as their "conscience."
So let's just look ahead down that slippery slope. If the law and the courts agree that based on religious freedom an employer should not have to provide contraceptive care, or give LGBT persons employment equality, and businesses have the right to refuse to provide contraception based on their religious beliefs, some other likely god-fueled battles are:
Refusal to marry an interracial couple.
Refusal to allow adoptions by certain racial or religious groups.
Refusal of a restaurateur to seat people who are LGBT.
Refusal to allow members of certain groups service.
Segregated proms.
Signs in windows exercising business owners' rights:
Two things about the above examples. First of all, check out the dates on the links.
Secondly, notice the language in defense of these horrific acts of discrimination. They all positively flow with the blood of protecting religious freedom.
So here's the thing. If we don't all join together to fight these injustices, we are all going to be living in a country in which the only freedom is granted to those who are white, wealthy, and claim to be christian.
The only way to protect our individual freedoms, and our freedoms as members of minority groups, is by uniting and not allowing any discrimination of any one of us by any person (or business or church). If you can't see the problem with refusing to fill a prescription for birth control, I guarantee, your rights will be next in front of the firing squad.
I heard that State Senator Vincent Sheheen made an appearance at SC Pride yesterday. Not surprisingly it has not been widely reported, especially by the Sheheen camp. Sheheen made news earlier this month by reaching across the aisle to Governor Haley in his support of the ban on gay marriage. The public outcry apparently stunned Sheheen, who wants more than anything to be governor, to the point of making the appearance at the Gay Pride event.
The problem with Senator Sheheen as I see it is that his values lie on the other side of the aisle, but his political affiliation is with us Democrats.
While Sheheen unabashedly seeks support from women's groups, unions, and gay rights groups, he wants to do it without making it too public, and without having to compromise his lack of support for same.
Pardon me but my rage is showing.
It would be a simple matter even for a proud Catholic like Sheheen to support women's reproductive privacy and freedom. Even Pope Francis, who has to deal with the ultra-conservative archbishops who elected him, has figured out a work-around to the Church's obsession with contraception and abortion.
With Pope Francis, his own Church's leader, as the model, now is the time for Senator Sheheen to take a stand that sets him apart from the rabid Christian republicans, like Senator Lee Bright, who would bring back the Inquisition (for women only) which looks a bit like his fantasy of Sharia Law.
In other words, women's reproductive choices should be as private as are those of men. They should be as fully covered as those of men (When was the last time you heard an argument that vasectomies should not be covered by our state health plan?). Women's health care -- the promotion of discriminatory practices against women -- has no place in the legislature.
Abortion and contraception are private matters, to be addressed by the woman, her doctor, her family, her church, and not by government. God did not appoint lawmakers to make God's rules. In fact, there's that whole "render unto Caesar" idea that pretty much means the state should stay out of God's business, and God will do the same for the state.
Meanwhile, the state's business is to see that those who choose to have children are not made to suffer needlessly. In other words, health care, education, a living wage, those are the issues that need to be addressed by government, not what goes on in the doctor's office, or in one's church.
We need to suggest this to Senator Sheheen, to insist in fact that he listen to us -- and to the Pope -- and stop obsessing about women's reproductive parts. We need to let him know, on Facebook, on Twitter, by email and in person, that church and government, his religion and his role as a public servant, are separate entities. We need to call and write to the media. We need to light up this issue, while there is a chance that a Democratic candidate might listen.
These days, when the men in Congress invite the men in the Church to testify on how better they can help women see the light, some of us are starting to notice. Some of us are beginning to remember, as though awakening from a deep slumber, that it wasn't always like this. But before it wasn't like this, it was.
What I mean is that many of us grew up in a Mad Men world, where being thin and pretty were requirements not only for being a stewardess but for answering phones in an office. In that world, we kept things tidy and never made a fuss. We were mostly homemakers, and when we made ripples, folks, we were unceremoniously squashed.
I remember as a psychology student learning about the high rates of women in psychiatric hospitals diagnosed with depression, and the new miracle drugs, like Valium, that would get them back on the track to being happy. Because without a happy wife, how could the husband go out and conquer the world?
Fortunately, that was my mother's generation, and in the fifties there was enough social security -- the kind you get from having a roof over your head with an affordable mortgage and knowing you were going to college -- to have the guts to begin to question your world.
Who were men to tell us what made us happy? Or that our job was to keep them happy? We knew we were smart and starting to realize we were as smart (maybe smarter) than the boys that were going to college and getting better jobs than us.
We made waves. And it felt good. And for awhile, the men in charge listened. And then more women were in charge.
But not enough.
The men were persistent; they know war. We women knew how to work hard, and we also knew guilt. We tried to do it all, and that left us vulnerable, too busy doing it all and trying to get it right to fight battles we thought we had already won.
Men let women be midwives when it wasn't worth their time, but when it became a career they began to fight to take it away from us.
They let us be managers as long as our lower wages could make their profits greater. And as long as women were taking care of the children, they weren't as likely to rise too high, or rise up to fight.
And as long as we were the ones that had babies, we were still going to be under their thumbs.
This is why so much energy is being focused on women's reproductive freedom. In a Congress that daily fights to deny women food stamps and health care the issue is certainly not the value of life. It is, however, about power and money.
Good education can give a girl hope for a good future. Access to contraception can free a young adult from worry, and allow her to control her present and her future. Availability of safe abortions mean security for women and their families.
The crazies of the religious right are merely pawns of the power brokers. They are used daily in front of the offices of abortion providers, and they are used at the polls on election day. Groups with warm and fuzzy names like the Family Research Council are about as anti-family as you can get; they scorn poor women for having too many babies at the same time as they cut off her education and access to birth control.
But our "representatives" in Congress look to these anti-life groups as "experts" when they are looking to force their way on women. And while the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops may be momentarily busy tap-dancing around the actual Christian values of their new Pope, they will still make time to restate their control over women.
Let's start questioning -- loudly -- the "expert opinions" that have nothing to do with science, nothing to do with life, and nothing to do with women. When you see a group convene, whether it be the state legislature or a hospital board or the Heritage Foundation, count heads and note how many women there are. And then make sure to note how many women are testifying about women's issues.
Lindsey Graham may not care much about gun deaths, but he proudly calls himself a "pro-life Senator." Where he takes his stand is right smack inside of a woman's body, where he can celebrate all his religious freedoms.
I made the mistake of adding my name to an email petition regarding a woman's right to contraceptive access and the providers' obligation to, well, do their jobs. I try to avoid this because what happens is I get back, by snail mail, on the taxpayer's dime (more like a dollar given the classy stationery and the cost of stamps), a form letter carefully tailored to say, "I don't agree, I am right, but please always feel free to contact me."
Often I don't bother to open the letter; I can tell you what they all say. But I had just gotten the same old from Nikki Haley, on even more expensive letterhead, and I thought I'd start a collection.
So what we are struggling against these days, is no longer just the right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy (or, as Lindsey might say, "Kill an unborn baby"). These days we are watching our President attempt to move us back to the 20th century, back before President W invented (probably has his science advisers invent) the "conscience clause."
This is one of those right-wing freedoms that started off with the Catholic church, those bastions of morality, all men, who believe that a woman's job is to submit to her husband. Having no wife, and supposing not to have sex, the Pope and his underlings have nonetheless become the go-to guys when our Congressional leaders need testimony on women's reproductive systems.
Now I think the issue of whether or not an unmarried man should have any say in what happens to a woman, reproductively speaking, is absurd, but let's not dwell on that.
More important is the fact that religious groups enjoy (and I do mean enjoy) tax exempt status and despite their wealth are considered non-profit organizations. As such they freeload off taxpayers, are allowed to receive government grants, and then dictate terms that fly right in the face of the Constitution.
Remember the Constitution? All those right-wingers carry a copy of it on their person, I think to protect them from stray bullets when they are out wielding their weapons around town.
I believe that the louder someone talks about "freedom" these days, the more likely they are to dismiss the concept of "equality." And this is what is wrong with the Catholic church, small businesses, pharmacists, the US Congress AND legislatures like that of our very own state of South Carolina.
You don't get to move the line. If we've got a law -- if the Supremes have said abortion is legal -- you don't get to decide you don't want to do it. If you provide insurance coverage, you don't get to decide you don't agree with a certain procedure. If you operate a pharmacy, you are obligated to do your job, which is not to make moral judgments.
Imagine where this "conscience" silliness can lead. In fact, you don't have to imagine from whence it came.
A hotel manager could decide his morals were compromised by allowing a couple of mixed race to have a room.
An obstetrician may refuse to care for a pregnant and unmarried teen.
A restaurateur would be free to turn away a gay couple.
And here's one that hasn't happened yet: a pharmacist could decide not to prescribe erectile dysfunction drugs.
Which might, in fact, be a good thing. Because on a religious level, one could say that if God wanted a man to have sex he'd have given him that erection. And for another matter, the day this happens we will have a whole new ballgame.
