euterpe said:
I think liberals are running around like Chicken Little proclaiming the sky is falling.
Euterpe,
First of all certainly you have to take everything you read in this thread with a grain of salt, since we are indeed very upset about the results of this election. I don't think anyone really thinks of our government as Taliban-like. Now to contradict you:
You are correct that Roe v. Wade will likely not be overturned in the next 4 years. However, I guarantee that that is going to be the litmus test for the judges. A lot of abortion-related issues are coming up, and I don't like the move toward valuing the fetus's life over the mother's -- this is a very slippery slope. Also, with all the attention on the
supreme court, we're losing track of the
federal benches. Bush's appointees have been exceedingly conservative, more so than any of his predeccessors' were.
Other religion-related issues I feel strongly about relate to religious materials in public places such as schools or courthouses. To be fair, the currect supreme court has upheld the 1st ammendment, but I am not sure how long that will continue.
I believe the religious slant is also hindering our efforts world wide to fight AIDS. Sure I'd like people to only have marital sex, yet this is not realistic in many cultures. Brazil, for instance, only started having success with its HIV prevention programs when they abandoned this approach. I consider it highly hippocritical of the US to tell other countries how to conduct their business or risk losing our financial support -- while this is sometimes reasonable, in this case it is self defeating. It is in our interest to reduce HIV rates word wide, and each country knows best how to talk to its people (where we
should put pressure on countries is when they don't do anything to combat this problem).
Along the same lines is the administration's refusal to grant money to wordwide organizations that offer abortions among other services. The truth is that American women are very lucky. A pregnant teenager here has choices. She can give the baby up for adoption and know that most likely it will find a good home -- trust me, this is absolutely not the case in most of the world; in Russia for instance orphanages resemble something out of Dickens. She can also have the baby; while it is incredibly difficult, she can still go to school and get a career; while it is certainly more difficult for single mothers to find a husband, it is certainly not rare. In other parts of the word this is just not so. In India, for instance, a pregnant unwed mother may face life of total ostracism and poverty for herself and her children. Chances are, if she wants to have an abortion, she will. Without international organizations, though, it can be unsafe enough to kill her.
Getting back to issues close at hand now. I do think that my objections to the weight of the religious right are more psychological than practical. I just do not understand such reasoning! This makes me, and many others like me, feel like we don't belong. To me, values in government mean something other than faith in G-d. It saddens me to feel like I am a minority.
P.S. BTW, it's not just Christianity. I am just as frustrated with Senator Lieberman, and he is Jewish like me.
