"This could be the moment when the culture-war tide finally turns and the social wedge issues long deployed so effectively by the Republican right begin to come back and bite them…So with this new compromise, Obama has actually increased religious freedom, not restricted it. All of which makes one wonder exactly how genuine the current outrage is—or whether it is part and parcel of a political campaign against Obama rather than a defense of religious freedom…[The Catholic Bishops’] radical fundamentalism—so alien to the spirit of the Second Vatican Council and to so many lay Catholics—has discredited the core priorities of Christianity, failed to persuade their own flock, and led to increasing politicization. And the obsession among Catholic and evangelical leaders with an issue like contraception stands in stark contrast to their indifference to, for example, the torture in which the last administration engaged, the growing social inequality fostered by unfettered capitalism, the Christian moral imperative of universal health care, and the unjust use of the death penalty. That’s why younger evangelicals are also alienated."
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Andrew Sullivan, once again, getting out ahead of the story. There is something happening in politics right now, Republicans are getting the band back together and breaking out the old hits—contraception, abortion, gay marriage. But the question is whether it will work this time. Sullivan misses, I think, the real story, however. The real story is women. Women and their reproductive rights have been flagrantly targeted by the so-called “moral majority” with increasing intensity. And women are getting pissed. And women are starting to make their preferences known. The backlash at Komen, the outrage over the targeting of Planned Parenthood in state legislatures, the support for contraception policies…these are calling cards for women to get themselves to the polls. If you want to inspire
generations of women to get out to vote, start backing policies to send their rights reeling back to the era of Betty Draper. Women have always been the key to national politics; Catholics don’t win elections.
(Source: thedailybeast.com)
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