As with other efforts — against gay marriage, stem cell research, cloning, assisted suicide — the anti-birth-control campaign isn't centralized; it seems rather to be part of the evolution of the conservative movement. The subject is talked about in evangelical churches and is on the agenda at the major Bible-based conservative organizations like Focus on the Family and the Christian Coalition. It also has its point people in Congress — including Representative Roscoe Bartlett of Maryland, Representative Chris Smith of New Jersey, Representative Joe Pitts and Representative Melissa Hart of Pennsylvania and Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma — all Republicans who have led opposition to various forms of contraception.
Money quotes:
*"We see a direct connection between the practice of contraception and the practice of abortion," says Judie Brown, president of the American Life League, an organization that has battled abortion for 27 years but that, like others, now has a larger mission. "The mind-set that invites a couple to use contraception is an antichild mind-set. So when a baby is conceived accidentally, the couple already have this negative attitude toward the child. Therefore seeking an abortion is a natural outcome. We oppose all forms of contraception."
*"The effective separation of sex from procreation may be one of the most important defining marks of our age — and one of the most ominous," said R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. "This awareness is spreading among American evangelicals, and it threatens to set loose a firestorm.. . .A growing number of evangelicals are rethinking the issue of birth control — and facing the hard questions posed by reproductive technologies."
It'll be interesting to see how the Republicans navigate this issue. If they play to their base, the GOP can kiss their Congressional majority goodbye.
Once again, we're left to wonder: Whatever happened to the small government conservative?
"Whatever happened to the small government conservative?"
ReplyDeleteThe separation of church and state has been so eroded by the evangelical right that the whole platform of "less bureaucracy" and "government staying out of people's private matters" that the Republican Party so prided itself upon barely exists any more.
This is what partisan pandering to appease special-interest groups results in: alienating your core constituency.
Those statements go against every logical and scientific arguement, not to mention women's rights, civil liberties, and general privacy between couples.
ReplyDeleteBut the most pathetic part is that people are actually listening and following that kind of backwards thoughts.