Politics happened, and stuff
Yesterday was an election day. That’s all that anyone’s going to be talking about today. And that makes things a little tricky for us, since A) SPL isn’t really involved in electoral politics (because we’re non-partisan, and also we couldn’t afford to organize a 501(c)(4) even if we wanted to), and B) we generally write our blog posts a day or two before they’re published (because we’re volunteers, with lives and jobs).
Election coverage is what y’all want, and we can’t provide it. So enjoy this random picture of a very happy seagull, and we’ll be back on Friday.
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| AND he didn’t have to listen to any campaign ads. Lucky guy. |
P.S.: Here’s election coverage from other pro-life organizations.
Americans United for Life
Susan B. Anthony List
National Right to Life
In the previous thread, a poster took issue with what she felt was
a sweeping generalization that the mainstream pro-life is generally
anti-science and anti-civil-rights for LGBT. She claimed that there
were in fact many pro-lifers who are very pro-science and pro-LGBT,
but that these people do not fit into the liberal narrative, so they
media ignores them. Well, aside from the fact that the conservative
media also doesn't hi-light these people, I felt I should use my lunch
hour delve into this issue a bit.
I freely acknowledge that there are some pro-lifers who are secular
and oppose abortion for what they feels is a real violation of rights
of the unborn, the ones who are visible and can influence policy, and
they get my full respect. However, politicians are mainstream pro-lifers
who have the power to influence social policy. I felt it instructive
to see whether among these people, pro-life really does correlate well
with what progressives feel are anti-intellectual, anti-science stances.
Looking at the positions taken by US state governors on
http://governor.ontheissues.org/Governor/Governor.htm
I looked at 4 issues.
1) Pro-life (1 = Pro-choice)
2) LGBT rights/Same-sex Marriage support (1 = Support)
3) Church/state separation, no prayer in public school (1 = Support)
4) Man-made climate change, environmental regulations (1 = Support)
ISSUES 1 2 3 4
————————————–
Neil Abercrombie(HI) R 0 1 1 1
Jerry Brown(CA) D 0 1 1 1
Pat Quinn(IL) D 0 1 ? 1
Steve Beshear(KY) D 0 1 1 1
————————————–
Robert Bentley (AL) R 1 0 0 0
Butch Otter(ID) R 1 0 0 0
Rick Scott(FL) R 1 0 0 0
Nathan Deal(GA) R 1 0 0 0
Bobby Jindal(LA) R 1 0 0 0
Paul LePage(ME) R 1 0 ? 0
Rick Snyder(MI) R 1 0 ? ? (climate change, but humans not cause. LGBT Civil Union OK)
Susana Martinez(NM) R 1 0 ? 0
Brian Sandoval(NV) R 0 0(CU) ? 1? (RARE pro-choice Repub. LGBT Civil Union OK. Seems to be an environmental conservationist)
I realize this is not a full sampling, but I feel these governors are a reasonably representative
sampling. From this chart, it appears that there is a strong correlation. Pro-choice governors
pretty much always support LGBT civil rights, church-state separation and man-made climate change
and environmental regulations, while pro-life candidates almost always oppose those.
Why is this important?
As children, we believed in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy. As we got older and got exposed to
the wider world, those beliefs were abandoned. Polls show that holders of advanced degrees are
almost 2x as likely to hold pro-choice beliefs than pro-life beliefs, while holders of high school
diplomas, the ratios are switched. Conversely, belief in Creationism is very similar. Advanced
degree, you are highly unlikely to be a Creationist, while high school diploma, you are much more
likely to be a Creationist. If one believes in 1 crazy or irrational idea, it is also likely that
person believes in another irrational or crazy idea, because that person probably doesn't have the
mental tools make good decisions whether an idea is crazy or irrational.
Would you trust an adult to be able to make good decisions about life in general if that adult
still believed in Santa Claus? What if that adult rejects outright evidence based science about
climate change, or that gays make decent parents? If that adult also is strongly pro-life, do you
think they arrived at their pro-life position through rational thought?
The first post here was for looking at the stance of current State Governors. A similar look at the pro-life politicians endorsed by The Susan B. Anthony List also appears to follow a similar pattern. Pro-life candidates are very against LGBT marriage and for "religious liberty" discrimination against gays, are against initiatives that try to stem climate change, and are against church-state separation.
Good work compiling that list.
Thanks, its striking how strongly pro-life stance correlates with stances that are so reactionary and ignorant of reality.
It's for a couple of reasons…and I really really need to search this information down so that I can cite it in the future
1) the original arguments made against abortion had nothing to do with fetal life, in fact, it was all about female *chastity*, and how abortion – related to contraception – would enable women to be sluts, and that just wouldn't do
2) abortion replaced the southern strategy as a way to rally the religious right – and the fetus became the moral center of the abortion debate, when prior to that, it had been the woman, and in fact, in 1974, both conservatives and liberals, including Protestants, supported abortion rights and even contraception. The last 40 years of opposition to abortion and even contraception has been a rallying cry to get the religious right together under one roof (the GOP) and lead them to victory
It is a shame, the rise of the Religious Right.
The abortion debate does have genuine merits on both sides of the issue, but I don't think the RR is capable of having honest discussions about anything because in the end – god. Trash the environment, its OK, earthly existence is only temporary. Abortion – a fetus is a gift of god. God hates fags. Evolution puts us on the same foothold as monkeys, and that is an insult to God as we're made in his own image. End of discussion.
Purple, my own religious opinion is that any religion that focuses on their dislike of gays, or abortion (or both) is very seriously flawed. Because offering hate objects is a very easy sell to most people. Most people are mentally and spiritually lazy, and would rather buy into the easy path of feeling holier-than-thou compared to the offered hate object, than actually working at improving their own moral character (which is painful and hard work and therefore not an easy sell). And to the extent that you are focussing your religious energy on other people's sex lives, (or other people at all for that matter), you are NOT focussing it on yourself, your own flaws, improving those flaws, or your own relationship with God.