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Under the guise of “protecting religious freedom,” state legislative bodies and Congressional Republican Conservatives have launched a comprehensive and merciless war on women’s health.  For example, last October, House Republicans led by their radical Tea Party component, passed the “Protect Life Act”, known by women’s health advocates as the “Let Women Die” bill.  This bill allows hospitals that receive federal funds to refuse any woman in need of an abortion procedure even if it is necessary to save her life.  Federal law already prohibits federal funding of abortions but Conservative Republicans insist that the health care law “contains a loophole that allows those receiving federal subsidies to use the money to enroll in health care plans that allow abortion services.”  However, there is language in the law that says subsidies from the government can’t be used to pay for abortion services, except in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. It’s true that many women who now lack insurance might obtain private policies that cover wider abortion services as a result of the new legislation and with the help of federal subsidies. But insurance companies must keep any subsidy money they receive segregated from premium payments made by private individuals, and must use only private money to pay for abortion coverage.  This Bill has been held up in the Senate.

Although defeated by voters last November, Mississippi lawmakers attempted to pass a “personhood” amendment to its constitution that defines a person as “every human being from the moment of fertilization, cloning, or the functional equivalent thereof.”  Not only would this proposed amendment ban all abortions, it could potentially outlaw birth control, stem cell research, and in-vitro fertilization for couples trying to conceive. Even though Mississippi voters rejected this amendment, personhood activists are enthusiastically moving forward with versions for other states.  Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich is in favor of a national personhood amendment.  Imagine his actions if elected President.

Several Republican-led states have proposed bills that force doctors to show a woman seeking abortion services an ultrasound of the fetus, and in some cases, describe the image to her. The Kentucky bill, for instance, requires doctors to describe the image if the woman chose to turn away her eyes or face a $250,000 fine for disobeying the law. The purpose of these bills is to discourage women from undergoing any abortion procedure, and in Michigan’s case, provide a “gift to the medical device industry” by forcing doctors to use “the most advanced ultrasound equipment available” to get the most “distinct image” of the fetus possible.  Fortunately, North Carolina Democratic Governor Bev Perdue vetoed her state’s version of the bill, viewing it as “a dangerous intrusion into the confidential relationship that exists between women and their doctors.”  However, the Republican controlled Commonwealth of Virginia  is on the verge of passing into law a bill that requires every woman seeking an abortion to undergo a completely unnecessary and invasive trans-vaginal ultrasound medical procedure whether she wants to or not.  This means that the Republican Virginia legislators will require every woman seeking an abortion to undergo an evasive “trans-vaginal” ultrasound medical procedure and she has no say so in the matter.  Governor Bob McDonnell said that he would sign this bill into law once it reached his desk.  The Obama administration recently announced a significant expansion of the FBI’s definition of rape, which will now cover several forms of sexual assault.  It could be that non-consensual, trans-vaginal penetration of an ultrasound device may meet the definition of “rape” under this expanded definition.

A most recent and covert attack on women’s rights occurred a couple of weeks ago when Republican Committee Chairman Darrel Issa decided to hold a hearing that was supposed to be about religious freedom.  Issa said the hearing was meant to be more broadly about religious freedom and not specifically about the contraception mandate in the Health Reform law. Although the hearing was “not specifically about contraception,” only men who were supporters of Issa’s position were invited to testify.  Even though this “sham” hearing was about women, the one woman the Democrat minority asked to testify, Sandra Fluke, was rejected by Issa as “not qualified to testify” because she was not a member of the clergy but a third-year Georgetown Law Center student.  Fluke would have talked about a classmate who lost an ovary because of a syndrome that causes ovarian cysts.

The Issa cause gained momentum when the Obama Administration proposed a rule to require Catholic organizations to offer contraception services in their employee health plans.  Republicans claimed that the regulation infringed on the religious rights of Catholics and violated the Freedom of Religion provision of the Constitution.  Because of the concerns raised by Catholic Bishops, President Obama tweaked the rule so that in cases where non-profit religious organizations have objections, insurance companies would be required to offer the coverage directly. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called it “a first step in the right direction.”  “Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive service no matter where they work,” Obama said.  Of course, Conservative Republicans including the presidential candidates are still criticizing the President in spite of the change.

Right-wing Conservative Republican Congressional and state legislatures are doing all they can to set this country back at least 60 years by denying Constitutional rights to women and minorities.  In addition to radical state voter suppression laws, this right-wing radical group is launching blatant attacks on the health of women by allowing government to interfere in their health care decisions.  In a coordinated and orchestrated way, they are attempting to use any tool available to prevent women from using contraception devices but are not objecting to men having vasectomies or even purchasing Viagra.  If you are a Republican, Democrat or Independent, if Romney, Santorum or Gingrich is elected President of the United States or this right-wing radical so called “Christian” group controls the Senate and House, the health rights of all women will be seriously compromised or even eliminated.  Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United, it is estimated that right-wing Republican Conservatives will infuse over 1 Billion Dollars in the 2012 election to ensure Republican victories.   We have already seen the extreme radical legislation of Republican state legislative bodies regarding women’s rights, what would be the impact if this radicalism escalated to the federal government level?  I believe the results would be devastating not only to women but all Americans.  The 2012 Presidential election is not about Party but about Choice.

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Ever since Gay Americans began to publicly acknowledge their sexual orientation including marriage, verbal and physical attacks on members of the Gay and Lesbian community have been unprecedented.  When President Obama eliminated the Don’t Ask, Don ‘t tell rule thus permitting gay and lesbians to serve openly in the Military, the right-wing Christian conservatives including Republican presidential candidates went berserk.  The most extreme Republican presidential candidate is Rick Santorum and his statements about homosexuality and the right to privacy.  In an interview with the Associated Press published April 20, 2003, Santorum stated that he believed mutually consenting adults do not have a constitutional right to privacy with respect to sexual acts.  Santorum described the ability to regulate consensual homosexual acts as comparable to the states’ ability to regulate other consensual and non-consensual sexual behavior such as adultery, polygamy, child molestation, incest, sodomy, and bestiality, whose decriminalization he believed would threaten society and the family, as they are not monogamous and heterosexual.  Right-wing radical rhetoric concerning Gay Americans has been so deliberate and passionate that it has spread to schools where bullying has been responsible for too many young people taking their own life.

In 2008, 52% of the California electorate approved Proposition 8.  This proposition called the “California Marriage Protection Act”, added a new provision to the California Constitution which provides that “only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”  By restricting the recognition of marriage to opposite-sex couples, the proposition overturned the California Supreme Court’s ruling of In re Marriage Cases that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry.  Proponents of the constitutional amendment argued that exclusively heterosexual marriage was “an essential institution of society,” that leaving the constitution unchanged would “result in public schools teaching our kids that gay marriage is okay,” and that “gays … do not have the right to redefine marriage for everyone else.”  The success of Proposition 8 in 2008 was heavily influenced by Evangelicals and other Christian Conservatives who dumped a ton of money to get it approved.  Fortunately, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals recently affirmed a lower court’s ruling that Proposition 8 was unconstitutional.  “Proposition 8 serves no purpose, and has no effect, other than to lessen the status and human dignity of gays and lesbians in California, and to officially reclassify their relationships and families as inferior to those of opposite-sex couples. The Constitution simply does not allow for laws of this sort,” Judge Reinhardt wrote.

Mitt Romney condemned the decision saying, “Today, unelected judges cast aside the will of the people of California who voted to protect traditional marriage. This decision does not end this fight, and I expect it to go to the Supreme Court. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman and, as president, I will protect traditional marriage and appoint judges who interpret the Constitution as it is written and not according to their own politics and prejudices.” 

Gingrich said, “With today’s decision on marriage by the Ninth Circuit, and the likely appeal to the Supreme Court, more and more Americans are being exposed to the radical overreach of federal judges and their continued assault on the Judeo-Christian foundations of the United States.”  Gingrich added, “The Constitution of the United States begins with “We the People”; it does not begin with ‘We the Judges’. Federal judges need to take heed of that fact. Federal judges are substituting their own political views for the constitutional right of the people to make judgments about the definition of marriage.”  

It’s interesting to note how Romney and Gingrich use the Constitution to justify their opposition to the court’s decision on marriage; however, nowhere in the Constitution does it say anything about marriage.  It does not say that straight couples are the only ones who can marry, nor does it say that homosexuals can’t get married.  The Constitution does say that everyone has the right to personal liberty, privacy, and equality under the law.  Laws that ban consenting adults from marriage violate the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses of the Constitution.  Thus, the judges made the right call but both Romney and Gingrich promises to appoint judges who will consistently misinterpret the Constitution.  Basically, laws against same-sex marriage are similar to laws that once banned interracial marriages in the South which were subsequently declared UN-Constitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court.

Same-sex marriage has become a major religious and Republican conservative issue in several states.  The New Jersey State Senate recently voted to legalize same-sex marriage which, if passed by the State Assembly, will be vetoed by Governor Christie.  Conservatives and members of the religious community are railing against the Maryland General Assembly currently considering same-sex legislation.  It astonishes me why the religious community would enthrall itself on the wrong side of a constitutionally protected issue.  Remember, the religious leaders were on the wrong side before when they chose to crucify Jesus Christ yet the government nor anyone else interfered with their choice.

Same-sex marriage is not about marriage or sex, but about freedom of choice.  I chose to become a Christian and as such, I believe that marriage is between a man and a woman.  However, God did not give me, any Christian or anyone else the right to impose our beliefs or choices on someone else.  Remember, God also loves Gays and Lesbians.

Even the Declaration of Independence gives each of us the unconditional right to make choices because it declares that, “We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”  Some pursue happiness by becoming liars, adulterers, gay bashers or hate-mongers, while others choose to become pious and honorable.  Some become Republicans; others become Democrats.  Some marry the opposite sex; others marry the same sex.  It’s all about choice.  Sometimes it’s best to honor the unwritten “eleventh” Commandment – Thou shalt mind thine own business, but that’s just my take.

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This past week, the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) of the Republican Party began its annual conference with more than 10,000 conservatives in attendance.  Although the Republican Party says that it is a Party of inclusion (after all, their symbolic African American Herman Cain is scheduled to speak at the conference), the Chairman of the American Conservative Union (CPAC producer), Al Cardenas, said that the gay Republican group GOProud would not be allowed to participate.  Cardenas said, “It’s going to be difficult to continue the relationship [with GOProud] because of their behavior and attitude.” In other words, gay is not cool as far as Republicans are concerned.  However, CPAC has invited two white supremacists to speak.  The first white supremacist is Peter Brimelow, a prominent anti-immigration activists despite the fact that he was born in England, will speak on a panel called “The Failure of Multiculturalism: How the pursuit of diversity is weakening the American Identity.”  Brimelow said in 2003 that, “America was defined — almost explicitly, sometimes very explicitly — as a white nation, for white people, and what that means is that there is virtually no figure, no law, no policy, no event in the history of the old, white America that can survive the transition to the new and non-white version. Whether we will want to call the new updated version ‘America’ at all is another question entirely.”

The other white supremacist is Robert “Bob” Vandervoort to speak on a panel called “High Fences, Wide Gates: States vs. the Feds, the Rule of Law & American Identity.” Vandervoort works for the site ProEnglish.com and also was the organizer for Chicagoland Friends of American Renaissance.  American Renaissance, a white supremacist organization run by notorious racist Jared Taylor, organizes a conference of racists including neo-Nazis, the Ku Klux Klan including David Duke and Stormfront owner, Don Black.

It is unconscionable that none of the Republican presidential candidates or congressional Republicans have distanced themselves from these racist white supremacists. It seems to me that conservative Republicans are more open to embracing white supremacist hate groups rather than be in the same ballroom with Gay Americans!  So much for inclusion.

Although CPAC had an extensive agenda for the week, one of the most notable contributions of many of the Republican speakers was to attack the President for what they called his “assault on religion.”  The issue concerns a rule to require Catholic organizations to offer contraception services in their employee health plans.  Republicans claim that the regulation infringes on the religious rights of Catholics and violated the Freedom of Religion provision of the Constitution, a blatant distortion of the facts.  The proposed regulation has nothing to do with the Constitution but everything to do with Labor Law.  Catholic churches and schools are exempt from the rule, but other Catholic organizations such as hospitals, must follow Labor Law including making contraceptives available through health insurance benefits like other organizations.  Although a majority of women including Catholics agree with the President, because of the concerns raised by Catholic Bishops, President Obama announced a plan that the rule would be tweaked so that in cases where non-profit religious organizations have objections, insurance companies would be required to reach out to employees and offer the coverage directly. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops called it “a first step in the right direction.”  “Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive service no matter where they work,” Obama said.  Of course, Conservative Republicans are still criticizing the President in spite of the change.

Symbolic African American Herman Cain decided to throw more “red meat” to the Conservative Republican crowd by attacking democrats, saying, “We must outsmart the liberals; we must outsmart the stupid people that are trying to ruin America.”  Cain says that liberals are “stupid people” yet it was liberals that passed the Social Security Act, Medicare, Voting Rights, Civil Rights Act of 1964 and much more; many of these laws contributed to Cain’s success as a businessman.  I certainly don’t fault Cain for becoming a Conservative Republican but his consistent asinine comments ought to be an embarrassment to the Republican Party.  I wonder if Cain is also referring to his Democrat wife who voted for President Obama as a “stupid liberal?”

At the start of the campaign, Republican presidential candidates began to attack President Obama on the economy.  Willard Mitt Romney applauded the fact that unemployment had fallen to 8.3 percent, a three-year low, was “good news,” he stated that, “I know the president didn’t cause this downturn, this recession, but he didn’t make it better either. He made it worse.”  Apparently, Romney’s advisers didn’t inform him that the unemployment rate fell to what it was during President Obama’s first full month in office, February 2009, and most economists agree that the stimulus actions taken by the administration and the Federal Reserve kept the recession from being worse.  If President Obama’s policies failed, how do you account for the improved economy?  First-time jobless claims are at their lowest, twenty-two months of new jobs added by the private sector, and the stock market is at an all-time high.

In a subtle way of introducing a hint of racism, Republican Gingrich called President Obama, “the best food-stamp president in American history” yet there were more folks on food-stamps under President Bush.  Gingrich’s staff apparently forgot to tell him that at least 36 percent of the 46 million people on food stamps are white, 22 percent are black, and 10 percent Hispanic.  Another idiotic comment designed to play to the conservative Republican base but a turn-off for most Americans.

The new front-runner of the Republican Party is Rick Santorum.  Many of us recall just a few weeks ago, Santorum said, “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”  But this Republican has a history of bigoted, UN-American comments.  For example, Santorum once said that, “the ultimate homeland security issue” is making sure sodomites and homosexuals cannot marry each other.  In a 2003 interview, Santorum likened sodomy to adultery, polygamy, and incest as “antithetical to a healthy, stable, traditional family”.  He compared the idea of homosexual marriage to “man on child, man on dog, or whatever the case may be,” and said, “If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual [gay] sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery. You have the right to anything.”  If elected President, Santorum said that he would repeal all federal funding for contraception, and he supports state laws to outlaw birth control insisting that “it’s a license to do things in a sexual realm that is counter to how things are supposed to be.”  Santorum expressed his surprise that President Obama didn’t know when life began — given his skin color. “I find it almost remarkable for a black man to say ‘now we are going to decide who are people and who are not people.”  I do not believe that the American people would ever elect Conservative Republican Santorum as President who has a past filled with such colorful bigoted and racist comments.

When contrasting the policies of the Obama administration with those of Republican candidates and their bigoted rhetoric, I believe that Americans would be better served if we follow the current course.  Of the many comments received on my blog, only one said that President Obama’s policies have failed.  Yet, no “credible” evidence identifying specific failed policies was included.  If anyone reading this article can identify a failed policy of President Obama, please cite it for me along with its trustworthy source.  I will include that comment and policy in my next article.

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