Hatred of gays and hatred of women’s rights to have autonomy over their bodies in all situations, including reproduction, are deeply entwined. Both are about the flouting of the patriarchy; both are about human beings living with integrity in ALL areas, including sexually, despite what the straight Christian men who fancy themselves our overlords might have to say about it.
So it’s useful, as a gay rights organization, to occasionally look over the fence and see what our common adversaries are doing to victimize women and families dealing with painful decisions regarding reproductive health. On that note, I’d like to highlight an extremely painful, but important piece about what happened to a straight couple who had to make the hardest choice they never wanted to make, and how they reacted to the Christian protestors in their midst. Read it all, but here’s the first little bit:
“You’re killing your unborn baby!”
That’s what they yelled at me and my wife on the worst day of our lives. As we entered the women’s health center on an otherwise perfect summer morning in Brookline, two women we had never met decided to pile onto the nightmare we had been living for three weeks. These “Christians” verbally accosted us—judged us—as we steeled ourselves for the horror of making the unimaginable, but necessary, decision to end our pregnancy at 16 weeks.
After extensive testing at a renowned Boston hospital three weeks earlier, we were told our baby had Sirenomelia. Otherwise known as Mermaid Syndrome, it’s a rare (one in every 100,000 pregnancies) congenital deformity in which the legs are fused together. Worse than that, our baby had no bladder or kidneys. Our doctors told us there was zero chance for survival.
Yeah, read it all, please. The fight for gay rights and the fight for reproductive choice are the same fight. I’ve quoted it before, but take it away once again, Amanda Marcotte:
After all, these two fights—for reproductive rights and gay rights—are the same fight. It’s about the right of people who aren’t straight men to have a sexuality without punishment or shame. We’re the ones who deserve the label “pro-life”, because we support the right for gays and women to survive and to thrive—to live. And make no mistake, we’re all up against a patriarchal right that is sadistic and violent.
Yep yep yep!
They don’t care about life at all. They care about control. They know if they control people–particularly their bodies–they control everything. People have three basic drives; to eat, sleep and screw. The religiots wish to control the sex drive and channel it into what they deem “appropriate”. The only thing they consider appropriate is breeding more cattle for their pews. Beyond that the sex drive must be suppressed or diverted. Any excess energy then gets channeled into religious fervor–which explains the insane behavior of most RRRW types.
Not to mention, Buffy, that it’s an easy justification for guilting people. If you call something dirty that is a natural drive for most people, and require that they should come to you for forgiveness whenever they slip up, you’re all but guaranteed to have at least some people joining in your little flock because they think they need to.
I’m kind of willing to bet that if taking a s**t weren’t medically necessary for survival, people would be calling that sinful, too. …And wouldn’t be surprised if that didn’t stop some folks.
[...] Since There Is So Much Overlap Between Anti-Gay Bigots and Anti-Choice Zealots. Read more [...]
As always these smorgasbord “Christians” pick and choose which parts of the Bible they will enforce (on others) and which parts they will ignore (for themselves). One of the 7 deadly sins is gluttony and research has shown that folks in the most fundamentalist type states as well as right wing church goers also have the highest rates of obesity. I’m not dissing all overweight people, but wingnuts shouldn’t be casting stones at us when they can’t even bend over to pick one up.
To follow up on Makyui’s comment: Given the dearth of knowledge about the natural world among people living thousands of years ago, I can easily understand how they would develop the concept of god(s) to explain their world. But, some clever charismatic people quickly realized they could exploit the concept of god(s) to gain power and control over others. Basically, all they needed to do was to convincingly claim private communications with the god(s), and the possession of special insights into a god’s plans, rules and punishments. For a contemporary example, just think of Joseph Smith, the inventor of Mormonism.