alsion ([info]hnpcc) wrote,
@ 2008-07-17 14:23:00
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three links that have left me shaking my head going "huh"?
From a comment in [info]kateorman's journal, by [info]murasaki_1966:

The US Department of Health and Human Services moves to define hormonal contraception as abortion. This of course would allow federally funded clinics to deny access to hormonal contraception (i.e. the pill) to women.

You know, I always thought the US was for separation of church and state. This is ridiculous. Naturally I assume the next logical step in separating church and state is banning all divorce and annulling all bar first marriages. Which would at least give us some entertainment in the celebrity pages, even as it added exponentially to the number of adultery cases that would have to be heard.

From [info]dhd1's journal:

A "Christian" "News" website automatically replaces the word 'gay' with the word 'homosexual'. Which means that athlete Tyson Gay, sorry Homosexual, is going to the Olympics. If it wasn't so pathetic it'd be funny. Sort of.

From Tara Ariano's photo stream taken at the Creation "Museum". Riiight. So, no evolution, just lots of adaptation in <4000 years. And you think evolution's a strange theory. At least this way, what with there apparently only being 5 species of anything before the flood - oh and man, which doesn't seem to be represented and also doesn't seem to have "adapted" at all post-Flood (which kind of indicates that as a species, we suck at this whole adaptation thing - surely we'd at least have to have given rise to monkeys? gorillas? orang-utangs?) - everything fits on the Ark. Kind of. I'd still like to see the stegosaurus fitting on there, and to know how they fed it for 40 days and nights... then again, if they can get King Kong back to New York on a tiny little barge, I'm sure they can manage a stegosaurus or two.

Oh and while I'm at it: how misnamed is World Youth Day? Seriously - it's not World, it's Catholic World, it's not Youth - have you seen the ages of some of these people attending? - and it's been going on for what feels like a month, but is actually only a week in full swing (it's just been a month since they started rabbiting on in earnest about it.)

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[info]jamaisneutral
2008-07-17 05:43 am UTC (link)
My god, did you not pay attention in Creation Class? There were no stegosauruses (stegosauri?)!! Stupid girl! The dinosaur skelletons we find here and there are tests from God to see how loyal we are to Him! You fell into the devil's trap!

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-17 06:02 am UTC (link)
According to the creation museum, the dinosaurs were present at the flood and died out afterwards. Check the diagram. :-)

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[info]jamaisneutral
2008-07-17 06:38 am UTC (link)
Hmm... but they're WRONG! How can that be? I take it there are different takes on dinos in creationism... they should really debate on it and sort it out!

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[info]jamaisneutral
2008-07-17 06:38 am UTC (link)
And why did god allow them to die? Were they naughty? You'd think he'd have killed off all snakes, wouldn't you.

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[info]kirstenfleur
2008-07-18 12:48 am UTC (link)
Hey! I like snakes! They're beautiful creatures, just don't step on them.

Now, if He'd decided to kill off all spiders with abdomens larger than 20cm, I'd have been in favour. No 5 pound Mexican red-kneed tarantulas! Woo!

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[info]jamaisneutral
2008-07-18 05:37 am UTC (link)
ewwww snakes....
but ok, there are those misguided individuals who like them ;-)
Still, if the snake urged Eve to bite the apple you'd think god would take his wrath out on snakes instead of dinos.

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 06:37 am UTC (link)
Or crocodiles. Why not take out all the bloody dinosaurs then? Why leave the salties behind???

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[info]jamaisneutral
2008-07-18 05:38 am UTC (link)
But I'm totally with you on the spider front. Although 20 cm? Are you mad! All spiders with abdomens bigger than 0.5 cm should have been gone! Or legs longer than 1 cm!

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 01:36 am UTC (link)
And why did god allow them to die? Were they naughty?

And now I'm getting an image of adulterous, dope smoking, gay homosexual dinosaurs.

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[info]jamaisneutral
2008-07-18 05:40 am UTC (link)
LMAO!! You know I think that could have been it :-)
Pink brontos and stegosauri, with little bows around their necks. *g*

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[info]undergroundsea
2008-07-18 12:02 am UTC (link)
America is just so backwards these days.

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 01:32 am UTC (link)
Parts of it, certainly. This upcoming election will be interesting, to say the least. The blue-red divide was bad in 2000, but I have the feeling it's worse now.

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[info]undergroundsea
2008-07-20 11:14 pm UTC (link)
I'm not sure... I think the economy is in such a shyte state and with the war in Iraq not being very popular that swinging voters might go the other way.

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[info]kirstenfleur
2008-07-18 12:53 am UTC (link)
That first link is insane! Doesn't hormonal contraception prevent the egg from being released in the first place? How can it possibly be defined as abortion?
Good grief.

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 01:31 am UTC (link)
Yes and no. Depending on the dosage then you can have ovulation and potential fertilisation, which then doesn't implant because of the mucus changes (um, see here for more details.) Then there's IUDs, which prevent implantation as well.

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[info]valamelmeo
2008-07-18 01:15 am UTC (link)
See, the Constitution is for the separation of church and state. The so-called "religious right" are not. They think the state should be with them in forcing everyone to be Christians (fundamentalist Christians, at that)...

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 01:24 am UTC (link)
Oh I totally know that the religious right only believe there should be a Constitution when it suits them. It just seemed more than a little bit over the top that anything federally funded should be allowed not to supply contraception based on their beliefs. Personally I think if they've accepted the federal dollar they should be obliged to provide the service, no matter what their beliefs. Allowing discrimination the other way is.. well in complete contradiction of the separation IMHO.

And yes, I was just going over the top with the divorce thing (although I did get quite a lot of giggles up wondering who Britney would end up with - probably Justin Timberlake, which would suck for both of them.) :-) Don't even think about Zsa Zsa Gabor, John MacCain - even some of the upright, fist pounding preachers have been divorced at least once.

I used to think The Handmaid's Tale was somewhat far fetched (ie good SF, but I couldn't see it actually happening), but watching some elements of the religious right today makes me wonder.

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[info]valamelmeo
2008-07-18 04:59 am UTC (link)
Most states already allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for contraception if it goes against their religious beliefs. I think they don't intend for this to apply to normal hormonal contraception, but to emergency hormonal contraception, which many people already consider to be an "abortion pill".

I didn't hear of anyone having problems getting Plan B (which you don't even need a prescription for anymore) when I lived in Arizona, but I'd hate to need it here in Texas. There's an alarming frequency of news stories about pharmacists refusing to dispense it to rape victims.

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[info]jamaisneutral
2008-07-18 05:45 am UTC (link)
There's an alarming frequency of news stories about pharmacists refusing to dispense it to rape victims.

Uh?? *bangs head against wall*
You see, i just don't get it. I really don't.

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[info]valamelmeo
2008-07-18 06:08 am UTC (link)
You see, all life is sacred, and if you happen to become pregnant after being raped, that's God's way of... umm... you know, I'm really not sure how they justify it. It doesn't make sense.

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 06:30 am UTC (link)
Obviously you managed to get yourself raped, which means that you were leading men on. So basically if you get pregnant out of it, it's just compounding the original sin.

I think that's how the reasoning goes anyway.

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[info]valamelmeo
2008-07-18 06:50 am UTC (link)
Well, it's also that "messing with God's plan" sort of thing. They seem to think that if you get pregnant from being raped, that was God's intention all along, and that if you don't want the baby you can just give it up for adoption... where if no one adopts it by the age of two there's a good chance it'll end up being bounced around foster homes until it's 18.

Reminds me of this 11-year-old rape victim in Romania, who incidentally did eventually receive permission to travel to the UK to have an abortion.

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 06:36 am UTC (link)
I sort of understand allowing pharmacies, which are small businesses, to not prescribe according to their convictions. It's a bitch if you're in a small town where there's only one pharmacy where you can't just refuse to shop there though. Anything that's state or federally owned or funded I think should not be able to do that.

St Vincent's Hospital here, for example, does not do either IVF or abortions. It's run by the Catholic Church, so I wouldn't expect it to. Royal Melbourne Hospital, on the other hand, is a state hospital and therefore does both. Services to the community etc.

pharmacists refusing to dispense it to rape victims.

What really shits me about all this is that it's just a value judgement, not anything to do with health or anything else. It's the assumption that they have the right to refuse you because you're young and female, and shouldn't be having sex (or being raped or whatever - obviously you wouldn't be being raped if you were a "good" girl). I'd be interested to see if a court would uphold a Jehovah's Witness doctor refusing to perform a blood transfusion on someone though - somehow I think not, but the general principle's the same. Or refusing to sell heart medication or insulin to obese people on the grounds that you believe that they should lose weight. *shrug* It's a value judgement...

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[info]valamelmeo
2008-07-18 06:56 am UTC (link)
Most of the pharmacies here are large chains, which generally have a policy that if no pharmacist at the location you initially go to will consent to provide your medication, they are supposed to redirect you to a location where there is a pharmacist who will, but there have also been news stories about pharmacists refusing to make a referral because they didn't believe the patient should acquire such medications...

Most Catholic hospitals here won't do vasectomies or tubal ligations either, for similar reasons. But no one expects them to.

I've never even heard of a Jehovah's Witness becoming the sort of doctor who would ever have to make that sort of decision. Or if they do, I guess they respect the wishes of their patient. In any case, I can't remember that ever being an issue.

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 01:35 am UTC (link)
in forcing everyone to be Christians (fundamentalist Christians, at that)...

It's kind of dodgy that I find it amusing that the far-right fundamentalist Christian groups in the US think the Catholic church and all other branches of Christianity are wrong because they don't follow their exact, narrow interpretation of theology. Then again, I think the other branches of Christianity think they're nuts, so maybe it all evens out. :-)

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[info]valamelmeo
2008-07-18 06:18 am UTC (link)
The really hardcore fundamentalists also believe that every version of the Bible except the King James is full of blasphemy and heresy, and that it is the only "divinely inspired" version. Of course, a lot of their dogma hinges on translations that don't mean quite the same thing in Modern English as they did in the 1600s when the translation was made...

They also believe the Catholic church is a cult based on idol worship, and all sorts of other nonsense.

I have to wonder how many of these people have actually bothered to read the Bible, particularly the New Testament. If they actually took any notice of what Christ actually said (as opposed to Paul, whose writings most of their dogma is based on), I'm sure they'd find most of it shocking.

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 06:44 am UTC (link)
I have to admit to finding the current Hillsong (um, I think they're Assemblies of God still in the US?) dogma of "taking a verse and making it your own" hysterically funny. I mean, really - take any verse, out of context, and live by it. You can literally justify anything that way.

But no, I don't think many of these people have actually read the Bible, at least not in full and not by themselves. When they read they're generally told which passages to concentrate on, and how to interpret them.

I'm sure they'd find most of it shocking.

Well, if you look at what Christ actually said, it's quite socialist. Practically commie even. ;-)

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[info]hnpcc
2008-07-18 06:45 am UTC (link)
They also believe the Catholic church is a cult based on idol worship, and all sorts of other nonsense.

That one's a fairly widespread Protestant belief. See also: Northern Ireland.

every version of the Bible except the King James is full of blasphemy and heresy, and that it is the only "divinely inspired" version.

A surprisingly high number of them also believe the Bible was originally written in English. Which still makes me giggle.

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