The Religious Right Gets a Little Dramatic

Isn't hyperbole great?

The primary focus of the call was Proposition 8 in California, described by Colson as “the Armageddon of the culture war.” Many speakers invoked the language of warfare, raising up an army of believers, putting soldiers in the streets, being on the front lines of a battle. Lou Engle actually described a massive rally planned in Qualcomm stadium on November 1 as a “blitzkrieg moment.”

While speaker after speaker spoke of the dire threats same-sex married couples pose to “traditional” marriage, religious freedom, and civilization itself, the overall tone of the call was confidence that victory would be won with God’s help, 40 days of prayer and fasting before the election, teams of intercessors and prayer warriors around the country, and a massive highly organized deployment of volunteers in a systematic voter identification and turnout campaign.

"Armageddon of the culture war," huh? Wow. You'd think that they might reserve such harsh language for things like the American President authorizing torture or the billions going hungry every day. But, no. The Religious Right is more concerned about two people in love who happen to be the same gender. How they can twist this into the fall of Western civilization is beyond me.

Contraception Is Not Abortion

But, sadly, the White House is trying to paint it as such.

In a spectacular act of complicity with the religious right, the Department of Health and Human Services Monday released a proposal that allows any federal grant recipient to obstruct a woman's access to contraception. In order to do this, the Department is attempting to redefine many forms of contraception, the birth control 40 percent of Americans use, as abortion. Doing so protects extremists under the Weldon and Church amendments. Those laws prohibit federal grant recipients from requiring employees to help provide or refer for abortion services.

Sometimes I wonder if the religious right is serious about ending abortions. Because if they were, they would strongly support contraceptives. People are going to have sex whether or not they can get birth control of some sort. It's human freakin' nature! More people using protection or contraceptives or whatever means fewer pregnancies means fewer chances for abortion. Only someone who has abandoned logic (such as many of the religious right) could not see the good in this.