Logically, if conservative Christians were really concerned about “attacks on traditional marriage” or “Christian families” or the “sanctity of marriage,” they would be trying to reduce the number of divorces (which was forbidden by Jesus), not legislating against gays.
Logically, if conservative Christians were really concerned about abortion, they whould be making it easier to obtain birth control, not making it more difficult. (According to “a dramatic new study…offering women free birth control can reduce unplanned pregnancies - and send the abortion rate spiraling downward.")
Logically, if conservative Christians abhorred attacks against “religious freedom,” they would be vociferously condemning the killing of six Sikhs in August and the eleven acts of arson, vandalism and other violence against U.S. mosques just in the last two months.
They don’t because the Religious Right is only about politics, just another tool of the plutocracy like voter suppression, SuperPACs or Fox News. The only Republican “religion” is zealousness for manipulating people to vote for the GOP and fervor for keeping America under control of the plutocracy. And we need to stop accepting the leaders’ pretense that they are preaching faith and morals.
As regards marriage equality, I doubt that the puppet-masters have any real objections to gay rights. One of the four neocon architects of the Religious Right, Terry Dolan (the other three being Paul Weyrich, Richard Viguerie and Howard Phillips), was a closeted gay as have been many subsequent GOP operatives.
According to A.W. Richard Sipe, a Certified Clinical Mental Health Counselor who has devoted full time research into the sexual and celibate practices of Roman Catholic bishops and priests.
A conservative estimate of gay Catholic clergy is thirty percent. That figure has held steady for several decades in the face of assiduous scrutiny; many Vatican insiders speculate that the accurate figure is closer to fifty percent….[O]ne basic problem in the clerical culture’s sexual reality: namely bishops and priests in positions of authority who are serving in ministry (sometimes with distinction) at the same time that they have sexual partners, male and female.
Homosexuality was just one of the carefully selected foundational issues of the Religious Right decided upon back in the 1970s as having the capacity to be exploited to get conservative Christians to the voting booth, as was abortion.
During the 1973 deliberations and after the Roe v. Wade decision, abortion was a topic widely ignored by politicians. Even for those who addressed it, the pros and cons fell equally on both sides of the aisle. No religion thought to politicize the subject.
While the Catholic Church forbade abortion, the question of ensoulment (or hominization) – what is now referred to as “personhood” – was still open to discussion. In fact, before Pope John Paul II made the Catholic Church a collaborator with the plutocracy, the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a Declaration on Procured Abortion in 1974 with a footnote acknowledging this while explaining why all abortions were still condemned:
This declaration expressly leaves aside the question of the moment when the spiritual soul is infused. There is not a unanimous tradition on this point and authors are as yet in disagreement. For some it dates from the first instant; for others it could not at least precede nidation [implantation in the uterus]. It is not within the competence of science to decide between these views, because the existence of an immortal soul is not a question in its field. It is a philosophical problem from which our moral affirmation remains independent for two reasons: (1) supposing a belated animation, there is still nothing less than a human life, preparing for and calling for a soul in which the nature received from parents is completed, (2) on the other hand, it suffices that this presence of the soul be probable (and one can never prove the contrary) in order that the taking of life involve accepting the risk of killing a man, not only waiting for, but already in possession of his soul
Neither can the presence of the soul be proved in the affirmative. Perhaps this ambiguity is why most European nations, free from “religious right” politics, allow virtually unlimited abortion in the first trimester and set firm restrictions thereafter.
We could have some respect for the Religious Right if, rather than insisting that a zygote which has a 0.4 chance of developing into a human being* be eligible for a Social Security number, they showed the same zeal for the death and displacement of millions of people from unjust war, torture and the horrendous global consequences of the Bush recession.
Similarly, we could have some respect for the Religious Right if they were exploring the issue of whether too-easy divorce leads to the abandonment of dependent spouses and children.
As further proof that the Religious Right has no genuine religious scruples, the “Religious Freedom” meme has largely slipped off the radar screen as a campaign meme because tying it to the issue of contraception backfired into a surge in independent women’s support for the Democratic Party. The anti-gay rhetoric is also costing them dearly among younger voters, but for now the Marriage Amendments are still useful in energizing people who are otherwise unenthused for Romney to show up in the voting booth.
But there is a price to pay when you pretend that God favors the yet-to-be fully calculated destruction and misery heaped upon the world’s populace by the plutocracy. Overall, the politicization of their religion has cost these U.S. churchmen millions of members.
I am not suggesting that the Religious Right is dead - Romney’s “dog whistles” to the Religious Right during the debate is evidence to the contrary - only that, like the Republican Party, demographics are not on their side. For now, the plutocrats will not abandon any means in order to gain control of the government.
Nor am I trying to provide “talking points” to prove the wingnuts wrong. I haven’t convinced one yet with logic or facts.
What I would like is for the independent and progressive media to stop pretending that these are “religious” leaders and treat them as they would any other political hacks.
*Megan-Jane Johnstone Bioethics: A Nursing Perspective p 237 (books.google.com)
(Clermont is author of The Neo-Catholics: Implementing Christian Nationalism in America.)