Tag Archives: religion

When Harry Met Sally is a charming rom-com about Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan staying friends for years before finally realizing they’re in love. It’s probably best known for the memorable fake orgasm scene. Harry (Crystal) assures Sally (Ryan) that the women he sleeps with are sexually satisfied — he’s heard them give orgasmic moans. She proves him wrong by giving out a spectacular fake-orgasmic moan that stuns everyone in the restaurant.

This is meant to be embarrassing for Harry. What goes unsaid is that lots of women had a disappointing time sleeping with him. Becauseas Lili Loofbourow puts it “we live in a culture that sees female pain as normal and male pleasure as a right … Women have spent decades politely ignoring their own discomfort and pain to give men maximal pleasure.”

Kissing cousin to the idea women don’t like sex is the idea it doesn’t matter whether they like sex. According to DC McAllister and Dennis Prager, among others, women should just lie on their back and think of England. If their husband wants sex, where do they get off thinking they should be “in the mood”? No wonder some women don’t enjoy sex if that’s what it’s like for them. As Roy Edroso points out, if the husband’s too tired to give her what she wants, McAllister’s view is too bad, so sad — you can’t expect him to put you first!

And from that it’s a short jump to arguing that women shouldn’t enjoy sex or at least not when it’s free of the risk of pregnancy. Part of the Heritage Foundation’s theocratic plan for 2025 is “returning the consequentiality to sex. … restoring sex to its true purpose, & ending recreational sex & senseless use of birth control pills.” Because in the eyes of the right, only nymphomaniac sluts use birth control. Which is to say any claims you may have heard that conservatives don’t want to outlaw birth control are lies (forced-birthers lie a lot). And despite their claims that it’s about birth control being abortion (it isn’t) if they’re opposed to recreational sex that’s not the issue: any birth control  method would be wrong. The Catholic group Human Life Internationl, for example, argues that consensual recreational sex is rape (it isn’t).

In short, the issue isn’t the lives of fetuses. If recreational sex is bad, then any method of preventing conception is bad. “Save the babies” used to be the excuse but they aren’t hiding their true views as much any more.

For the record I doubt most of them have problems with men having recreational sex and no consequentiality. It will always be women who wear the scarlet letter; the man who cheats or doesn’t gift his virginity to his bridge — hey, boys will be boys! It’s not a double standard, men are just different (spoiler: it’s totally a double standard).

As Fred Clark says, a lot of right-wingers are horrified that under liberalism and freedom of religion “the state is neutral toward questions of “the good,” leaving that up to its citizens to work out for themselves.” Yes, how horrible that would be — individuals deciding for themselves what constitutes a good moral life, how they relate to God (or don’t), deciding on their own worldview. Sooooo much better if someone like the Heritage Foundation gets to impose their view of the good life. If anyone else tries, of course, well that’s what heresy trials and concentration camps are for.

As Clark has pointed out, the liberal bogeyman doesn’t “prevent you from seeking and finding your own answer to that question. Nor does it interfere with you embracing, living, promoting, or sharing that answer. You are free to pursue that answer in your own life and you are free to persuade your fellow citizens of the truth, beauty, or goodness of that answer.”” But that’s not enough. People might have an answer the Heritage Foundation and many others on the right don’t like. You know, one where women are equal citizens and not means to an end.

Of course, as Clark says, “ven on the very slim chance the government somehow initially got the answer mostly “right,” the establishment of that “right” answer would change it, alter it, and deform it. This bastardized, twisted version of that “right” answer would become the official answer, and any other answer — including the “right” one in its untwisted form — would be precluded.” And if we get the theocracy so many on the right seem to yearn for, all alternatives will be precluded, as brutally as necessary.

Damn, for a post that started with a light rom-com, things got grim fast. For more examples of odious misogynist arguments and why they’re bullshit, check out my Undead Sexist Cliches, available as a Amazon paperback, an ebook and from several other retailers. Cover by Kemp Ward.

Jesse Watters is what Fox News has used as a Tucker Carlson replacement since the latter pundit made himself too toxic even for them. He has no problems with men opining over women’s pregnancies but says older woman who can’t get pregnant should shut up about abortion bans. He blames the collapse of one bank on them celebrating Pride Week. He claims if presidents aren’t immune for crimes committed in office, Biden can be convicted of child trafficking. His commentary is what you get when your job is to keep viewers hooked by feeding their biases, not doing serious thinking.

And as Fox viewers back Trump, no surprise Watters’ latest non-thought is that dictatorship is good: “We’re so used to empty promises that the idea that a politician could get elected and deliver the policies that people voted for quickly and efficiently is so foreign that anyone who promises real change on day one has to be a strong man. They sound terrified that Trump might secure the border, stop crime and drill. Now if you believe that you want to put America first, you’re a Nazi, according to them. If you want America not first, you’re a patriot. See, they’re conditioning us to be ashamed of making our country great.”

First, let’s state the obvious: Watters doesn’t want a dictator (assuming he’s speaking any truth at all), he wants a dictator who’ll enact policies he’ll like. Which is true of everyone who wants a dictatorship, even liars like Curtis Yarvin who claim he wants a dictatorship that will benefit everyone.

Second, “policies that people voted for ” — at no time has a majority of voters supported Trump’s policies. He lost the popular vote in both elections, much as he keep lying about it. Hell, 2004 is the only election a Republican president has won the popular vote since 1988. But that’s why Republican toadies like Watters want a dictatorship: the majority are against them so they can’t get what they want if government responds to the people.

Third, Trump had a Republican Congress behind him the first two years of his presidency. Did he deliver the better-than-Obamacare health plan he promised? Nor did he bring back business to the US. He gave a huge tax cut to the rich but most voters weren’t clamoring for that.

In conclusion, Watters spoken argument isn’t worth the paper it’s written on.

Next, Matt Walsh, a  raging misogynist, ragingly anti-trans Christian authoritarian who thinks America was better-off when everyone smoked, and asserts the racist great replacement theory is fact. He insists Nikki Haley has never been teased about being a woman of color because she’s not dark enough. And that buying your wife a gift ahead of time instead of grabbing something at the last minute is completely gay.

Now he’s arguing we need to be less tolerant and resume judging people’s private lives: “We need to normalize, once again, judging people for their private lives. Especially considering that for most people, everything you do is part of your quote-unquote private life. In a sense that if you’re a private citizen, your whole life, you could argue, is your private life. So, if you can’t make judgments about someone based on their private life, that means you can’t make any judgments about them at all.”

This does not make sense but hey, it’s Walsh. Anyone who listens to him and believes him isn’t big on rational argument so why would he try to construct one?

What it appears he’s trying to do is get around that old argument that one person’s right to swing their fist ends where someone else’s nose begins. Or as Jefferson said, one person’s choice of god neither picks their neighbor’s pocket nor breaks their neighbor’s leg — therefore let them worship as they choose.

That’s a reasonable approach: people’s lives are private until they infringe on someone else’s life. In practice, figuring out where the infringement takes place gets more complicated: we don’t allow people to drive drunk even if they haven’t hit anyone yet, for instance. But still it’s a good starting place. Contrary to Walsh not everything is part of our private life: beating your spouse up isn’t private, even if you do it behind closed doors,

That, however, works against Walsh’s desire to hound and torment LGBTQ people, therefore the standard has to go. It would also inconvenience his efforts to brand any woman as a slut if she has sex before marriage (see the first link) and to reject consent as a standard. If a woman feels bad after rape, it’s because she let a man use her as a “masturbatory aide,” not because she was really, truly raped.

Walsh, of course, already judges people’s private lives if they’re gay, sexually active women, etc. (to his credit, he judges Trump for his long history of adultery too). Maybe he’s just butt-hurt from people criticizing him for it.

Crisis pregnancy centers are forced-birth propaganda mills that pretend to offer help to pregnant women. They don’t offer abortion services but don’t state their true agenda; it’s apparently effective as a tactic because Texas AG Ken Paxton is suing Yelp for pointing it out and ruining the illusion.

But they serve a double purpose: talking women out of abortions and funneling money to right-to-life religious groups.  So it’s not surprising North Carolina’s Republican-dominated legislature has ponied up $19 million in funding for them. Another $7 million goes to other religious groups, all Christian. In other religious news:

NC Lt. Governor Mark Robinson is running for the top spot. He’s also a religious right-wing theocrat and total misogynist. And compares toppling Confederate statues to Kristallnacht. In contrast, Alexandria Va. city council members have some intelligent thoughts about those statues.

A North Carolina radio station refused to broadcast the Met’s complete slate of operas because of concerns about non-canonical Biblical scenes and LGBTQ stuff (of course). They have since backed off.

A Texas judge says her religious freedom gives her the right to marry only straight couples; the Texas Supreme Court will now weigh in. As far as I’m concerned if you work for the state, you provide services to all. However the judge, Dianne Hensley, says it’s not fair that’s she’s had to stop officiating at weddings (it was either that or marry regardless of orientation) because she’s losing all the money she charges.

Conservatives are quick to defend the right of people like the judge to discriminate based on religion — but not if they want to help immigrants.

The Oklahoma attorney general is suing to block a Catholic charter school getting state funding.

Trump says we should ban immigrants who hate our religion. Not that he has one, but I assume that’s short-hand for Muslim. Biden, meanwhile, condemns a recent anti-Muslim hate crime.

Tennessee legislators are considering rejecting millions in federal education money because it comes with LGBTQ protections.

While not every Christian conservative is a racist, racism was the driving force behind the religious right forming as a political movement. Abortion was much more palatable.

The racism is why Liberty University has a Jesse Helms School of Government. This is just Liberty University being shitty (in a way many colleges are, I’ll add).

Christian misogynist and homophobe Matt Walsh says he’s cool with inciting anti-trans violence.

Contrary to religious conservative Tim Barton, the Declaration of Independence did not condemn American slavery.

Like the Southern Baptist Conference, the American Presbyterian Church has a systemic abuse problem. To be fair, lots of institutions give the people with power the power to rape and abuse, but that’s no excuse.

Then there’s the Catholic priest who molested a girl in the hospital for chemo. But never fear, far right preacher Jack Hibbs claims secular schools are the real problem due to “mental molestation.”

Self-proclaimed prophet Kat Kerr claims god told her in advance that Biden would steal the 2020 election … which is not what she claimed in 2020. A look at how fake prophets try to keep their audience invested and buying their merch.

Religious homophobe attorney Mat Staver is once again asking suckers to send him money to fight vax mandates.

Or all three?

New House Speaker Mike Johnson is an election-denying, Bible-thumping, forced-birther who claims if not for abortion reducing the work force, Republicans wouldn’t need to cut Social Security. Spoiler: they’d try to cut it anyway. And he also wants to outlaw homosexuality, with the usual arguments it’s no different from legalizing pedophilia. And that it will weaken traditional marriage, never mind that it’s  been going strong despite more than a decade of gay marriage (I suspect as he has a covenant marriage, he’s not a fan of divorce either). And he’s recycling the endless claims about how they’re going to impeach Biden over non-existent wrongdoing.

He also declares (at that last link) that while homosexuality is just a thing you do, “your race, creed, and sex are what you are.” Um, no, homosexuality is very much who you are. And choosing your faith is very much something you do, not something you are. Not that one’s relationship with god or gods or your belief there’s no good isn’t important, but it isn’t an immutable trait at all. As witness multiple friends of mine have changed their faith in different ways, typically after much soul-searching.

An article in New York magazine’s Intellingencer section shows he’s just full of typical Republican bullshit and undead sexist cliches to boot. For example, abortion (and I think he’s implying, divorce), lead to school shootings: “When you break up the nuclear family, when you tell a generation of people that life has no value, no meaning, that it’s expendable, then you do wind up with school shootings.”

He goes on to say, in the best tradition of conservatives nostalgic for the days before blacks and women and gays got all uppity, that “When I was a kid, the most popular show on television was The Brady Bunch. When my father was a child, it was The Andy Griffith Show now it’s murder and mayhem. We’re not in a good place in America.” Why not? “religion and morality” aren’t at the center of public life: “When the people largely respected that you didn’t have the societal chaos that you have today.”

First, he’s factually wrong. A quick reference-book check shows the Bradies, popular as they were, were never the most popular show on TV; Sheriff Andy only made it one year. And Andy Griffith started his series in 1960; the Brady clan debuted in 1969. Just how young did his father impregnate Mom?

Second, if “religion and morality” and a lack of abortion make such a big difference, why didn’t it stop the thousands of lynchings that took place in the days before Roe v. Wade? The lack of abortion didn’t stop white supremacists murdering Emmett Till. They didn’t stop the bombing of the Birmingham Church or keep Sheriff Bull Connor from unleashing firehoses and dogs on civil rights marchers. What made them devalue life?

And we’re actually in a better and more moral place. The law no longer supports Jim Crow segregation. It’s no longer legal to fire or refuse to hire someone simply because they’re a POC, a woman, Jewish, etc. Gays have equal rights — I know, Johnson thinks that’s a sign of moral decline, but he’s wrong.

Then there’s his statement that “no one’s out to get abortion doctors as they claim” — any concerns about their safety are exaggerated. Yeah, if you discount “11 murders, 26 attempted murders, 607 death threats, 42 clinic bombings, and 188 arsons that affected abortion providers and facilities from 1977 to 2018″ I suppose he has a point.

He also claims that “the failproof method of birth control is abstinence … they’ve rejected that teaching ’cause they say it’s too religious.” It’s not the only failproof method: oral sex and hand jobs work just fine. And it isn’t in fact, failproof: Texas has had abstinence-only ed for two decades and it accomplished nothing. Which is why it’s been rejected and criticized: not that it’s “too religious” but that it’s inaccurate and ineffective.

Don’t expect Johnson to explain his positions: he’s pretending he’s forgotten lots of them. He refused to answer questions about his election denialism. He wants to present himself as Sensible Conservative, not a full-on MAGA extremist. And at least some of the press are willing to settle for saying he has “deeply conservative views” or being a “staunch conservative.” That makes him sound almost like a small-town banker, shaking his head sadly at the wild-eyed radicals who think they can give everyone a pony. More precision would be good, much as would questioning about his Christian worldview: whose version of Christianity should government follow? What happens to the other churches and their rights?

At least the ever-biting Alexandra Petri certainly isn’t having it: ” Just because it was an election that happened to result in his selection as speaker of the House, did that make winning a majority of votes suddenly a legitimate way of obtaining power? Where were the doubts? Where were the questions? Where were the barrage of dubious legal arguments? Why was he just sitting there and letting people congratulate him on his election, as though it were a good thing?”

And I’ll recommend Kristin Kobes Du Mez summing Johnson up as part of an excellent interview: “For Christian nationalists, this is God’s country, and all authority comes through God. And the only legitimate use of that authority is to further God’s plan for this country. So what that means is any of their political enemies are illegitimate in a sense, and those enemies’ power is illegitimate, and they need to be stripped of that power.”