I have no idea what Bart Stupak was thinking. Perhaps he couldn’t endure the pressure on him, on his staff, and, most intimately, on his family. Perhaps he lacked an appreciation of the power he had to hold up the president’s signature legislation for the sake of the unborn and then got entranced by the pats on the back he got from leadership for saving their day, which he very likely did. A Democrat who wanted to vote for universal health care, in the end, Stupak proved himself the cheapest of dates. He traded all this power — power that had Nancy Pelosi screaming at a pro-life Democrat on the House floor Sunday — for a mess of pottage: for a farce of an executive order that holds no power over the codified statute of Obamacare.
Throughout the whole ordeal — both while Stupak was fighting and after he caved — I couldn’t get the late Pennsylvania governor Robert Casey out of my mind. He was pro-life, and he was a Democrat. And he didn’t actually have a home in the Democratic party. If you’re pro-life and you’re a Democrat, for decades now, you’ve found yourself empty-handed, duped, angry, or humiliated.
That's right, sluts, he'll take your virtue and leave you alone and humiliated. Sure, first Obama was all, "Hey there!" and winking at Stupak and offering him a ride in his sports car, but after he used him and cast him aside for the next cute legislator, Stupak was left with nothing but a cheap corsage and his regrets.
In 1992, Casey won reelection with over a million votes. That and being the governor of Pennsylvania, a key swing state right next door to New York, would normally get you a slot at a Madison Square Garden Democratic convention. But not for Casey. In a move reminiscent of Bill Clinton’s refusal even to talk to his own ambassador to the Vatican, who stood outside the president’s office for hours trying to deliver a letter from the pope on the president’s decision to veto a ban on partial-birth abortion, the White House refused even to respond to Casey’s requests for a place on stage during the 1996 national convention. The Democratic party, which claims to be a beacon of tolerance, doesn’t have a lot of it when it comes to those who defend the most innocent among us.
Casey was a good girl and where did it get him? The other Democratic Seducer-in-Chief did the same thing! Casey waited by the phone all day but Bill Clinton never called, even though Casey had a letter from the pope! The pope! If a letter from the pope won't get you an invitation to the prom, what will? The pope defends the innocent children as long as they are unborn. After they are born, not so much, and you'd better learn to not let the priest stand directly behind you. But that's not the point--protecting the children is the point!
Casey called abortion “inconsistent with our national character, with our national purpose, with all that we’ve done, and with everything we hope to be.”
Of course, our current president, who claims to be all about hope, went to that same school and tried to wash the conscience of Casey from our political memories. But he can’t. And for a while, it looked as if Bart Stupak wouldn’t let him.
So much for that.
Do you think jut because he goes to school with you that he won't use you? You fool! You'll be forgotten just like the last girl in your sorry position. You think you'll hold out, but then he gets out the Barry White and it's good-bye panties, hello public humiliation.
What we saw in the health-care debate is that the Democratic party — as defined by its national leaders — is a party that, when given a choice between abortion and universal health care, as it was on Friday night before Stupak gave in, chooses abortion.
I think she's trying to say that instead of going to Planned Parenthood for reproductive health care, Slutty McStupak had an abortion instead, but my Wingnut translation skills are taxed to the limit here.
Soon, the farce that is the executive order Bart Stupak agreed to will undergo the analysis of more observers than just the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. Politics may well wake up the party leadership. If it doesn’t, politicians of conscience are going to have to walk. “Pro-life” is just talk if you’re a vote for Nancy Pelosi as speaker and a vote for the most radical embrace of abortion by a branch of the federal government since Roe v. Wade.
In other words, for the moment, “pro-life Democrat” is a category that doesn’t really exist. As for the pro-life Democrat “no” votes left standing alone and useless last night, God bless them.
Therefore, Kathryn Jean does hereby petition the student council from letting any slutty Democrats from going to the prom and ruining it for everyone else, who just want to have a nice time without any hanky-panky going on that will earn them eternal damnation.
14 comments:
Does she know abortion is legal?
That would be a fact, and facts are naughty, forbidden things.
Why do these people never, ever remember that Casey refused to endorse the candidate, and no-one who refused to endorse the candidate, even if they were a licensed baby-killer, was allowed to speak at the convention?
I think maybe that was a rhetorical question.
Wait, "given a choice between abortion and universal health care" we chose *both*--its Stupak and Klo who tried to turn it into a choice. We *still* have abortion, although not for poor women, and we also have better health care coverage for everyone.
They failed to get rid of abortion entirely. That's what they were bucking for. And they lost. And we got health care reform. So fuck that binary choice.
aimai
Why do these people never, ever remember that Casey refused to endorse the candidate...?
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They remember. They're just hoping that you won't -- or more accurately, they're expecting that their usual audience won't.
Can't imagine why they'd expect that ...
The left should pit the tea baggers against the churches. Why do we pay taxes and they don't? Why do they get a free ride and we have to subsidize their million-dollar properties? Exactly how much money are they "cheating" the government out of anyway?
Plus pitting the religious fringe against the tea bagger fringe would be fun to watch.
Susan of Texas,
I agree completely. I always thought the Dems should have bypassed Stupak and called the Council of Bishops directly and said "if you keep this up we are going to use RICO on you guys, strip your church of its tax exemption, and throw the entire pederastic bunch of you in jail. To show we are serious, we are going to formally start proceedings to extradite Cardinal Law just to make things fun for the Pope while he's struggling with his own sex and abuse scandal."
aimai
The Catholic Church would fall apart without women, yet they let the priests get away with harming their children and other women's children. The church is an identity, a family, and women won't give that up.
The only time I ever saw parents buck a priest or lay religious leader is when the priests tried to tell the parents of First Communion candidates that their little girls couldn't wear the fancy white communion dresses, because it "distracted" them from the importance of the occasion. (The boys were not told what to wear; being boys, they aren't corrupted with worldly vanity and sexual sin.) One mother was in tears because she had pictures of her grandmother, mother, and self all in the white dresses, and the thought of not having that picture of her daughter was unacceptable.
I am hoping that as Ratzinger continues to strangle the church with his actions, it'll continue to die a natural death. I don't take the kids to church any more and I bet I'm not the only one.
But it's hard for people. They don't worship God through their daily actions, they do it through ceremonies, which are "owned" by the church, and been have for thousands of years. You can worship God without anything else at all, but most people want the ceremonies, the meetings, the social events, the friendships, the feeling of safety and security.
Sister Kathryn Jean sez: "Perhaps [Stupak] couldn't endure the pressure on him, on his staff, and, most intimately, on his family." Gee, Sister, d'ya think the pressure on his family was anything like the "Reload!" rhetoric from Sarah Palin, or calls from teabaggers and eliminationists for a 21st century Kristallnacht on the offices of Democratic Congresspersons or direct threats on their families?
Susan of Texas,
I'm not a Catholic, but the very punitive attitude towards the Church towards its own membership has always saddened me. I remember when the (local) Boston Church, following directives from higher up, began trying to limit the personal testimonies/speeches at funerals. I can't remember which important, Catholic, political figure they choose to make an example of but I remember seeing a story in the paper about then Cardinal Law going to his hospital bedside to explain that speakers at his funeral would be permitted only a few minutes to speak of him personally--the rest of the time would be a pro-forma, entirely standard service/mass with no references to him. I then saw this played out at the funeral of a wonderful woman I knew, which could have been anyone's/anywhere instead of the moving memorials and tributes I expected.
I don't get why they are so threatened by all the things that humanize the religion, all the homely, personal, lovely ways that people have chosen to connect with their god through ritual, song, and emotion. But if you compare funerals/weddings and other big life cycle rituals across religious communities you find that modern Catholicism really has tried to put the bureaucracy first and the worshipper dead last.
aimai
aimai
Aimai, it's part of the philosophy. This world is something that has to be endured, and we are only here to worship god and fulfill his plan. Our entire lives should be lived through god, which of course nobody does because we have to live our lives where and as they are. The church believes it utterly necessary to guide all of us sinners down the straight and narrow path to god. Anything else--eulogies, Santa Claus, sex--is taking your eyes off the prize.
Plus they are myopic, territorial, misogynist and arrogant.
"... the Democratic Party ... chooses abortion."
Did I fall asleep and miss something? It looked to me like Obama went out of his way to reinforce the government's refusal to fund abortion services, a la the Hyde Amendment, which I keep hearing is still the law of the land. No federally funded abortions, in other words, but Stupak sure got himself a nice hum job.
Susan and Aimai, you might find it enlightening to read Elaine Pagel's Beyond Belief: The Gospel of Thomas. She provides a convincing explanation of how the church became what it is, rather than the way it might have been. Meanwhile, the Pope is directly implicated in covering up the sexual abuse of 200 children in Milwaukee (he headed up the office that should have disciplined the pederast priest) and there are a lot of angry Catholics in Wisconsin right now.
Dr BDH,
I actually tried to read "Beyond Belief" rather recently. I didn't find it as thrilling or convincing as the first book on the gnostic gospels. My favorite book on the CC was Constantine's Sword, by Jim Carroll who is himself an ex priest. His book "American Requiem" which was about his youth as the son of a top Air Force General and a devout Catholic is very moving and revealing about the intersection of militarism/anti communism/and the american church but it also touches on the role "raising a priest" had for devout catholics. Also I liked Karen Armstrong's book about leaving the Nunnery. I read around these issues quite a bit.
aimai
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