You, me and the Man in the Moon can take any position we like on US law, but until we enter Congress or the Oval Office it has no force. Mourdock, Akin, Berg and McMahon are 4 of just 33 GOP Senate candidates this year; if elected, they would be ~10% of the GOP Senate caucus. Akin and Berg are already in the US House, the latter inexplicably on its Science and Technology Committee; King and Ryan are also in the House, and, if elected, the latter would be SOLE vice president. Just as Romney, who barged into a hospital demanding a woman not have a life-saving abortion her church had already condoned, would be sole president. In the primary debates he said he "would be delighted to sign" a total federal abortion ban, but Congress would never pass it and give him the chance: That may soon change.

It staggers me how far "back to the future" the GOP has come. Letting blacks vote was decided 150 years ago, poll taxes and literacy tests banned by the 24th Amendment 50 years ago—yet now they are back, thanks to the Republican Partys coordinated nationwide efforts. Allowing abortion for rape victims and/or women who would die without them was settled 40 years ago, before I was born, yet somehow the highest ranking Republican leaders (and party platform) are calling for federal bans on both. At this rate they will get rid of womens suffrage and restore the Three-Fifths Compromise by the end of the decade.


It does and does not: It matters insofar as it affects whether rank and file Republicans vote for candidates who openly say they will pass a total federal abortion ban. It is irrelevant to whether Republican voters who oppose that can prevent Republican Congressmen doing it anyway—except by voting for someone else.

Again, the question is not whether a Republican congress and president would push a total federal abortion ban: They said point blank they will, just as their platform demands. That was not just pandering to fundamentalist primary voters; they said the same in their appeal to the entire US public. If the nation gives them a mandate to ban all abortion from coast to coast, they will. The two or three Supreme Court justices the next president appoints will affirm that total federal ban, too. The only questions left are whether each voter supports it and, if they do not, whether agreement on other issues is more important to them.


I affirmed the consequent slightly myself there: It is more accurate to say biblical bans on (male) homosexuality and masturbation imply every sperm is sacred, not the reverse. The Torahs account of Onan and its prohibition of male homosexuality (while remaining silent on female homosexuality) appear unrelated at first glance, but the common feature of sperm clarifies much, IMHO.


True; since Eves creation preceded the Fall it cannot be explained by the reproductive motive not yet needed.


To be fair, the court only ruled the victim was capable of denying consent, not fighting off her rapist; of course, that raises the age old question of how we can know after the fact whether consent was given: Most people do not have sex in public, so it almost always comes down to "he said, she said," and that is enough for reasonable doubt, which in turn is enough for acquittal in a criminal case. For good or ill, the burden of proof is on the person alleging rape, but that is because of presumption of innocence, not a sex or rape culture.

In the main, I still think the issue is a sexual rather than rape culture. Asserting a right to sex (as, if I am not mistaken, the UN Charter on Human Rights does) implicitly asserts a right to NON-CONSENSUAL sex if no one consents. Asserting (or implying) a right to sex even if no one is willing condones rape.


Rape kits should be paid for by taxes and available to both sides; that is an evidenciary issue. However, and once again, I do not think it is that the legal system does not take rape seriously (after all, it is on the short list of capital crimes remaining in many places,) but that the customary privacy of sex makes rape incredibly difficult to prove. Without a recording or evidence of a struggle it is almost impossible, because proving sex is not sufficient.


Yup, but that is how it goes. I learned that in my canvassing days in both TX and WI: Telling people 1/3 of TX lakes and rivers were unsafe for fishing, swimming or drinking did not register, but telling them we filed suit against the East Austin tank farm that had been leaching oil into the public water supply for decades did, because that directly affected them. It was the same in WI; the most compelling issue for people I spoke with was the cryptosporidium outbreak afflicting local wells, even though that was mostly due to pasture runoff rather than industrial pollution. Your problems are not my concern, but MY problems are a national concern, so every issue is irrelevant until personalized.


The people the bible speaks about (whether or not they are Jewish or Christian) either 1) conform to its precepts or 2) are roundly condemned for not doing so.


I was not aware of that, but (and correct me if I am wrong) understood the Mishnah was not part of the Tanakh (which, with the New Testament, forms the bible.) That does not make it wholly irrelevant, but does make it irrelevant to discussions of what the bible does and does not say. It does provide a good example of why no particular religious text should be the sole basis of laws binding on every American, whether or not they adhere to that text (the Non-Establishment Clause is a pretty darned good reason, too. )


Love was often irrelevant, but religion rarely was; treating it as such was pretty much Solomons sole transgression, but so egregious it destroyed his kingdom. Or consider Abraham telling Isaac to take a Jewish wife rather than following Ishmaels example and marrying a "heathen" Egyptian. It mattered enough the Torah forbids marrying Gentiles, it just was not the only concern.


There is enough cognitive dissonance there to drown an elephant (at least, I HOPE so. ) The First Amendment protects everyones right to school prayer, but the same people who would be outraged at public schools sounding the Muslim call to prayer are just as outraged courts prohibit teachers leading Christian prayers. The bible forbids homosexual marriage, so US law must do the same (despite the First Amendments Non-Establishment Clause,) but federal bans on Solomon marrying 700 women, David and Jacob marrying 4 and Abraham marrying 2 are perfectly OK.