What's it Take for Catholic Women to Get Respect?

If you are like me, confused about the answer to this question, please raise your hand….or better yet….ask your Congressperson and Senator. Heck, ask the President. Why is a pedophilia-ridden, pedophilia-hiding, child-abusing Church allowed to write laws controlling women’s reproductive rights...or gay rights for that matter? I am talking about the Catholic Church and the hierarchy….not the people of the Catholic faith. The Church whose leadership has now been proven to have purposefully hidden an epidemic of pedophilia and–to protect priests, not born children–reassigned serial sex offenders to other parishes to offend again. The kind of people who, if they were not priests protected by the Church, would not be allowed by US law to come anywhere near children or schools? Why were these people allowed a major voice in constructing the health care reform bill, especially in regards to women's reproductive rights? Just over a week ago, 60 leaders of religious orders representing 59,000 Catholic nuns sent a letter to federal lawmakers urging them to pass the Senate health care legislation. They decried the “false” information floating around about abortion provisions and said that the bill’s “historic new investments” for pregnant women are the “real pro-life stance.” Conservative Democrat Bart Stupak (MI)who started this sordid mess responded by saying, “When I’m drafting right to life language, I don’t call up the nuns.” He says he confers with other groups including “leading bishops, Focus on the Family, and The National Right to Life Committee.” No, he wouldn't want to "stoop" to asking the nuns who are likely more sympathetic to women's issues.  Instead, Bart listens to the pedophiles and their supporters.  Good luck to his Democratic challenger, Connie Saltonstall.

New revelations about Pope Benedict XVI’s alleged role in covering up accusations of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy have exposed the Vatican to the risk of lawsuits brought by victims around the world. Last week it was alleged that, as head of the Vatican office monitoring priestly misconduct, the Pope, then known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger failed to punish Father Lawrence Murphy, who abused up to 200 boys at a Wisconsin school for the deaf, that's right, a school for the deaf. According to the Times, the Cardinal had been alerted to the accusations and a secret canonical trial authorized by the his deputy was halted after Murphy wrote to Ratzinger begging that the proceedings be stopped, “I simply want to live out the time that I have left in the dignity of my priesthood, I ask your kind assistance in this matter.” Murphy died two years later still a priest. The Pope’s alleged role in the Wisconsin case emerged only when litigants who claim to be victims of abuse obtained internal church documents as part of their lawsuit. The US Catholic Church has already paid out more than $1.1 billion to victims since 2004. I agree with those who insist that financial compensation is not enough and that the church should be forced to explain why so few priests were punished for decades of abuse. Even with all the scandals we currently know, the Catholic Church still has the Bible-waving clout to deny true equality to women and gays. I don't understand it and it angers me to no end.

What if investigation after investigation discovered that the Muslim church had engaged in a decades-long cover-up of massive criminal activity involving the molestation and raping of children? What if it involved countless Muslim religious leaders and others? What if one of the highest Sunni leaders in the world was complicit in hiding sex crimes committed against deaf kids? Do you think for a moment that the outrage would not be so massive as to force mosques to close and for schools to go bankrupt? Many, many people would be justifiably jailed. There would be congressional investigations. Republicans would be calling for any faith-based funds to be banned from going to Muslim organizations because, indeed, some of the money may have been indirectly used to pay off victims and to shuffle the perpetrators from city to city. Hell, there would be death threats, vandalism, if not outright violence, against mosques and people. Yes, Islam in America, if not in the West entirely, would be assaulted from all corners

Thursday Thoughts - 3/11/10

Some headlines from today that I thought I'd Quick Comment on:

Dumb and Dumber: Sarah Palin and Michele Bachmann team up for fundraiser. One will be talking about 're-education camps' and the other needs to enroll in one.

House Votes For Ethics Committee To Re-Open Eric Massa Investigation: Yes by all means investigate this nutball, but don't worry about George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's illegalities. What a country! One clown groped a bunch of men and resigned. The other two groped our country leading to 4300 dead Americans and 30,000 wounded. Where the hell has our common sense gone?!

House Dems Will Forge Ahead Without Stupak Language: It's about time! This anti-choice amendment should've never gotten this far. The Hyde Amendment of 1977 is in place restricting federal money for abortion excepting rape, incest or a woman's life.  Stupak's language actually goes further than current law which is why there's such an uprising amongst pro-choicers. This is about stopping women from being able to pay for insurance that covers abortion at all...even when women have paid for their own insurance with their own money. If "Insurer A" gets federal dollars and "Woman A" has a policy with them, she will not get covered because of that! This is another backhanded restriction on women's reproductive rights. I don't want my tax dollars going to Viagra either Bart, what do you think about that?!

If Obama Supports Public Option, It Could Pass Senate:  I'm very sure this is true.  This is the thing that bothers me.  Why has Obama taken every chance he's gotten to say that the public option is not essential to health care reform yet he backs the mandate? I'm very worried about whatever kind of backroom deal may have been worked out with insurance companies. Keeping my fingers crossed that the bill we get helps the uninsured, not the insurers.  Not feeling great at this time although Wendell Scott says this is a start.

God Helps With Personal Decisions, Most Americans Say: Say what? The confusion for me in such statements is that most religious people claim to believe in personal responsibility. So why wouldn't they want to take personal responsibility for their own decisions? Oh that's right, when they do something wrong, they use the "devil made me do it!" Idiots.

Finally, let's hope for full recoveries for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's wife and daughter. They were hospitalized today – after their minivan was rear-ended by a tractor-trailer truck on an interstate highway in suburban Virginia. Reid's wife, Landra, 69 has a broken back and neck and their daughter, Lana Barringer, 49 has a neck injury and facial lacerations.

I really hope some fright-wingnut doesn't say something stupid about this being some kind of karma for Reid's support of HCR. How bad is it, that I feel confidant that one of those losers, whether it's Limbaugh or Beck will go there?

Moore and Maddow Discuss Capitalism, The Stupak Dozen and More

I really enjoyed this segment from "The Rachel Maddow Show" when Oscar award winning documentary filmmaker Michael Moore joined Rachel to talk about a variety of issues upon the DVD release of his latest documentary, Capitalism: A Love Story.  One of the things they discussed was Moore's congressman Bart Stupak (D-MI) flexing his anti-abortion muscles, his continuing deception of his membership with the C Street Family and who exactly was paying his rent since the $600 he claimed at that address was waaay below fair market value. If anyone ever thought Rachel only goes after Republicans, they need to watch several episodes of her reporting about some questionable antics of this Stupak dude! Obviously they also discussed Moore's latest movie, touching on how the Republicans want to continue the proven failed policies of the very recent past. It really is amazing that the near collapse of the economy was directly related to the lack of rules and regulations in place...which still has not been addressed, even now with the Democrats in charge...which was a large reason they got sent there in huge numbers, but most of them don't seem to get it. I also had to chuckle when Moore did an imitation of the wimpy Democrats because I've been saying everything that he did for 14 months, and in fact have done a near identical imitation of them! You really have to wonder what it is that elected Democrats lack that Republicans have waaay too much of. Why can't Dems assert the majority status that they were elected to? It irritates me that they still haven't figured out that they're going to get slaughtered if they continue to act like wimps to please conservatives which still has no upside for them!

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