There are three possible answers to psychotic religious incursions into American politics like the recent contraception flap: The first and least helpful is just to keep playing whack-a-mole every time the sickos come up with some new assault on common decency and freedom. The next, and I think most advantageous, is to stop them as a matter of mere housekeeping without allowing it to become a distraction from the most potent issues - i.e., the 99% agenda. But the most fun would be this: Go on the offensive. Start pushing legislation that does the opposite of theirs, and watch them go berserk. There's no reason we can't do this, and no reason it shouldn't be happening at least somewhere in America to offer up our own distractions to the other side. So, a few modest proposals along these lines.
Proposals should be targeted at conservative areas where people are generally wingnutty, flaming wads of batshit who attack freedom at every turn, so it would simply be turning the tables on their authoritarian abuses of public policy:
1. Mandatory counseling on the benefits of abortion and a childless lifestyle for women who become pregnant.
2. Pregnant women must watch videos showing what happens to societies that overpopulate, and horror stories about the experiences of unwanted children.
3. Choosing to NOT have an abortion must involve signing all kinds of waivers, and acknowledging dire warnings about the potential consequences of having a baby.
4. Similar requirements to 1, 2, and 3 with respect to men choosing NOT to have a vasectomy.
5. Sex education should include scientific consensus about the moral, psychological, and social benefits of being sexually active.
6. Promote construction of abortion clinics as a way to create local jobs in nursing, medical records, construction/maintenance, and of course security.
7. Mandatory education in the 1st Amendment separation of church and state as part of a broader civics curriculum.
Items 1-4 would be funny, but the remainder are just common sense, so why are they never promoted in "mainstream" politics? Where are the controversial liberal proposals along these lines driving the other side into a frenzy?
It just seems like when/where liberals are in the majority, we are complacent about solidifying and expanding our influence and accomplishments; and when we're in the minority, we have no balls and just kind of retreat into whimpering defensiveness. Bay Area liberals, to use one example, seem to care more about the most piddling, trifling local bullshit than about very basic issues in other parts of the country - will protest over some tizzy about preserving a historical Victorian house, but don't even know about it or seemingly care that in Texas children are being taught Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich were the Founding Fathers. Not much solidarity there. It's a corruption of morality when so many activists are concerned with trivialities but won't hop a plane to the South to fight for common human decency in their own country.
And meanwhile, all due respect to Kossacks from wingnut regions who do what they can, but "liberals" in the ultraconservative parts of the country seem to be...well...domesticated. At home with being token voices of soft-spoken reason, never getting "uppity" or transcending the limits of their "place." See, here's what I don't understand about that: Shouldn't the violence, arrogance, and abusiveness of the right in these places make liberals more passionate? Do they lack a vision for what they want their states and regions to become, other than just less like what they are? Or have they been brainwashed into identifying passion and fury with the right, and thus think it would be a betrayal to exhibit it themselves?
If you're a Southerner passionate about abortion rights, why aren't you out in front of churches that sermonize against it waving signs and passing out leaflets? Why are they the ones who get to do that in front of abortion clinics without reciprocity? Why do you let them set the agenda for you? Why do you let them pick the battlegrounds, and the terms of the debate? That goes for everyone in the South and wingnut parts of the Midwest who isn't on board with the anti-union and psycho religionut agendas. Get off your fucking knees already.