is the title of this Huffington Post piece by Frank Schaeffer. I strongly urge people to read and pass it on. It is powerful, starting with its very first paragraph:
And so it's come to this: the American evangelical religious establishment is busting a gut to elect a pro-abortion Mormon multimillionaire predatory tycoon with multiple offshore bank accounts who may or may not have paid his taxes while protecting the money he's made from "harvesting" American companies by shipping US worker's jobs overseas. Yes, he's pro-abortion in 2 ways. First, his policies will lead to more women having abortions as social service for poor women are cut, including health care they receive at Planned Parenthood. Second, just check out what he actually did as a pro-choice governor in my state -- Massachusetts -- and wait for the reality check the "family values" folks' will experience if he's elected when sells them down the river on their "issue."
Please keep reading.
Schaeffer quotes from the Guttmacher Institute that women in families below the poverty level had more than 40% of the abortions in this country, with an abortion rate of 52/1,000 women, while those whose families make more than 200% of the poverty rate have abortions at a rate of 9/1,000 women.
There are many powerful observations, for example
Then again it's been a long time since facts -- for instance the truth about what actually might reduce the number of abortions -- got in the way of American evangelical fanaticism and sexual dysfunction. Evangelicals seem to prefer labels to action, ideological purity rather than actual accomplishment.
He notes that the abstinence only approach to sex "education" promoted by evangelicals leads to putting young people at higher risk for both pregnancy and STDs, because they do not get comprehensive sex education. Their frame for sex is of the Prince rescuing the Princess from her virginity at the time of marriage, and totally excludes those who choose to remain single or are same-sex in their orientations.
Republicans may constantly talk about how they are pro-Life, but Schaeffer questions the results of their policies:
First, through their puritanical war on sex education they've hindered our country from actually preventing unwanted pregnancy. Second, through the Republican Party's marriage to the greediest and most polluting earth-destroying corporations they've created a climate (both moral and physical) that has scorched the earth for-profit, with no regard to future generations whatsoever.
There is much more of value in this piece. He describes Romney as an avatar of the Ayn Rand view of the world.
And then he closes with what I view as a real challenge to our politics:
What we need in America is a turning away from the false value of consumerism and utilitarianism that have trumped every aspect of human life. To implement this vision we need leaders that inspire but to do so they have to be what they say they are. It's not about policy it's about character.
Read the piece.
Pass it on.
Thanks