I grew up a Catholic, with a very French-Acadian Catholic mother, who would be rolling in her grave given the current rhetoric on birth control. My mother was extremely devout, yet, while she did not like abortion (who does, really?), she saw its necessity in exteme cases, and also advocated for birth control. This was in the sixties. My mother had 6 children, and raising us all precluded her real desire to pursue a career in law. She just did not have that choice, and when it became available, did not disapprove of me making my own reproductive choices. This had a very great impact upon me ...I never dreamed my hard core Catholic mom would believe this, but she did...and it has given rise to other thoughts of mine over the years...below the sublime squiggle...
Forty + years later, I have been very troubled by the rhetoric of the Catholic Church encouraging voters to vote according to the Church’s ‘precepts’—against providing contraception in any form, and having this ‘meme’ validated by the Republican candidates. To me, this is a spiritual/personal issue, and has no place in this election. The fact that there are agencies supported by government dollars that help women to make choices about pregnancy and health issues should be a non-issue, because we are a nation of many religions, with many beliefs, and to have the Catholic church dictating to our electorate how women must behave is, well, inappropriate, to say the least.
If the Catholic Church wants to influence our political elections, their 501 c3 tax exempt status needs to be revoked, as they exert religious influence on our political process that clearly violates the constitutional separation between Church and State. Our founding fathers seriously fought for this separation.….we need to fight for it today, to move forward, not backwards, and not let any church’s ideology dominate our political process, as happened in the days of the British rule of America and the Emperors of Europe.
In later life, I married into a Jewish family, and discovered (not in my family, but in the FLorida Jewish community at large), surprisingly enough, some of the same sort of rhetoric at the political level is being unleashed upon the American public…that we must fiercely support Israel in whatever Israel believes it must do to protect its sovereignty. This is a very dangerous position, because it dehumanizes the rest of the middle eastern populations. As an ally of Israel, we are obliged to support Israel’s best interest. Yet, if Israel behaves in an inhumane fashion, as it has towards their continual, walled embargo towards the Palestinians, as well as its policies towards its own people—evident in the protests by millions of Israelis in the streets last fall…then we perhaps we meet their best interest by being a calming/cooling influence to their inflammatory rhetoric..
Billy Graham recently endorsed Mitt Romney on the basis of preserving the nation of Israel. This is an extreme position brought about by extreme theology, that is not representative of the majority of people or Christians in the USA. Mitt Romney’s Mormonism is, in its own right, considered a ‘cult’ by Billy Graham’s Christian sensibilities…so the endorsement is questionable….if the preservation of the nation of Israel is what is in question, how does that alighn with our nation's military goals?
As a spiritual person, I do not go around each day, focused on what I can do for the state of Israel…I work instead, to ‘love my neighbor’ as God has loved me, to feed the poor, help those who are ill and in need….the things Paul Ryan’s ‘Ayn Rand’ version of the world rejects in favor of seeking what is best for each individual, without respect for the ‘others’ in our society. Having grown up alongside Billy Graham's preaching (but more influenced by Dr. MLK, Jr.), I regret Graham's ill-informed choice for President on the principle of power, rather than the principle of compassion….because, in the end of days, I do believe love will trump power.
We are all human beings…women, Israelis, Palestinians, the homeless, Iranians, the injured war veterans, the widows…we have seen enough of war, enough of prejudice, enough of dominance and hate….it is time to get this extreme ‘religious speak’ out of our discourse, and to pursue paths of diplomacy towards…peace and reconciliation. Then, perhaps, a much needed ‘American Spring’ may occur.