Tuesday Reads: Silent Protest Slows State Sanctioned Rape Bill, Santorum Knows Best, and Other News

Silent protest of state-sanctioned rape bill in Richmond, VA

Good Morning!!

I’m so glad I can begin with good news. We’ve all been enraged about the bill in the Virginia legislature that would require a woman who needed an abortion to be penetrated against her will by a transvaginal ultrasound probe in order for her to view the contents of her womb. The bill would also require the doctor to note in her medical record whether she viewed the image or not.

Yesterday, citizens of Virgina held a “silent protest”, organized on Facebook, outside the Virginia Statehouse. From Fox News:

Hundreds of women locked arms and stood mute outside the Virginia State Capitol on Monday to protest a wave of anti-abortion legislation coursing through the General Assembly.

Capitol and state police officers, there to ensure order, estimated the crowd to be more than 1,000 people — mostly women. The crowd formed a human cordon through which legislators walked before Monday’s floor sessions of the Republican-controlled legislature.

The silent protest was over bills that would define embryos as humans and criminalize their destruction, require “transvaginal” ultrasounds of women seeking abortions, and cut state aid to poor women seeking abortions.

Molly Vick of Richmond said it was her first time to take part in a protest, but the issue was too infuriating and compelling. On her lavender shirt, she wore a sticker that said “Say No to State-Mandated Rape.” Just beneath the beltline of her blue jeans was a strip of yellow tape that read “Private Property: Keep Out.”

In addition, a new poll released yesterday showed that most Virginians do not support changes to the state’s abortion laws.

Virginia voters, by wide margins…oppose mandating that a woman receive an ultrasound before having an abortion, according to a new poll.

The results of the Christopher Newport University/Richmond Times-Dispatch survey put majorities at odds with legislation poised to pass in the General Assembly….

Of those polled, 55 percent say they oppose the requirement and 36 percent support it. The House and Senate have passed versions of the legislation.

“The governor will await the General Assembly’s final action,” said Tucker Martin, a spokesman for McDonnell. “If the bill passes he will review it, in its final form, at that time.”

Andy Kopsa at RH Reality Check wondered a few days ago if McDonnell might be getting cold feet. I bet he is after yesterday’s events. The demonstration apparently made the legislators nervous, because they decided to delay a vote on the bill.

I can’t help but wonder what motivates people to propose punitive, unconstitutional laws like this. Are they sadists? My guess is they had authoritarian parents who had no empathy for their feelings and now they unconsciously want to punish other people for the pain they suffered. Is that what happened to Rick Santorum? I wish I knew.

I’ve spent a lot of time lately trying to figure out how Rick Santorum came to be a religious fanatic. He must be a true believer, because he can’t seem to stop himself from talking about his bizarre beliefs, even though he must know they won’t help him politically. There’s a great summary of the crazy things Santorum said over the past weekend at The New Civil Rights Movement blog. I know you’ve heard about it already, but to read it all in one place is just stunning. Check it out.

Oh, and did you hear that Alice Stewart, who is Santorum’s national spokesperson, on Andrea Mitchell’s show yesterday? She was defending Santorum’s remarks to an Ohio Tea Party audience about President Obama having an “agenda” based on a “phony theology”

The “president’s agenda” is “not about you,” he said. “It’s not about you. It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your job.

“It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology,” Santorum said to applause from the crowd. “Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.”

I hope someone asks Santorum at the next debate why he thinks government should operate according to the bible or any kind of theology. But I digress….

The former Pennsylvania senator has said he believes Obama is a Christian, and a statement from the campaign stresses that as well, adding that Santorum was talking not about the president’s religion, but political ideology.

“The President says he’s a Christian and Rick believes that and has even said so publicly many times,” National Communications Director Hogan Gidley said in a statement. “Rick was talking about the President’s belief in the secular theology of government — and how believing that theology is dangerous because government theology teaches that it’s perfectly fine (to) take away our individual God-given rights and freedoms. Our founders wrote the Constitution to protect our individual rights and freedoms, but it’s clear that President Obama believes the government should control your life. Rick Santorum believes in the Constitution and will always fight to protect our freedoms.”

But getting back to Alice Stewart on the Andrea Mitchell show and her major boo boo–a real Freudian slip if I ever heard one–here it is, as described by Sarah Posner at Religion Dispatches Magazine (with video).

Today, his national press secretary, Alice Stewart (whose previous job was press secretary for Michele Bachmann’s presidential campaign), went on MSNBC and also claimed that Santorum wasn’t questioning Obama’s religion. Instead, she said, he was talking about “radical environmentalists, there is a type of theological secularism when it comes to the global warmists in this country. That’s what he was referring to. He was referring to the president’s policies, in terms of the radical Islamic policies the president has and specifically in terms of energy exploration.”

Stewart called back shortly afterward to say that she had “made a slip of the tongue” and hadn’t meant to say “Islamic,” but had intended to say “environmental.” But Posner, the author of a book on the religious right, God’s Profits: Faith, Fraud, and the Republican Crusade for Values Voters, isn’t buying it.

Of course. Because secularists and Muslims and environmentalists are equally the sworn enemies of anyone with a “Christian worldview” and therefore America. An understandable mistake to mix them up in a torrent of dog-whistles: Theological secularism. Global warmists. Radical Islamic. If you’ve had a “Christian worldview” education, you’ve been taught that two of those—secularism and Islam—are competing “worldviews” in a cosmic clash with Christianity, vying for domination in the world. And you’ve probably been exposed to the false claim that global warming is a hoax, that environmentalism “and its ramifications must be clearly understood by Christians so that we can protect ourselves and especially our children from the unbiblical brainwash that permeates our schools, media, popular culture, and yes, our churches,” according to Christian Worldview radio host David Wheaton.

More right wing nuts that I’ve never heard of. Lately I’ve been reading everything I can about these right wing religious cults–and they are cults. I’ve read about Catholic cults, the Mormon cult (yes, I believe it is a cult), and for the past few days I’ve been reading about right wing protestant movements in a book by Max Blumenthal, Republican Gomorrah.

I spent much of yesterday afternoon reading reports of Santorum’s pronouncements and speculations by various writers on why he’s so obsessed with everyone else’s sex lives and can’t stop talking about his bizarre religious beliefs. Alec MacGillis at The New Republic thinks he has the answer. MacGillis says the pundits

cannot fathom why Santorum would keep veering off a pre-Michigan script that that was supposed to be geared toward the economy, manufacturing in particular. What this reflects, though, is a misconception grounded in our lack of experience with true political ideologues. We talk a lot these days about Washington having been overtaken by conservative ideologues, but this is an exaggeration. Many of those glibly parroting right-wing ideology these days—say, Eric Cantor—are mere opportunists. But Rick Santorum is a rare breed—a bona fide ideologue with a fixed and coherent world view. He can’t just switch some button and turn off the social stuff and talk jobs instead. It’s all woven together. “I’m not going to go out and lay out an agenda about how we’re going to transform people’s hearts,” he said today. “But I will talk about it.”

It reminds me of a quote from a 2005 New York Times Magazine Profile on Santorum, called “The Believer.”

Sean Reilly, a former aide to Santorum in the Senate and now a political consultant in Philadelphia, said that he has come to view his former boss in other than political terms. ”Rick Santorum is a Catholic missionary,” he said. ”That’s what he is. He’s a Catholic missionary who happens to be in the Senate.”

You know, I really don’t want a Catholic missionary in the White House.

Something else I learned from MacGillis: Karen Santorum hasn’t really spent her whole married life keeping house and homeschooling her kids.

I’m a little surprised that there hasn’t been more focus yet on the fact that Karen Santorum, who is trained as a lawyer and as a neonatal nurse, has a lengthy work history, and it includes a job that raised a few eyebrows back in the 1990s—working for the media firm that did, and still does, the advertising for Rick Santorum’s campaigns. From a 2003 UPI report:

Federal Election Commission records reviewed by UPI show Santorum’s campaign making payments to BrabenderCox totaling nearly $4 million and $6 million in the 1994 and 2000 elections for media work. Most contracts allow political ad firms to keep around 15 percent of the payments.

Santorum’s Senate financial disclosure forms show a salary from the company to Karen Santorum in 1995, 1996, 1997 and 1998, although Senate rules do not require a disclosure of the amount.

In a telephone interview, John Brabender said he paid Karen Santorum around $4,000 a month, mostly for “client development.”

“She helped us try to get accounts and often acted as our Washington representative,” Brabender said. “She was both a stay-at-home mom and a professional at the same time.”

Brabender said his hiring of Karen Santorum had “nothing to do” with Sen. Santorum hiring BrabenderCox.

Now isn’t that interesting? And here’s something else interesting from Mother Jones: How Rick Santorum Ripped Off American Veterans It’s all about how as Senator, Santorum used an amendment in a defense authorization bill to cheat the Armed Forces Retirement Home out of $27 million in order to help the Catholic Church get some land cheaply. Real saintly, huh?

Well, enough about Rick Santorum. Here are a few more headlines to get you started on the day.

Eurozone seals second Greek bailout

Mitt Romney’s fundraising stagnates, decreasing his financial advantage

Ron Paul’s billionaire sugar daddy, Paul Theil of Paypal

Clint Eastwood says We Haven’t Had a Great President Since Truman!

That’s it for me. What are you reading and blogging about today?