It should be clear to everyone what John McCain's agenda is! The same as George Bush's has been for the last 7 years! He is playing to the radical side of the Republican party (the Religious Right) for their support to win the primary! He will probably get it if he keeps up the rhetoric! It is time for all patriotic American to stand up and be counted. The Separation of Church and State have made us the great country we are! It has allowed all religions to thrive and live in peace for over 2 hundred years now. To further abandon that basic premise would doom us to the same chaotic religious strife that has destoyed many a country!

Everyone should send Planned Parenthood money to keep them going. Please.

Hey peacemaker, do you think that any government anywhere is useful anymore? We need to ask ourselves why there are borders and how we end up being divided as people. I think if you attack the religious right you'll feed their fears of "the liberal conspiracy". I applaud both the approach of Ms. Richards towards the McCain campaign, as well as all her hard work for PPAF. This is about the protection of womens rights. You mentioned that we have allowed all religions to thrive and live in peace? I think you may want to revisit our history a bit. Not one single right in the Constitution has been freely given to ALL the people from the government since its inception. Each right for any group at all has been won in a struggle with the cost of many peoples blood. Men actually killed women who protested for equal rights in the 1920's for example. Chinese men were killed when they protested California's racist marriage laws in the 1850-60's even after several court cases had been won. Read anything by Howard Zinn and you'll see how things have really been in the land of the free. The truth is religion did play a major role in the founding of our country. Which may be why we have such a horrid human rights record. Religions are founded and run by men who typically use similar power structures as the modern corporation. Spirituality is free and is available to everyone of us. Maybe if we were a spiritual nation we would not wage war on others simply because we can.

Not that I would ever vote for him in a million years, but what has happened to McCain? He used to be a fair-minded, independent individual. Not any more. What a great response, Cecile, keep up your excellent work. I am a supporter of Planned Parenthood, as my mother and grandmother before me.

Out here in tv land, we vote for action movie stars and people with names of cool movie heroes that kill commies, gooks, ragheads, wetbacks, hebes, nigras and other mud people. And who like pickup trucks, guns, NASCAR and Jesus. This beer's for my Xtian brothers in the Klan. To the Rapture!

It's in the 'good book' which has virtually become a government document:

Genesis 3:16 "Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee."

Eph.5:22-24 "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing."

1 Pet.3:1 "Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands."

Don Bacon, how about you stay in the dark ages, and let the rest of us live in the present. Neoconned... right on. Religion has done more harm than good in creating lies about Creator, Creation and dividing people on false bases. It has stood behind the various purges, even slavery, the subjugation of women so that men can go to war over and over again, like a boat with only ONE oar in the water (the voice of the feminine, as symbolic counter balancing oar denied) forced to circle endlessly, redundantly, and oh so insanely... and this is a model worth revering? If only the trick of using the lie of sin to impede sound questioning was not so effective, a lot more people would have questioned the authority purporting to speak as DIVINE authority and have woken up from the great hypnotic sheep suspension state.

The 'good book' my dear friend Mr. Bacon was put together under orders from a Roman Emperor for political reasons. Also, just in case you missed the news, the Gnostic Gosels which have been found in Nag Hammadi, the Dead Sea Scrolls and elsewhere in the middle east, pretty much show how Peter and his cohorts usurped Jesus message of equality between men and women. See, Jesus was a radical and he preached peace love and tolerance... he also taught that men and women were equal and should be treated as such. This is one of the major reasons he was so radical. So if you find a specific quote from Jesus himself regarding women it won't say anything about subjugation, obeisance or subservience to men. yet there are several places in the good book where Peter the so called Rock of the Church, shows his contempt and jealousy of Mary Magdalene, Jesus' closest disciple. Oh, and she was never a prostitute either, that was another attempt by men to remove her from the picture and keep the power structure of the new religion under the control of men. Now with the Catholic Church becoming a haven for both gay men and pedophiles (yes, right wing freakazoids, there is a difference between the 2), we can see the results of a society that all but kills off the feminine side of life. Most of our problems today would be minimized if we but embrace our feminine side. Think about how much of our life today would not be possible without all the contributions of women? Who was it that figured out what plants could be eaten and which ones to avoid while the men were all out hunting? why is it that the first idols ever found in the archaelogical record were figurines of pregnant females? I can only hope Bacon is being fecitious with his post. We need to begin to learn how to honor the feminine again in our society.

The Australian Minister for Health (and Opus Dei member) Tony Abbott attempted to stop the drug RU 486 from being available. He was over ruled by a cross party group of female politicians. He still installed so many hurdles to jump that it is almost impossible to get a license to distribute.

He has since used taxpayer funds to set up pregnancy counseling services that only employ religious or religiously affiliated groups to push an anti-abortion line. When groups from Planned Parenthood complained that they did not advertise themselves as only providing the pro life stance they were told that since they were non-profit groups there was no legal requirement to provide truth in advertising.

I guess that my cynicism went undetected. Sorry. I agree with siouxrose and neoconned.

Women provided spiritual connections for people for 25,000 years until the Jewish/Christian/Muslim crowd moved in with an essential part of their revolutionary strategy being the primacy of men and the demonization of women: Eve, Mary Magdalene, priestesses becoming witches, women being treated only as breeders, etc. You understand that subjugation better than I do.

I agree that the world would be a better place if it weren't powered by testosterone, with cooperation instead of competition. My point is that the bible is a key element in this problem--sixty percent of Americans literally believe in the bible; ninety percent of pentecostals do. Three Repub presidential aspirants have declared that they don't believe in evolution!! This brings ignorance to a whole new level.

Make no mistake about it. While people may rail about "pro-abortion" and "pro-choice" the real, basic issue here is anti-female, the power of men over women. That perversion is clearly evident in the bible excerpts above, and in the positions of many US politicians as well as Supreme Court members. Wade may be overturned soon and we'd better understand why. It's in the 'good book'.

The government was established to protect our rights, not take them away. What more basic, natural rights can there be than the rights to control our own bodies' sexuality with medication and medical procedures? This policy certainly applies to men, but just as certainly it doesn't apply to women. It's in the 'good book', he said, cynically.

"Neoconned" makes an excellent point. A friend of mine once said that the government of every nation is the enemy of its people. That friend of mine was originally a school history teacher.

The same Bible that justifies the oppression of women is the one in which Paul says, "Slaves obey your masters," essentially because "God" put them in control. You see, here is an example of where the church has become a political institution. And it isn't just Christianity. The caste system in India seems to be the age-old model for what has been known here as Social Darwinism. The type of reductionism on which these beliefs are based is dangerous. However, it takes more than 30-second sound bytes to stimulate critical thinking skills.

Let me point out as well that the theory of "race" is false, conceived in order to divide one group from another. In other words, humans are one race, otherwise known as the "human race". Sometimes I wonder if the human race is a race to the finish line. We seem to be accelerating all the while.

www.raycarlson.com

Don Bacon: Terrific! I am always humbled by enlightenment, intelligence, facts & figures (and perspectives) on this site... but there are a few "plants" that insist on the status quo, and I did take you for one pontificating on "Biblical literalism." Your explanation helps many! Best wishes! (I live in the south where people DO take the Bible seriously and it's surreal!)

Neoconned: You missed the point completely! I was merely stating that the Separation of Church and State has served us well for over 2 hundred years (and it theoricially has)! When George Bush came to office he completely abandoned it in favor of imposing religious belief's upon everyone in this country. He crossed that imaginary line and started giving them taxpayers money for their programs! We all know bigotry and racism is alive and well in this country. But, we have not fought any religious wars among ourselves due to having a Separation of Church and State too! The Religious Right is going to see a Liberal Conspiracy regardless of what any of us say or do! They have their own agenda! One where they are determined to turn us into their idea of a Christian Nation! People have kept their mouths shut about this group for far to long. They have been allowed way to much power! They are imposing their belief's upon all American's! I merely meant it is time to stand up for a Separation of Church and State before we become like the Middle Eastern countries and religion controls everyone and everything! That is why McCain is mouthing off about Planned Parenthood. It's a big issue with the Religious Right! It gets votes and don't ever kid yourself it doesn't!

Key80: as per race to the finish line, the very premise of being first, or IN a rush is so pervasive on the nation's highways. Although called the nice clean term, "road rage" it's more accurately an inadvertant form of potential manslaughter, given that 40,000 die on our highways each year. In astrology Mars is the macho testosterone, me-first, might-makes-right, be # 1/win premise. We all have Mars in our nature, it relates to our ego; but this is where the genius of seeing in the heavens a prism of plural voices is so helpful to our linear thinking "lot." The Greeks understood the heavens (fate, God, whatever we call the higher forces) do not speak in ONE uniform voice. This means that the counterbalance to Mars, which works well when we have to identify with our own interests to survive, is balanced by Venus where we understand that self-interest taken to the max degenerates the balance of a society that nurtures its members, nourishes their better tendencies. There are no sides in the circle! When belief in monotheism emerged from prior pantheisitc and polytheistic ideological frameworks, it soon morphed into a rigid father-god concept all about punishment, divide and conquer, war, competition and blood shed. IF the US didn't have its military 99% Christian with military leaders using euphemisms consistent with a crusade, then I would feel no need to bring this mystical metaphor onto this site. But given the insanity of current leaders of several nations, including Bush & Blair, it's almost like a new Blair-Bush witchhunt project to silence dissent, and the first persons penalized for dissent were the spiritual thinkers, the "heretics." Astrologers among them, realize that NO singular position can make a claim to speak for Divine authority, as the Divine presence cannot be encapsulated either into linear human notions or ONE voice... so when some argue that GOD is on their side, it's time to ask WHICH GOD? Since ONLY Mars champions war and this is decidedly NOT the persona Jesus identified with, or embodied.

This is a question of framing. The anti-abortionists have put forward this conversation in terms of religion, a conservative view of which can be read to support their goals. Abortion is certainly a moral issue, but one that involves a conflict of interests in terms of rights between the foetus and the mother who carries it. In a country with rule of law and a judicial system such as ours, we must accept that certain situations remain morally ambiguous and complex.

For those of us who recognize that the conflict around such issues is a sign of that very ambiguity and complexity, this also indicates the relative situatedness of all moral systems, their partial nature, their lack of completeness. And for those who are literalist in their interpretations of the Bible and believe it to represent a complete moral view, one must also recognize that the very fact of its having mentioned certain issues points to the fact that these issues are contestable.

In a system that declares freedom of religion, the government cannot and should not take up the singular view of those who claim moral totality. This, apart from the abortion issue, depoliticizes the culture generally and, moreover, disenfranchises members of other religious communities and infringes on the freedom of conscience of others. It is very dangerous.

Given the ambiguity and complexity of these issues, which, by the way, is not a handicap but rather an aspect of the human condition, it is important to understand that the abortion issues, while bound up with moral concerns, is not a set of questions that can be answered by a totalizing religious worldview in a morally, culturally, and gender heterogeneous society. This is a secular issue, a legal issue. It is about balancing the rights of a foetus (who does have some under the law) with those of the mother. To make it about anything else is to concede to the politico-religious fusion that the great talking-heads try to stuff down our throats instead of decent civics lessons. It is no mistake that it is the same groups who move in this direction who are also nationalist and fundamentalist zealots (which, let me say, is not meant to indicate that all fundamentalists are zealots, though I do not share their views).

Every time we concede that this is an issue about religion, taking up that language and arguing religion with the already converted, we automatically lose. Moreover, we surrender the power of our own discourse to the framing tactics of those who would have an end to politics in its best sense and replace them with crypto-fascist ideology. This goes for pro-rights individuals who, while well-meaning, argue for the superiority of the view of a woman's "right to an abortion." Legally, a woman does not have a "right to an abortion," but rather a whole cluster of rights that overdetermine the necessity of her freedom to have the choice of an abortion. One view relies on a polarizing adamancy, while the other actually uses the complexity of the situation to its advantage.

Women, therefore, must be free of religious coercion, free from a public appropriation of their bodies, free from a spiritualization or a mythicization of their circumstance and experience within the human condition, and free to exercise their conscience within the framework of rights and guarantees afforded them. Abortion is a legal, secular issue, the answer to which is forthcoming from even a cursory glance at the history of our legal system, its historical transformations, and its clear intended purpose of working out conflicts of interest among the rights and privileges of those who participate in the system in good faith. This is why the freedom to abort a pregnancy has been so legally stable, despite its political contentiousness, until the Supreme Court recently abandoned its civic duties in favor of neo-Romantic sentimentality.

Indeed, one might argue that to remove abortion issues from the realm of acts of conscience removes it also from the realm of morality, as the two most be bound up together for either to be meaningful or significant. Depoliticization is also demoralization. Mythicization is an abuse of the public domain itself. That, too, should be a source of outrage.

To make a woman's rights an issue of the relevance of God is a horrifically abusive act of bad faith. Shame on all of you, and shame on John McCain and his cohorts most especially. And my many thanks to Cecile Richards for her eloquence, her grace, and her determination to actually engage in genuine civil discourse.

There's a typo in the Bible --believe it or not -- It says, for all the really far out persons, "Take thee up Serpents." It was supposed to read "Take thee up servants." It's the second version that the chicken Christians choose to believe.

You won't find the lice at the head of our government going anywhere near a Jump Church full of snakes. You won't find them anywhere near the pointy end of war either.