Oh, and about Levy, I think that she got so much press because she is both a feminist and one who criticizes oversexualization of the culture. A lot of feminists now, and she talks about them in her book, are generally pro-prostitution and pro-sexual liberation, very “if it feels good do it.” And religious conservatives generally do criticize the vulgar media, so it’s not news if one of them does. (Like if a dog bites a man that’s not news, but if a man bites a dog, then it is.)

Secular liberals may not donate to church, but if they are economically liberal (pro-social program) then they see their tax dollars as contributing to a good cause. Within the Democratic Party, there are social justice pro-lifers, who disagree with their party on abortion but are with them on most other issues, just like in the Republican Party there are libertarian pro-choicers.

And if you think Republicans have a monopoly on morals, I’ll include this unrelated tangent.
“The tests include a 2002-04 study by University of California-San Diego in which chloropicrin, an insecticide that during World War I was a chemical warfare agent, was administered to 127 young adults in doses that exceeded federal safety limits by 12 times.” (NY Times)
It gets worse:
“…in October of last year, [EPA nominee Stephen] Johnson strongly supported a study in which infants will be monitored for health impacts as they undergo exposure to known toxic chemicals for a two year period. The Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study, dubiously known as CHEERS, will analyze how chemicals can be ingested, inhaled, or absorbed by children ranging from infants to three year olds. The study will analyze 60 infants and toddlers in Duval County, Florida who are routinely exposed to pesticides in their homes. Yet the E.P.A. acknowledges that pesticide exposure is a documented risk factor for some types of childhood cancer and the early onset of asthma.” (Intervention magazine).
I do not understand how this is pro-life.
This amendment would have limited that sort of testing:
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=109&session=1&vote=00162#state

It was opposed only by Republicans and most if not all of those Republicans are “pro-life”, including theocon posterboys Frist and Santorum. (Note: pro-lifers Coburn, Dewine, Ensign, Graham, Isakson, McCain, Nelson, Pryor, Reid, Smith, Talent and Thune supported this amendment. So I won’t tar all pro-life senators with the same brush.)

Again, please name one mainstream Democrat who is “obsessed with making the sexual revolution the cultural norm.” I know that most of them are supportive of the Lawrence v TX ruling, but I think it’s more because they are uncomfortable with the idea of cops going into people’s bedrooms and believe that consenting adults should be able to make their own decisions. Or at least, that’s what I believe.

“It’s not just swinging single sluts who get abortions – women who wanted babies but have life-threatening complications of pregnancy do, women whose babies die in utero do, victims of statutory and forcible rape do too.” This is true, but the examples you cite constitute at most 1% of abortions. Let’s agree that we should ban the other 99%, and then let’s discuss the other 1%.

Female Chauvinist Pigs” by Ariel Levy — I read a review of this book recently in the New York Times. Yes, I and others like me agree with her observation that our culture degrades women by turning them into sexual objects. I don’t recall if the review said what her proposed solution is though. I find it a little bit annoying that when a feminist raises this issue she gets the full attention of the media as though it is something new, when the Church has been saying this all along and is derided for doing so. Karol Woytla, for example, in the 1950s while a priest and university professor in Poland wrote a book called “Love and Responsibility” that is a profound examination of human sexuality and discusses at length the problem of making an object of the other person. He followed up on this while Pope with a series of Papal audiences that are collected under the title “The Theology of the Body.” I have read some (admittedly not alot) of stuff by modern feminists about sex and none of it in my opinion approaches the sophistication that the Pope brought to bear on the subject. Yet if you know what is going on only by reading the New York Times you probably know none of this. A book that would be an equivalent of Levy’s book — say, David Morrison’s “Beyond Gay” (which is the account by a gay man who embraces the Church’s teachings on sexuality) — doesn’t get published by a mainstream publisher and doesn’t get reviewed by the New York Times or LA Times or any other ordinary newspaper.

You should not personally take offense at anything I said — none of it is directed at you personally. There is however without question an element of selfishness in modern feminist ideology. There are in fact studies that demonstrate that church-goers devote more money and time to charitable causes than non-church-goers. I’m not big on generalizations though — I used them only defensively, when people start casting dispersions on Christians as a group.

You ask where I get my ideas about liberals. Answer: from myself and most of my friends. For many years I was a standard liberal. I voted Democratic for many years. Virtually all my friends are still hard core Democrats. However when I began to think about abortion seriously I became horrified at the positions the Democrats take on the issue, and Democratic politicians lost all moral authority with me. I thus stopped voting Democratic. I don’t vote Republican either because I’m still an old-fashioned FDR type Democrat. But the Democratic party is no longer the party of FDR. It is now obsessed with making the sexual revolution the cultural norm.

I don’t think any major candidate has ever campaigned on a platform of “bedhopping”. It’s not just swinging single sluts who get abortions – women who wanted babies but have life-threatening complications of pregnancy do, women whose babies die in utero do, victims of statutory and forcible rape do too. And some of those swinging single sluts never have abortions.
As for sexual liberty, yeah, I think raunch culture has gone too far, but I’m pretty uncomfortable with the government going into people’s bedrooms.
If you have any concrete data for STDs, I’d like to see it. Actually, Massachussetts, home of the east coast liberals, has the lowest rate of divorce in the country. As for religion equalling morality, I’d also factor in religious hypocrisy. Anyone remember Henry Hyde, Newt Gingrich, Tim Hutchinson and Bob Livingstone during the Clinton impeachment scandal? Or the numerous televangelist sex scandals?

Yikes

This op-ed (via Feministe) leaves me speechless (bold emphasis mine): [A] study repo [...]

I have a great respect for the emotion of uncertainty. It is at the root of our science: there’s always the chance that the course of scientific knowledge will change (but contrary to some, it never does a complete about face so that all that we thought we knew becomes irrelevant). It’s also an attitude to take on when it comes to spiritual questions. As an agnostic, I plainly state that ~I cannot know for certain if there is or isn’t a God~ because I am a limited human being. I am limited to my senses. Could it be that I just can’t detect something that is right there in front of me? ~I don’t know~ and I am comfortable with not knowing.

Whether it comes from Fundamentalists or atheists, I find this “Does God exist” talk wasteful. It doesn’t matter to me becaus what counts first is taking care of myself and second being there for others when I have the energy to do so. I can live with uncertainty. I don’t need to rush out to find pieces of Noah’s Ark because that isn’t what spiritual quest should be about and I don’t jump to conclusions because my senses can’t detect things. I accept that Science can go only so far and past that point is Uncertainty.

Some will argue that the evidence of our senses is enough and I suppose their senses are as good for securing their belief in absolute truth as the more limited senses of a sponge work for it.

And the Establishment Clause, as Justice Thomas correctly noted in the last pledge case, was only intended to stop the federal government from imposing religion. The states are perfectly free to establish theocracies; it’s simply that in recent times judges have taken the Biblical approach and stopped reading the Consitutional literally.

Sadly, no! While that may well have been the original intent of the Establishment Clause of the 1st Amendment, the 14th Amendment extends the Establishment Clause to the states, along with most of the other Bill of Rights’ protections. It’s interesting that Thomas of all people does not remember that, since the 14th Amendment is one of the three civil rights amendments adopted immediately following the Civil War.

Either way, though, it is a poor argument for using religion to set policy for a multi-faith, secular society.

Whether doing so
– leads to bad results,
– fails to produce the needed results, or
– is not suited to prevention, being a coping mechanism for _individuals_ to deal with _existing_ social and personal stress,

it seems that there are better, fairer ways of addressing social ills that don’t impede on citizens’ civil rights (such as the right to believe what they will, without either government sanction or persecution).

It is evident that the real concern here is not the Establishment Clause but sex. The pursuit of sexual pleasure has become so important to so many that they equate political freedom and liberty with sexual license. This has become so much the case that the Democrats in the Senate, to ensure conditions necessary to bedhopping, will fillibuster a Supreme Court nominee if he or she openly commits to reversing Roe v. Wade.