The Furious Spinner

Here's more information on the Christian "left." I haven't read their site in depth or done much research, but at the outset, it sounds quite promising. They talk about Jesus the way I thought of Jesus when I was a girl. He was a revolutionary, challenging the power systems, fighting for the poor and downtrodden. (He should have had some girls in his all boy band—or maybe he did and the chroniclers left that part out. If the dude actually existed, that is. Although I suppose the fact of whether he lived and died doesn't matter any longer: his story exists.) Anyway, I first checked out what they say about gays and lesbians: "Discrimination against gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgenders—especially legally sanctioned discrimination—violates the Gospel-based values of justice and equality for all people. We support equality under the law for all Americans, regardless of sexual orientation..."

This is what they say about abortion: "Recognizing that Jesus teaches us by his example, we hold that he would treat women as full and complete partners today, just as he did in his own time. Therefore, we assert that creating secular laws to give control of a woman's body to the state is unchristian. We assert that compulsory childbearing (if Roe v. Wade were overturned), compulsory abortion (as in China), and compulsory childbearing or abortion based on the state's decision (as in Nazi Germany) all deny a woman's essential humanity and are immoral.

"International studies show that legal constraints on abortion have low impact on whether women actually get abortions. This means only that women will have illegal abortions, procedures that are often unsafe or lethal. Americans know, from the time before Roe v. Wade, that prohibiting safe abortion procedures led directly to deaths of multitudes of desperate and frightened women. Extremists who want to return us to that time are unlike the Jesus we know from the Gospels; they implicitly hold that the life of a woman does not matter. Our government has a moral obligation not to enact laws that have been shown by history to cause women injury or death."

And on the environment: "...We believe pillaging of the earth, its resources, and its creatures is a colossal failure of responsible stewardship and is also a failure to honor God, to whom the earth belongs...

"We insist that dismantling environmental laws and programs, measures that seek to protect creation and make it safer for our children is immoral and is a violation of our Christian duty."

About the war in Iraq: "Jesus knew power and he knew it could be used for justice or for conquest. Over and over, Jesus blessed his followers with peace and urged them to peace. Following his example, we call for restraint—not aggression—in the exercise of our nation's power..."

Now, it still makes me extremely nervous that people are using religious documents to justify public policy. However, I recognize that the right is using the bible to make all these claims to justify their actions as they try to demonize women, the poor, Iraqis, gays and lesbians, and those who seek to protect our civil rights and our environment. A bit of "bible turning" seems apropos. WWJD? I don't think he'd be shaking hands with the Emperor and his tailors. 0 comments

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