The war on women

When Barry Goldwater was alive, he called the religious right wing of the Republican party, “LUNATICS.” Today, we call them the Tea Party Republicans, still very right wing, and still, in my opinion “lunatics.” A movement originated by them has now become a national issue known as “The War on Women.”

“Mark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the (Republican) party, and they’re sure trying to do so, it’s going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can’t and won’t compromise. I know. I’ve tried to deal with them.”

– Republican Barry Goldwater

The so-called great historic Church “fathers” of the Christian church would love these lunatics (nuts) leading the war on women. They also were suffering from mental constipation on the subject. Just listen to these half-witted, ignorant and warped statements from men acting as if they had frontal lobotomies:

TERTULLIAN, called the “Founder of Western Theology.” “Woman is a temple built over a sewer, the gateway to the devil. Women are the gate of hell.”

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA in 96 A.D. wrote: “Every woman should be overwhelmed with shame at the thought that she is a woman.”

ST. JOHN CHRYSOSTOM 345-407 A.D. wrote: “Among all savage beasts none is as bestial as woman.”

ST. AUGUSTINE  345 – 450 A.D. “Any woman who does not give birth to as many children as she is capable of is guilty of murder.” (pro-lifers must love him.)

MARTIN LUTHER. “Women should stay at home, sit still, keep house and bear children. If a woman grows weary and dies from childbearing, it does not matter; let her die bearing children, that is all she is here for.” (and they have churches named after this guy)

JOHN WESLEY of Methodist fame, in a letter to his wife: “Wife, be content to be insignificant. Of what loss would it be to God or man had you never been born?”

JOHN KNOX of Presbyterian fame: “Woman was made to serve and obey man.”

But, you had better be sitting down for the following: In the year 584 A.D. in Lyons, France was held the Council of Macon. Sixty-three Catholic Bishops and twenty men representing Bishops met to engage in a serious debate on this subject: “ARE WOMEN HUMAN?” After days of debate the vote was finally called for. The results were as follows. Thirty-two voted YES. Thirty-one voted NO. Women were declared “human” by the Christian church by ONE vote.

Do not think we are talking about an archaic age. We are living with this “lunatic’ mentality now every day with this Tea Party Republican psychosis of wanting to control women’s bodies and minds. It is simply beyond human comprehension that today this degradation of women also still persists in many Christian denominations, with their male-run church with their male ministers… and the male-written archaic “without error” “word of God” bible. It is one of the great crimes of human history.

Throughout the entire history of the Christian church, the “divine” vocation of women, the “calling” of women has been for one thing only: to bear children. The Christian church, that a number of our Republican candidates look to as their “guide,” for hundreds of years taught that the woman is only the “soil” for the male bearing “seed.” The “bible-thumpers” with their psychotic opinions about the “divine calling” of women are today feeding the “war on women.”

Let me say this as clearly as possible, in language “5X5” as I used to say in radio communication as a Marine pilot:

THE MEANING AND PURPOSE OF A WOMAN’S LIFE IS NOT TO BE FOUND IN HAVING AND BEARING CHILDREN.

Every female animal of whatever species can reach this so-called “goal” if the meaning of female existence is to be found only in reproducing the species. We are not here just to have children. If the life of a childless woman were really meaningless just because she had no children, then humanity lives only for the sake of children, and the only meaning of existence is to ALWAYS be found in the next generation. This reaches the heights of absurdity.

The meaning of each individual life, whether male or female, is to be found in developing one’s full potential to love, developing our full potential as a human being… a unique person. This should be obvious: Women are unique individuals, even as are men, and “following their bliss” or “marching to the beat of their own drummer” may or may not include having children, and may or may not include choosing abortion.

What a grace for each individual man and individual woman to be able to say, “For this reason was I born, and for this reason came I into the world.”

No one reason is any more divine than any other. An individual’s “reason” can come from the heart, for “the heart has reasons that reason knows nothing of.” (Pascal)