Category: politics

What did Justice Ruth Ginsburg mean when she said “populations that we don’t want to have too many of”?

Read this GetReligion post and ask yourself, what could she possibly mean?

This section of a New York Magazine article out this week is what is at the focus of what should be significant controversy.

Q: If you were a lawyer again, what would you want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don’t know why this hasn’t been said more often.

Q: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

JUSTICE GINSBURG: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae — in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of. So that Roe was going to be then set up for Medicaid funding for abortion. Which some people felt would risk coercing women into having abortions when they didn’t really want them. But when the court decided McRae, the case came out the other way. And then I realized that my perception of it had been altogether wrong.

Roe was decided in the way it was to curb population growth? — “…particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.”

Which populations would those be, Justice Ginsburg?

And we may never know because the no one writing for a big paper or news outlet (save the UK Telegraph) has picked up this story.

Message to the US Senate: Please ask Sotomayor if she believes Roe was decided in order to help set up Medicaid funding to support aborting certain populations.

Uganda soccer association plans anti-gay campaign

A Scottish soccer coach may have to choose between his job and his beliefs regarding homosexuality. The Ugandan campaign against homosexuality now spreads to a test of belief. Read on…

Uganda FA Plan Anti-Homosexuality Campaign

Published: 4 July 2009

A Scottish football manager could lose his job as manager of the Ugandan national team unless he signs a form condeming homosexuality.

Bobby Williamson (left), the former Rangers and West Bromwich Albion star who is now head coach of the Ugandan national squad, has been asked to take part in an anti-sodomy offensive in a country where homosexuality is illegal – Uganda.

Williamson, along with every other football coach in the country, must sign a code of conduct which “denounces any support or involvement in sodomy related acts”.

The game’s ruling body acted after Isaac Omalla, a player with Horizon FC, reported his manager, Charles Ayeko, to the police, claiming to have been sexually assaulted by the older man following a match during the inter-regional championships in Lira.

Ugandan newspapers have alleged there is a homosexual culture among some players. Williamson’s employers, the Ugandan FA (FUFA), have now launched a campaign against homosexuality, insisting that all coaches take part.

Code of Conduct

“We are going to address [sodomy] in the code of conduct,” said Stone Kyambadde, the vice-chairman of the Ugandan Coaches Association. “The code will denounce any support or involvement in sodomy-related acts.”

He was backed up by FUFA spokesman, Rogers Mulindwa. “We totally condemn it,” he said. “We want evidence to pin the people involved. It’s here that we will start the clean-up.”

Williamson, who has managed Kilmarnock, Hibernian, Plymouth Argyle and Chester City, replaced Hearts manager Csaba Laszlo in the Ugandan post last year. FUFA’s document represents something of a moral dilemma for the 47-year-old Scot, who has spoken out against discrimination during his managerial career.

He is very popular in Kampala, where he lead The Cranes to victory in the Cecafa Senior Challenge Cup in January, their first such success for six years.

Hypothetical

“Sodomy is a criminal offence over there but this is the first I’ve heard of any code of conduct,” he said. “Until FUFA speak to me about that it’s a hypothetical matter and I’ll reserve my views until I’m approached.”

Click the link above to read the rest. In addition to the threats experienced by gays, freedoms are being threatened for non-gays at this point. Recently, a government minister proposed a law which would criminalize free speech regarding homosexuality and now one’s job could be threatened if one refuses to be sufficiently anti-gay.

How ironic; in this country, conservatives worry that their rights to express a belief that homosexuality is wrong might be threatened by laws favorable to homosexuality. I believe people from all sides should stand together to support freedom speech and conscience — whether here or there.

Gov. Sarah Palin to resign?

That’s what Ben Smith and Jonathan Martin at Politico are reporting.

What can it all mean? Not running for re-election, one could understand if indeed she wanted to seek the GOP nod in 2012 but why quit now?

Much of the negative said about Palin during the election was not accurate (as I documented). Since the election, she is often mentioned as a contender for 2012. However, I wonder how an early departure from Alaska will effect those plans.

The scandal of the public evangelical – Mark Galli

Good commentary today in Christianity Today from Mark Galli.

This comes near the end of the article – do read the whole thing.

Note how one writer put it in reflecting on the Gosselin debacle. (I’ll leave the writer anonymous, because my beef is not with her.) The sentiment expressed is widespread in our movement. After rightly suggesting that the flaws of Jon and Kate reflect our movement’s flaws, she says that we must do things differently: Find new role models, practice forgiveness better, and take marriage vows more seriously. Do, do, do. Then she concludes, “Then, and only then, will Christians have something to offer the world.”

The problem, of course, is that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that Christians will actually do these things consistently. Not private Christians. Not public Christians—it’s only a matter of months, maybe days (!) before another scandal will be revealed in the press.

Such moral exhortations are no doubt needed, but we must never believe that “then and only then” will we Christians have something “to offer the world.” What we offer the world is not ourselves or our moral example or our spiritual integrity. What we offer the world is our broken lives, saying, “We are sinners saved by grace.” What we offer the world is Jesus Christ and him crucified.

“Be a sinner and sin boldly,” said Martin Luther, “but believe and rejoice in Christ even more boldly. For he is victorious over sin, death, and the world. As long as we are here, we have to sin. This life is not the dwelling place of righteousness but, as Peter says, we look for a new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. … Pray boldly—you too are a mighty sinner.”

Make no mistake, this is not cheap grace. Not cheap at all—it’s free. And it’s the most precious thing we have to offer the world.

I might add that winning the culture war won’t help much either…

UPDATE: A reader sent along this web page with quotes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s The Cost of Discipleship. Perhaps, this page balances Galli’s piece? Can these two approaches be compatible?

Nazi movement rallies against gays in Springfield, MO

Yesterday, as planned, the National Socialist Movement (American Nazis) conducted a protest of gay pride in Springfield, MO.

springfieldnsm

According to video of the event, the National Socialist shouted “death to gays” at their rally.

A festival meant to celebrate the gay and lesbian communities in the Ozarks was met with mixed opinions Sunday afternoon.

The local chapter of the National Socialist Movement made their opnions (sic) heard at Pridefest.

Leaders with the Socialist movement say gays and lesbians are not welcome in Springfield.

The Minutemen United stood just to the side of the celebration.

They say they were praying for God to lift up the homosexual community.

The Minutemen United appear to be a Christian group who were there rallying against gay pride. It is not clear, but it does not appear that the MU were there to protest against the NSM.

The behavior of the NSM raises a significant challenge to the thesis of Kevin Abrams and Scott Lively about National Socialism and homosexuality. Abrams and Lively are founding members of the International Committee for Holocaust Truth. The first report from that small group proposed this thesis:

Hitler’s plans for a “1000 Year Reich,” is a “Homofascist” Conspiracy which still thrives today disguised as “gay” rights.

There is a problem with this thinking. The neo-Nazis in America yesterday shouted hatred at the same gay rights movement that Lively and Abrams consider the “homofascist conspiracy.” The NSM would like to implement “Hitler’s plans,” but this would mean “gays and lesbians are not welcome.” How can gays extend “Hitler’s plans” when they are not allowed in the Nazi movement? I really doubt the NSM would agree that the gay rights movement is true extention of “Hitler’s plans.”

(Here is a slideshow of the Pridefest and protests)

Update: The Minutemen United is a loosely organized bunch of men who are affiliated with Dave Daubenmire’s Pass the Salt ministry. On the front page of that organization’s website, there is a link to a podcast from Springfield, MO. There intent there was to do street preaching and evangelism at a gay bar and the Pridefest. According to this Springfield News-Leader report, some of the Christian groups, perhaps the MU included, also preached to the Nazis.

Prior posts in this series:

May 28 – Scott Lively wants off SPLC hate group list

May 31 – Eliminating homosexuality: Modern Uganda and Nazi Germany

June 3 – Before The Pink Swastika

June 4 – Kevin Abrams: The side of The Pink Swastika

June 8 – A historian’s analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 1

June 9 – A historian’s analysis of The Pink Swastika, part 2

June 11 – American Nazi movement and homosexuality: How pink is their swastika?

June 15 – Nazi movement rallies against gays in Springfield, MO

June 17 – Does homosexuality lead to fascism?

June 23 – The Pink Swastika and Friedrich Nietzsche

List of posts on Uganda and The Pink Swastika