The panels above are from a current story arc in the comic 9 Chickweed Lane by Brooke McEldowney. You can find his blog here. I have skipped several of the panels, but the ones above reflect the story arc. I do not know what the development of the arc will be, but it is apropos to my previous discussion on birth control.
Sadly, the recent diatribe by Rush Limbaugh reflects all too much of the real thinking of politically conservative Christianity in the USA. When he called the student a “slut” and asked why he should pay for her sexual promiscuity, he stated the all too commonly accepted stereotype among those of a politically conservative mindset. The stereotype is that women who use birth control and are not married are sexually promiscuous. However, the reality is that most adult women and minor girls who become pregnant are neither welfare queens nor prostitutes. Rather, they are women or girls in a “single” relationship who are just as surprised to find themselves pregnant as the daughter in the comics above. In fact, as Sarah Palin found out, they can be your own conservative Christian daughter. Being a conservative Christian does not make you immune to sin nor to making a terrible mistake.
However, labeling women who use birth control as “sluts” in one’s own mind is convenient if one wishes to stand up and make the “moral” claim that my money should not go to support “sluts.” However, there are several problems with this approach. The biggest one is that the people who make this claim are almost universally not willing to allow others who call themselves Christian to make an identical claim. Regular readers of this blog may remember that I have documented more than once that the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops opposed the entry of the USA into Iraq under President Bush. In fact both that conference and Pope Benedict XVI sent letters to President Bush asking him to not invade. He ignored those requests and invaded anyway.
I bring this example up to state that if politically conservative Christians were truly supportive of the right of Christians to not support policies which lead to unjust deaths that they should have no problem supporting those who say that they ought to be able to refuse to pay the portion of their income taxes that go to the Iraq war and to have that money go to charitable organizations, since the Pope and the Catholic bishops originally said that this was not a truly just war. Quakers and Mennonites, in particular, should be able to refuse to pay any and all taxes connected to either the military, to weapons development, or to any ongoing military conflict since they are pacifists. Nevertheless, since the first attempts to refuse to pay the war tax during the Viet Nam War, politically conservative Christians have steadfastly maintained that even Quakers and Mennonites are part of this society and benefit from this society (including its military) and must therefore pay those taxes associated with that society.
I say that this same standard must be applied to politically conservative Christians. Save for abortion, which is the clear murder of children, politically conservative Christians must pay even those taxes that go to activities which they consider to be immoral. Any stance other than that one is to make clear that politically conservative Christians are the only true citizens of this country. If Quakers and Mennonites must pay even that part of their taxes which go to war, which is a tax whose result is the killing of people, then Roman Catholics have little choice but to allow for some of their taxes to go toward contraception, which does not involve the killing of any people. In fact, there is a dangerous discrepancy here. Right now, the media has not yet caught on to this discrepancy. But when they do, it would be easy for the media to mockingly point out how politically conservative Christians insist that “their” money not go for anything they disapprove while insisting that others’ money must go even for policies which they disapprove, such as Quaker money going for military purposes. It does no good to hide behind the label of patriotism to insist that everyone must support the troops. Either there is religious freedom to dissent and withhold taxes on every matter or there is not.
I would hope that eventually politically conservative Christians would change their stance and begin to support those clearly conservative churches who have different moral stances than they do. Quakers and Mennonites are called historic peace churches because they have a history that goes back to before the founding of this country. They have a record of opposing war spending but have lost every court case they have filed. Perhaps politically conservative Roman Catholics (since contraception is not a theological problem for the rest of Christianity) should take a look at them and realize that if they lose the contraception arguments that they need to pay their taxes and render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
AMEN, AMEN, AMEN.
Sometimes I think you’re reading my mind. I have been thinking exactly this lately.
There’s something tragically and desperately wrong with the dismissive condescension paid by religious powers to other religious people who object to funding war with their taxes.
Not all “cafeteria Catholics” (or Orthodox or Protestants) choose from the menu in the same way. If you choose to fight against contraception but excuse or promote military aggression in our name, aren’t you as much a “cafeteria Catholic” as he who chooses to follow some Church teachings but rejects the teaching on contraception?
Politically conservative Roman Catholics conveniently either ignore or are truly unaware of the stance of the Roman Catholic hierarchy prior to entry into Iraq. In the worst case, they even come right out and make it clear that they are correct and that their own hierarchy was (is) wrong. In other words, all too many politically conservative Roman Catholics have created their own shadow Roman Catholicism, which is the true Roman Catholicism. In point of fact one catches this viewpoint in some of the arguments about bringing back the Tridentine rite, undoing Vatican Council II, etc.
Then there is the fact that MARRIED couples, too, often justifiably do not wish to conceive whenever they make love…
We, the founders of A Guardian Angel Adoptions LLC are all adoptive mothers ourselves, so we have a deep love and understanding of birth mothers, adoptive parents, and adoptive children.
Your post is looking sound….