Staff Writer, DL Mullan
Women's Rights / Religion________________________________
The alternative right and conservative media proclaim a return to the ideals of 1776, but that group has hidden their extreme views to get their candidate elected. Articles and radio shows from the right have characterized their point of view as the Renaissance for all. Comparisons of their religion versus other religions has been used to highlight the right's commitment to freedom and rights for all.
It has all been a lie.
When the alternative right and conservatives' control of the United States Congress and Presidency happened, their behavior changed. Now shows are full of making fun of and demeaning women as well as using their religious ideology to pass laws condemning women and eliminating their health choices.
In reality, the Religious Right is no better than the other patriarchal religions on Earth. Man made deities and dogma seek to undermine society through manipulation of girls, young women, and adult women. That leaves the quality of women's lives below being subpar.
That was more apparent when President Donald Trump signed an executive order gagging healthcare providers across the world from mentioning the word: abortion. In extreme poverty, there is extreme sexual violence. Unintended pregnancies are forced upon women and their only recourse is to terminate the pregnancy. Now with the burden of reality even heavier than before, women will have to resort to other means, which will end up killing women and children alike.
Children will be abandoned at orphanages. Some children will be left to die because their mother cannot take care of them. Others will be neglected and abused.
Instead of ending suffering, the Religious Rights' interference in basic reproductive medical needs will now lead to a growing humanitarian crisis. To the pro-birth agenda, a child born is a success no matter the pain that will afflict that life. Hunger, war, and rape are acceptable to the patriarchy since that experience is a woman's concern.
This negative attitude toward other people's belief systems is reminiscent of a bygone era, though not of the Renaissance, but of a darker time ruled by the unfeeling, uncaring vision of the patriarchy.
It was 1478. The year the Spanish Inquisition began. This religious witch hunt led to even more egregious historical events.
Who can forget the religious purity movement of the Reconquista in the 15th Century? With the alternative right and conservative agenda to purify America of women's rights, liberation, and equity, has the American electorate ushered in another age of submission by torture?
At first, the Spanish Inquisition sought to convert or expel Spanish Jews. Then the state set its sights on ridding their land of Muslims.
At Torquemada’s urging, Ferdinand and Isabella issued an edict on March 31, 1492, giving Spanish Jews the choice of exile or baptism; as a result, more than 160,000 Jews were expelled from Spain. Francisco, Cardinal Jiménez de Cisneros, promoted the suppression of Muslims with the same zeal that Torquemada had directed at Jews. In 1502 he ordered the proscription of Islam in Granada, the last of the Muslim kingdoms in Spain to fall to the Reconquista. The persecution of Muslims accelerated in 1507 when Jiménez was named grand inquisitor. Muslims in Valencia and Aragon were subjected to forced conversion in 1526, and Islam was subsequently banned in Spain. The Inquisition then devoted its attention to the Moriscos, Spanish Muslims who had previously accepted baptism. Expressions of Morisco culture were forbidden by Philip II in 1566, and within three years, persecution by the Inquisition gave way to open warfare between the Moriscos and the Spanish crown. The Moriscos were driven from Granada in 1571, and by 1614 some 300,000 had been expelled from Spain entirely.
As the state's uncontrollable hunger for religious justice continued more and more ideologies were attacked:
When the Reformation began to penetrate into Spain, the relatively few Spanish Protestants were eliminated by the Inquisition. Foreigners suspected of promoting Protestant faiths within Spain met similarly violent ends. Having largely purged the country of Jews and Muslims—as well as many former members of those faiths who had converted to Christianity—the Spanish Inquisition turned its attention to prominent Roman Catholics. Saint Ignatius of Loyola was twice arrested on suspicion of heresy, and the archbishop of Toledo, the Dominican Bartolomé de Carranza, was imprisoned for almost 17 years. Nominally Christian groups that diverged from the Inquisition’s orthodoxy, such as the followers of the mystical Alumbrado movement and adherents of Erasmianism (a spiritualized Christian belief system influenced by the teachings of humanistDesiderius Erasmus), were subjected to intense persecution throughout the 16th and into the 17th century.
This religious intolerance spread across into Christian nations like a wave of fear and hatred. This fervor led to the infamous Salem Witch Trials, that arrested 200 and killed 20. The religious justice happened all in the name of religion. It happened all in the name of GOD.
Except in the United States of America, our founding principles are not Christian based. Nowhere in our Constitution or Bill of Rights claim any Christian values, morality, or ethics. Yet year after year, Christians have demanded the Ten Commandments be placed in the People's court houses, their religion be given national holidays, and the Nativity scene honored on public lands.
If you question the religious favoritism, then the Religious Right screams: the War on Christmas!!!
All the while, the Evangelist preachers and celebrities try more manipulations to make America a One God, One Religion nation, but those individuals lie for profit and power.
So how can the Religious Right claim superiority over other Abrahamic practices with their dubious track record of deceit and tantrums? America is not for one ideology. What cannot be argued is what our founders outlined for this nation:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
The First Amendment of the Bill of Rights is clear: there can be no establishment of religion, but the Evangelicals try and try. The Religious Right elect their selected politicians in hopes of changing our Constitution to establish their very own theocracy.
However the Religious Right's Era of Evangelical Inquisition has met with the ire of the People. Namely, women have risen to meet history to derail the plan to overthrow our government. Protests commenced around the world. The largest was the Women's March on Washington.
The seed of equity was planted, no matter by whom, and women are taking responsibility for their government in ways the Religious Right has never taken responsibility for destroying our economy, finances, soldier's lives, or welfare of its citizens.
But women face an uphill battle as alternative media celebrities dismiss women and their concerns as that time of the month or just needing a daddy. When verbal tirades from talk show hosts and article writers depict real life issues as the old-standby hysteria (a woman's uterus problem: hysterectomy) excuse, that disingenuous mockery shows the true nature of the patriarchy: contempt.
However the Religious Right's Era of Evangelical Inquisition has met with the ire of the People. Namely, women have risen to meet history to derail the plan to overthrow our government. Protests commenced around the world. The largest was the Women's March on Washington.
The seed of equity was planted, no matter by whom, and women are taking responsibility for their government in ways the Religious Right has never taken responsibility for destroying our economy, finances, soldier's lives, or welfare of its citizens.
But women face an uphill battle as alternative media celebrities dismiss women and their concerns as that time of the month or just needing a daddy. When verbal tirades from talk show hosts and article writers depict real life issues as the old-standby hysteria (a woman's uterus problem: hysterectomy) excuse, that disingenuous mockery shows the true nature of the patriarchy: contempt.
As one alternative radio show host ended his broadcast yesterday to the effect that Soros brainwashes women who do not have a man. Most women have never met George Soros. The marches are not about George Soros but a failing patriarchy that yells about women needing a daddy like the state to live off but then the same men jump in exuberance that "Daddy's Home" when President Trump was elected.
Smell the transference? It's the extreme far right who needs a male role model to lead as an alpha male because the rest are incapable of being mature. The rest of us expect honor, honesty, and equity out of our government as any adult should. We don't need a daddy. We certainly do not need the patriarchal inquisition.
As women in America brace for the next wave of religious extremism to wash over the halls of political power, only time will tell how far and how unethical the Religious Right will be in condemning women into sexual slavery like that of the 1940's. Whatever the religious zealots have planned, women will bide their time to reclaim their rights.
Smell the transference? It's the extreme far right who needs a male role model to lead as an alpha male because the rest are incapable of being mature. The rest of us expect honor, honesty, and equity out of our government as any adult should. We don't need a daddy. We certainly do not need the patriarchal inquisition.
As women in America brace for the next wave of religious extremism to wash over the halls of political power, only time will tell how far and how unethical the Religious Right will be in condemning women into sexual slavery like that of the 1940's. Whatever the religious zealots have planned, women will bide their time to reclaim their rights.
Religion like other
communitarianist regimes always place privileges on others for social control.
That leads to groups to form against such hypocrisy. The Woman's March will be
the next Tea Party, except to strip power away from the religious elite and
back into the hands of the meek, the women... the People.
Religion was never supposed to
rule in America.
As Thomas Paine wrote:
“All religions are in their nature kind and benign, and united with principles of morality. They could not have made proselytes at first by professing anything that was vicious, cruel, persecuting, or immoral. Like everything else they had their beginning; and they proceeded by persuasion, exhortation, and example. How is it then that they lose their native mildness, and become morose and intolerant? . By engendering the Church with the State, a sort of mule-animal, capable only of destroying, and not of breeding up, is produced, called The Church established by Law.”( Rights of Man, pg. 16
Source: Britannica, FindLaw, Thomas Paine,
