NYT: Violence Against Women Act divides Senate – politics – The New York Times – msnbc.com

NYT: Violence Against Women Act divides Senate – politics – The New York Times – msnbc.com.

Really?! Again?! I’m finding this less and less funny as the weeks go on. This legislation would extend the existing “Violence Against Women Act” which began as bi-partisan legislation in 1994, and expand it to include new programs for underserved populations including rural areas (like where I live) and Native American tribes (where violence prevention education is SORELY needed). The sticking points seem to be the inclusion of same-sex couples in the definition of domestic violence (because a man or woman could never beat up their same-sex partner…) and the allowance for battered illegal immigrants to claim temporary visas. Really? That’s the issue? So, “Conservatives” (and I put that in quotation marks as a signal for irony because I hate those blanket words and because I find it very difficult to believe that Phyllis Schlafly speaks for all who claim a conservative stance) don’t like gay people and illegal immigrants. I think that has been well-established through other bills and repeated shouts for a return to “family values”. (Notice that was in quotes too.)

I’m calling bull-sh!t on this. On what planet does it make sense NOT to give sanctuary to an immigrant, legal or illegal, who has been beaten on our soil? Does the bill say that they will automatically be given citizenship? If so, I sort of see the problem. We wouldn’t want people committing “anchor beatings”, now would we?! But, odds are, if someone who is an illegal immigrant was a victim of domestic violence so heinous that they would seek medical attention or police intervention at the risk of their status being discovered, they probably need it!

As far as “the gays” go (there are those pesky quotes again), regardless of one’s personal views on homosexuality, gay people are people who deserve the same protection as any other person. So basically, by excluding same-sex relationships from domestic violence coverage, the government (state or federal) is saying “We don’t really care if you get beaten up by your gay lover, we only care about victims of brutality when they are in normal, heterosexual violent relationships.”

When will “Conservatives” begin to understand that people are people and that being inclusive is a POSITIVE thing? How does being inclusive “dilute” the focus on domestic violence? How does protecting women from domestic violence in any way vilify “all men” and make “all women” victims? (Thanks for that, Janice Shaw Crouse. She supposedly speaks for “Concerned Women for America”. She definitely doesn’t speak for me.) How does being inclusive and protecting women “promote divorce, breakup of marriage and hatred of men”? (We have Phyllis Schlafly to thank for that. I’m sorry, Phyllis, if a woman is beaten by her husband, I think she has every right to divorce him and hate him. Of course, Phyllis doesn’t think that marital rape exists, so there’s that.) I’ve never been a victim, thank God. But the fact of the matter is, many women have been and will be. In political and economic climates like the current one, domestic violence tends to increase in frequency. Men’s power structures are being threatened, and that is often met with violence and frankly, stupidity (did you hear what Rush Limbaugh said a couple of weeks ago?!).

It really bothers me that many of the more outspoken opponents to bills like this work for organizations that have the word “Christian” or “Women” in the title. I am both, and I find this blatant attack (and believe me I don’t use that word lightly) on women’s health, rights, and well-being disgusting. If there were parts of this, or any bill that genuinely included earmarks for things that were unrelated (i.e., if you sign this you are also legalizing gay marriage), I would better understand the reticence of Republican hold-outs. But, I think if that were the case, they would shout that from the rooftops. Many Congresspeople on both sides of the aisle don’t seem to have a problem with sneaking earmarks into bills all the time, so what is it about the current Congress that is so damn stubborn and unwilling to yeild?! Apparently the Congress of 18 years ago could work together enough to pass progressive legislation protecting women from domestic violence, and they have since re-upped. Why now is this such an issue? Why is the expansion of coverage to underserved groups met with such hostility? Expanded government? Not really…the coverage group is expanded, not the government.

Come on, Republicans, wake up and grow up. This is an issue of human rights and a chance for the US to stand up to institutionalized oppression and patriarchal power structures. A chance for the US to protect the weak, no matter their sexual orientation, citizenship status, or regional residence. I know we can do it. If we are the “greatest country in the world,” let’s act like it.

Congressional Birth Control Hearing Involves Exactly Zero People Who Have a Uterus

Congressional Birth Control Hearing Involves Exactly Zero People Who Have a Uterus.

Disclaimer: There are a couple of dirty words in the linked article. If you are sensitive to that sort of thing, don’t read it. Also, the author of the linked article makes a few gross generalizations about Christians. Just FYI.

Not that this development is particularly surprising, but it seems like after 50 years of debating the safety, effectiveness, and availability of birth control, women would finally be allowed in on the conversation. If the roles were reversed and women were debating the virtues and accessibility of vasectomy or erectile dysfunction treatment, you better believe men in Congress would say, “Um…excuse me! Why are a bunch of women talking about what should happen to our penises?!”

I find this whole debate frustrating. If a church doesn’t want to pay for their employees’ birth control, whatever, but how anyone else’s access to birth control at all affects religious freedom is beyond me! I am a proud Christian. I might even call myself religious. I have used birth control in the past. I don’t honestly think that is my “religious leader’s” business. I belong to a church that doesn’t attempt to butt into my reproductive life, and I’m proud of that fact too.

Essentially what people who are so adamantly against birth control fail to realize is that if you’re going to attempt to make abortion illegal, birth control harder to get and more expensive, welfare more difficult to obtain and keep, and continue to cut state budgets for subsidized healthcare programs for children, this country will have even more unwanted, unloved, sick, malnourished, and damaged children than we already do. I’m sorry to tell members of Congress, but people are not going to stop having sex. Sex makes babies, and babies don’t feed, clothe, and care for themselves.

“Oh, but there are so many people who can’t have babies that would LOVE these babies so much!” That’s true, but have you heard how much a domestic adoption costs these days?! It’s absolutely insane! It is literally cheaper to fly across oceans to retrieve the unwanted from other countries and bring them back than it is to adopt domestically in most cases. Plus, the incidence of minority children being adopted is so low that many stay in the foster system for their entire childhood and adolescence. And of course, with a shortage of foster parents, how well does that work out for many of the kids? So, knowing these things, many low-income families keep kids they “can’t afford” rather than see them turned over to the state. So, wouldn’t it be easier for all involved if birth control were more accessible and less expensive?

The bottom-line for me is that, as a Christian, I resent the fact that these men are assumed to speak for me. They do NOT speak for me. If a little pill, shot, implant, IUD, or ring is all that stands between a woman finishing college or her dropping out because she can’t afford to go and support her baby, or between a woman having piece of mind or having to make a gut-wrenching decision about abortion, or between no baby and one that is viewed as a burden to its family then I think the debate should be moot. These men do not speak for “Christians”. They may speak for LOUD Christians or the “Christian Right” (whatever that is), but they do not speak for me.