In a recent Blog I said that “the crazy” has taken over the Republican Party because of political evangelicals.
Don’t believe me? Think about this.
Currently 31 states allow rapists to sue for custody and visitation rights.
I know that sounds unbelievable so let me say it again. Thirty-one (31) states allow rapists to sue for custody and visitation rights. Other states have variations of laws that give rights to rapists in one form or another.
What is more, Republicans have no qualms about blocking attempts to change these laws. Look no further than Ohio for an example.
But it gets worse. The Republican controlled Congress led by Congressman Paul Ryan is trying to go a step further. It wants to pass a law that permits rapists to sue to force their victims to carry a pregnancy to term. That would mean rapists would be able to force their victims to have the baby and then have visitation rights.
This kind of thinking is not only insane, it is obscene.
What accounts for it? It’s all about evangelical abortion politics.
Evangelicals want to block women from terminating a pregnancy under any circumstances, thus, these absurd laws that give rapists rights that trump the rights of their victims.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that abortion is a perfect example of how evangelicals have gone off the deep end and taken the Republican Party with them.
The good thing is that most Americans reject their extremism. While most people don’t believe in abortion, they do support the Supreme Court decision that affirms a women’s right to choose. If they support abortion laws at all they want them to provide a balance between these dual commitments.
Unfortunately Republicans catering to their evangelical base don’t care what most Americans think, so state by state they have passed abortion laws that are the extreme of extremes, often contradicting the best of medical advice and practice, making a mockery of their supposed respect for women’s health.
Religious extremism has always existed, of course, but in years past it was confined to sects few people paid attention to. Today that extremism has become mainstream via the Republican Party.
This unholy alliance has become dangerous to religion in general and Christianity in particular, and also to American democracy.
So I wonder out loud again. Why would any reasonable, sensible, logical, moral person vote for politicians who represent the worst of both religion and politics in America today?
linnposts.com 
The intersection of evangelicals and political ideology is a very dark place. Unfortunately it’s well populated.
Sadly, I suspect that those who vote for them also represent the worst of politics and religion in America! My worst nightmare is that these people are informed voters who know exactly what they are doing. God help us!
Jan,
Thank you for exposing this madness. There are few words that I can use in a public forum that truly express how I feel about those who would initiate, support or defend such laws — and the intrusion into women’s lives that they represent!
I have struggled with trying to find a logical, rational answer to your question for quite some time now. I think the answer has two parts: 1) They won’t, and 2) Those who vote for the politicians who espouse it are None of the Above.
Jan,
In answer to your question, I constrain myself to be civil and not profane, though leaning toward Mark Twain’s invocation that profanity provides a release denied even to prayer (loose paraphrase), I can only proclaim that Kafka and the other absurdists were right a half century ago, life is absurd. Ideology so scambles the mind that people of that ilk give up the ability to think, to reason, to understand to the charismatic truth-teller on the nearest corner.
I says these things not with pleasure, but with great sadness because of the grave danger this movement poses to what is to me the most sacred idea of history, I.e. The grand, though cautious IDEA brought forth by the wise Founders of the Democracy of the United States.
Cheerz!
From my side of the pond, it looks as if this drive to prevent women from terminating any unwanted pregnancies is going the same way as the drive to ban alchohol a century ago.
I can’t but wonder what provision the people who draw up these laws would make, in the case of a daughter or of a female secretary going astray…