Honestly, what is the problem with rape and Republican candidates this year? First, Rep. Todd Akin loses a lock on a Senate seat by holding forth on “legitimate rape” and how women possess some magic ability to prevent pregnancies by rapists. Now, Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (who defeated respected Senator Richard Lugar) has proclaimed with only a few weeks to go in the election that the impregnation of women in rape is part of God’s plan. What happened to the good old day when GOP candidates primarily followed a formula campaign based on lower taxes and longer criminal sentences?
Mourdock was asked in the final minutes of his debate with his opponent Joe Donnelly about abortions in cases of rape and proclaimed that when a woman is impregnated during a rape, it is all part of God’s plan — a type of divine family plan via sexual assault. Mourdock proclaimed: “I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that’s something God intended to happen.”
Donnelly promptly after the debate took the position that such pregnancies through rape are not part of what “my God, or any God, would intend that to happen.” Mourdock soon realized that he had pulled an Akin and may have aborted his campaign. He clarified that he did not believe God intended the rape: “Are you trying to suggest somehow that God preordained rape, no I don’t think that. Anyone who would suggest that is just sick and twisted. No, that’s not even close to what I said.” Really? Here is what you said: “I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that’s something God intended to happen.” Sounds a lot like God intended the rape victim to get pregnant. The best that Mourdock could claim is that God did not intend for the rape to occur, but, once it did, decided that it was important for the woman to become pregnant by her rapist.
I am also unclear on why God preordains the pregnancy but not the rape that caused it. This is often a matter of theological debate when people insist that prayer caused God to spare their lives in a tornado but that he decided not to spare the lives of their neighbors or their own home from the tornado. It is the tension that arises from a view that God controls all events as part of a divine plan as opposed to a divine plan that allows free will and/or fate to govern events.
Pat Robertson recently insisted that God does not send tornados but that victims would still have been spared if they prayed more:
However, Robertson does believe that God at times sends natural disasters to punish us as with Hurricane Katrina. That may reflect the more nuanced view of Mourdock that God may not have sent the rapist but did want you to become pregnant by your rapist. The question is whether, if God micromanages such events, did he intend GOP Senatorial campaigns to implode across the country?
Source: Big Story
bettykath,
Well said. If Romney/Ryan get their way, only wealthy women will have access to contraception or abortions.
Bron, You might want to take a look at some results rather than the rhetoric. The Republicans talk about smaller government, but the government has grown more under R than D. The Republicans talk about the deficit, but the deficit grows a great deal more under the R than the D. Under the issues of smaller government, reducing the deficit, and less regulations, it is the R that want to regulate medicare from the legislature rather than the doctor’s office and they want to spend way more on the military and make more wars. They are completely irresponsible.
In a similar vein, the war on women is all about power over and control of women. Since the introduction of the pill, legal (safe) abortion, and the women’s movement of the 70s, women have been taking more control over their own destinies. They are demanding equity in the work place, in the home, and in society. And can you believe it, they even want to be in Congress in numbers that reflect their numbers in the population. They actually expect their partners to carry a full share of the child care and the home care. The nerve!
This is a bitter pill for men who have been listening to preachers tell them that they are the rulers, the ones in charge. They are the ones the women are to bow to as the authority. The barefoot and pregnant attitudes are still out there, alive and well. (I heard it from a pastor’s wife last week.) This is the attitude that is espoused by the Republican neanderthals. The war on women is real. It’s purpose is put all women back in their homes taking care of the men. The only women who are to be out and about are those who serve them in the workplace getting their coffee and whatever. They want to return to the 50’s.
Been there, done that, let’s move on to the 21st century.
Romney is still standing by Mourdock. He picked a vp with the same extreme views.
Mourdock Refuses To Apologize For Claiming Rape Pregnancies Are A ‘Gift From God’
By Igor Volsky on Oct 24, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/election/2012/10/24/1081421/mourdock-refuses-to-apologize-for-claim-that-rape-pregnancies-are-a-gift-from-god/
Excerpt:
U.S. Senate candidate Richard Mourdock (R-IN) refused to apologize for suggesting that pregnancies that result from rapes are a “gift from God,” during a press conference on Wednesday morning. Instead, he doubled down, claiming that while God would not condone rape, life that results from the violent act is a gift: “Life is precious, I believe it is a gift from God, I believe that God would never want anyone harmed, sexually abused, raped.”
Gene H, you said, ” I really feel sorry for moderate and centrist conservatives.”
I don’t. Where have they been all these years when they should have been keeping the lunatic fringe from taking over? They’ve been out making money off not only the lunatic fringe but the rest of the country; they do not care what has happened to the Republican Party. Perhaps a tiny percentage do, and feel sorry for them if you want to, but my sympathy is in short supply and I’ll spend it on the VICTIMS of the wacko larcenous lying thieving misogynist monsters “taking over the world,” not a few of their quiet little timid possibly less ignorant and perhaps less stupid colleagues who wished they wouldn’t be so VOCAL about their reprehensible, shameless, fascist beliefs. 🙁 ❗
707, I was never in doubt.
A small notice to correct what might be a great misunderstanding as to my position on women and sex.
I have at times spoken with, in your ears, undue emphasis on the fabled sexual freedom of Swedish women. And even claimed tbat in my opinion that it is not unique to Sweden, but earthwide.
I have meant full respect to women in these matters.
However, the article “Ending Rape Illiteracy” posted by ElaineM, points out (American?) attitudes which could give another tone to my cooments than those I inteded.
A woman’s consent, up to and including the intercourse in no way grants me any future privileges.
Nor does it demean her in my eyes. Never.
My simple recogniition, made many decades ago, was that women are people, equal in all rights to men. Given that, all else falls easily to hand in dealing with them.
And to those who can’t accept them as equals, they have my full disdain and opposition.
Just so you know where I stand.
Bob Kauten:
I think you might have it right.
This is Small Government, a la Republicans.
Small Government, no regulations, for Corporations and the Royalty.
Big, intrusive Government, in league with Religion, for the serfs.
these crazy mother truckers.
why cant they just leave morality to the conscience of the individual.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-34222_162-57539436/romney-campaign-stands-by-mourdock/
Great Charlie Pierce article, Elaine. The scary part is Mourdock has a lot of company!
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/28/platform-abortion_n_1837571.html Banning all abortions is in the party platform.
The Trouble with Richard Mourdock Is Not His Alone
By Charles P. Pierce
10/24/12
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/richard-mourdock-rape-comments-14056616
By now, the attempts by Republican senatorial candidate Richard Mourdock to read the mind of the Whoever on the topic of rape have gone around the world twice before common sense and common decency have gotten their boots on.
“I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God… And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
God works in mysterious ways and, apparently, one of them is Japanese bondage porn.
There are two reactions that I do not want to hear. The first is that, no matter what we think of what Mourdock said, we should just congratulate him for being “honest” — or, second, and worse, “principled.” I do not want to hear either of those unless they are accompanied by a statement that Mourdock’s idiocy is close to the mainstream of Republican thinking on the subject of abortion, which it is. (It is precisely the position maintained in the Republican platform, which did away with the exception for rape and incest with much fanfare down in Tampa.) Which leads us to the second thing I don’t want to hear.
Willard Romney’s “distancing” himself from his previous endorsement of Mourdock.
In a statement released Tuesday night, Romney spokesperson Andrea Saul said Mourdock’s remarks were not in line with Romney’s views. “Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock’s comments, and they do not reflect his views,” Saul said.
Mourdock didn’t come to these views over the weekend. He held them when he announced. He held them when he beat Richard Lugar in the Republican primary. He held them when he was up in the polls over Joe Donnelly. And he held them before, during, and after Romney endorsed him. And the way I know this is that, a) Romney has yet to unendorse him and that, b) the Republican senate campaign hierarchy is still behind Mourdock and what he believes.
Mourdock did receive support Wednesday morning from a key Republican leader — Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “In fact, rather than condemning him for his position, as some in his party have when it’s come to Republicans, I commend Congressman Donnelly for his support of life,'” Cornyn said.
Tell me again that I don’t have to worry about Romney’s having two or three Supreme Court appointments to make, or about a Senate full of Richard Mourdocks passing judgment on them.
The best thing about Cthulhu for President is your only outstanding question is who will get eaten first.
Don’t blame God for doing something foolish. That understandable. The rest of it isn’t.
I urge all candidates to stop the divisive rhetoric and to adopt the compromise position that all women rapists should receive free abortions. It’s the only win-win solution, and it’s already covered by Obamneycare.
Elaine,
How about a silver cross, or a stake through the heart or exposure to light….
that is so funny!
did you know that the churches preach that GOD is a republican and all republicans claim different churches and deny MY existence. yet the different churches say that a PROPHET WILL COME, AND SEND IN HIS HAIR TO THE PROPER AUTHORITIES FOR DNA TESTING. (you all have been told JESUS is MY SON)
THE BIBLE says that GOD KNOWS. HE gave you free will. like the bears in the woods, or a gators in the bayou. they have free will also. if they are hungry you are going to die, or give you a good story to tell if you get home. so stay out of the woods, and bayous, or in this case church. the churches are the antichrist. they are forcing their mark upon you. a just GOD said in THE BIBLE that you are loved and WE don’t care if you choose to go to hell, and you get to make the choice. billy graham will go to hell along with his every child ever born.
you were given a SOUL at birth not conception. the politicians deny this was said.
JESUS talked about born again. the apostles screwed this up and man kept the wrong things in history hence GOD will tell in person and with HIS OWN mouth. THE BIBLE says that one man will be the king, and the mountains and people will bow down to HIM.
I said on other websites not to vote republican because I am not a republican like the religious television shows tell you. and that the television stations and religious radio stations are forcing themselves upon the world and denying GOD like THE BIBLE said they would. are they trying to find a middle ground from GOD when it is written you go to purgatory or hell.
the cops, and courts in every religion in the world therefor speak against GOD and the world will give you the wrong laws.
THE BIBLE said that the christian theologians were supposed to hang them selves to show their faith in GOD for a reason when JESUS came again, and that you will not know HIM (JESUS) when HE comes again.
and darwin was a brilliant man. look what you learned about evolution. I don’t recommend putting a t-rex on any spaceship and flying its dna across the universe but your primordial soup is the same as t-rexs even after the asteroid almost made everything extinct. GOD made everything from nothing means that you don’t go out and build a spaceship and load it with gators and bears and take off and not tell your parents what your doing in the backyard. at the same time you have to give your children some good incentives to be creative so they develop the free will to learn and explore, and not tell their parents.
parents guide children even if the parents are misguided. there are to many false masters about religions teaching they know GOD and saying such lies to parents from the clerics, and the governments condone it.
I told the u.s. congress to go home and listen. the congress said they know more about GOD from their clerics, just like every religion.
just so you know MY SON was born in the same town that l.z. granderson seems to live.
if they tell you life begins at conception that would be wrong. life should have began in different bodies over 65 million years ago as sperm and eggs that are wasted every day. wouldn’t you like to see any president answer this one.”GOD said that abortion will be legal every where”.
just look to the Georgia Guide Stones. you were told WHO put them up.
God personally directs every gasoline explosion. He’s just that good. What a guy!