Shiny Happy People

 

I cannot recommend this Amazon Prime documentary enough, because the reality of the IBLP and the legacy of Bill Gothard has a real impact on politics today. The "Evangelical vote" in this country is about, to some degree, this anti-science and abusive cult of kept-sweet femininity and abusive masculine authority. It's about deadening children's creativity and independence.  It's about reinforcing gender stereotypes and blaming victims for their abuse. It's about taking away the voices of the abused. 

It's about taking away scientific facts, and inserting one's own religious bias.  You know how they do. It's about wisdom books that have no wisdom in them. It's about elevating positive thinking and shutting down critical thinking. It's about denying reality and smiling when the camera is on. It's about little kids being made emissaries of their parents' religion and not being compensated. It's about Jim Bob Duggar being a stingy controlling SOB. It's about Mike Huckabee helping whitewash child abuse. 

When you look at Josh Hawley and his weird kvetching about masculinity, or the Liberty Mommies astroturf bullshit--you are seeing something that stems from this movement. They want to be the umbrella over you to prevent Satan doing his closet boogeyman stuff to your life. It's kind of really well-funded and super-sad. Because it is rooted in patriarchy and ignorance and weirdos who want to spank little kids. 

Josh Duggar and Ashley Madison--Thinking it Out

The gawking over the continued comeuppance of the Duggar clan by way of the revelations that the way in which these many children of the Quiverfull faithful aren't necessarily guaranteed to be exceptionally sexually continent, in the person of one Josh Duggar, is a little bit petty, I think.

Not because I think that the hypocrisy of the Christian Right isn't in and of itself shameful--it is.

But because I think, being a rationalist, I am not sure that we have any reason to expect someone raised in his worldview to behave better--we don't. He was raised to believe that sex outside of marriage--outside of straight, missionary, and vanilla, was a kind of damnable sin. Experiencing urges or temptations to act outside of the prescribed sexual roles, Josh Duggar figured he was damned enough and decided to roll with it. In a black and white view of morality, if you aren't simon-pure--what are you?

You're a perv. So that's the fitting role for old middle-aged before his time Josh Duggar. The first son--so if I understand the many pictures taken with so many of the GOP 2016 primary contestants, I would have to assume, the one the Duggar clan kind of thought might go into politics to spread the various odd ideas about family, homeschooling, and sexual continence...

And it turns out is exactly the example we've got for how traditional values go wrong. Because we learn a bit about how the fundamentalists find that incest is awfully common. And that for an aggrieved spouse, however humiliating the situation, leaving isn't socially permissible. So it kind of seems like an adulterous or incestuous individual can just do a smidgen of physical labor, get absolved by the powerful people in the same cult, and even hurt their family, ask for forgiveness, and be kind of okay, learning exactly nothing--especially how to regard their spouse as a human being and sexual partner who needs to be respected, consulted, and considered in all one's doings.

In Case You Were Wondering, Ted Cruz is Awful

Sen. Ted Cruz will prosecute and defund Planned Parenthood--a non-profit organization that sometimes performs abortions which are legal per Roe v. Wade and also prepares tissue for donation, which is also legal, but Cruz will prosecute them to the fullest extent of: he's really grossed out, you guys. As everyone, but let's pick Gawker, has pointed out, the polio thing, since the development of the vaccines uses fetal cells, was probably the most inapt use of a thing that involves science in a political ad ever. This is what we might call an "unforced error", but the audience Cruz was aiming for would probably be completely unimpressed by little old scientific facts. (See also--would fail like a very fail-hard thing in the general election.)

He's basically been rolling heavy lately; he visited the AFA to reassure them that voting for a theocracy will get them the theocracy that will save America from the heathen hordes. And he'll be showing up at a theocratic fucked-up family values shindig that is planning to give an award to a guy who handed off his adopted kids to a rapist.

Which just leads me to wonder--seriously Ted? Are you that worried about Mike Huckabee stealing your Christofascist kid-touching proponent voters?

Because if that's your base--maybe you should not be running for president. Cult leader, maybe. Not president.

The Problem of Cheap Grace and the Duggar Defenders

Religion as a form of moral instruction has been a regular irritation of mine. I've written about the apologists who defended the Catholic Church in the face of the claims of widespread sexual abuse of children. In my mind, religion isn't worth a straw if, instead of relieving human misery, which we have enough of as limited and mortal beings with the ability to hurt ourselves and one another, it becomes an engine of human misery, driving people to be more inclined to wronging and harming others.

The defenders of Josh Duggar seem to me to be in the same vein. When confronted with the staggeringly wrong idea that if evolution is true, then somehow molesting one's sisters is ok, it's kind of hard to accept that people "guided" by religion have any idea what morality is at all. I am a product of evolution, and I would certainly not find that my being molested would be acceptable to me--and I would therefore not find it acceptable for others to be molested. The idea of reciprocity in this manner is called "the Golden Rule". Most major spiritual moral systems came up with something very like it. I find it hard to believe that a person supposedly educated in theology is unaware of this concept.  But I can easily find that someone who just has an economic axe to grind against evolution will bullshit on the subject. Because why worry about bearing false witness when mad creationist park scrilla is on the line? Eric Hovind is a little G in his world. He figures that the Big G in the sky will have his back.

So take the screed of Michael Seewald, the father-in-law of one of Josh Duggar's sisters, for what it is in invoking "grace". 

So, what is the ultimate answer? The answer is what Josh found and millions like him. He found forgiveness and cleansing from Jesus Christ. There are many of you that are reading these words right now having had thoughts and deeds no better than what Josh had and did. You are a sinner. You are a sinner by birth and choice. It is because of that corruption that is common to all that you have violated God’s holy commandments.

And Santorum Makes...Damn, I've Lost Count

 

In the increasingly-crowded GOP field for the 2016 Presidential nomination, I'm actually sort of pleased to see former Senator Rick Santorum throw his hat in--not that I agree with a lot of what he says, mind you. It's just that, as I have pointed out before, he always provides interesting blogging material. And I think it is refreshing that he's choosing to craft an economic message for working people. This field of competitors has a lot of people who have burnished their social conservative and religious right ties--Santorum doesn't necessarily need to push that aspect of his narrative, it's just always there. It's who he is. Bringing up a discussion of economic policy, though, might bring the political conversation around to something a little less fraught and more productive than the culture war.

That said, I'm going to address something I don't want to do on this blog--the Dan Savage thing. I've written about how Santorum has a kind of "name herpes", now. But the more I think about it, the more unfair it seems. His family share his name, and there are certainly other Santorums out there, and they didn't really do anything to deserve their surname being given nasty connotations. It's not that I'm above calling out and even cursing out boneheaded POV's. I've just decided that it's unkind and hits outside the target. And as for Savage wanting to make "duggary" a thing--that's not cool. While what Josh Duggar did was wrong, and what his parents did in covering it up was terrible, nonetheless his sisters share that name. There are still little children in that house, and Josh Duggar's own babies, and however I feel about their upbringing, it is tragic and unfair for them to have their name made filth. They will have enough to carry in this life without people just being mean for the association, which they can hardly help.

I like a good debate, or even a fight for something that matters. Sometimes name-calling is satisfying. And sometimes it's just hurtful, and not really the way to make a point.