When Yer Right Yer "Right", eh?

Age of Blasphemy: Right Wing Christian Terrorists Kill More People In The US than Muslim Extremists


When Yer Right Yer "Right", eh?

Puritans still minding other people's business ...

Why have we been led to believe that the Puritans came to America to escape persecution? ​They no sooner arrived in the West than they set out to reform everything they found here that was unlike them. The very word "Puritan" has become a synonym for "judgemental".

They are now known as the Christian "Right", and they are still trying to force other people into what's acceptable to them - er, God.  Islam, abortion and sexuality set their teeth on edge, but guns and the obscenity of war, not so much. The upcoming Canadian federal election is going to be fraught with the knashing of pious teeth.

CTV: Women flood social media with abortion stories in backlash over Alabama bill

• "1 in 4 women have had an abortion. Many people think they don't know someone who has, but #youknowme," Philipps tweeted to her 369,000 followers.

It's sad, the circumstances that drive good women to abortion, and I'm very glad I've never had to wrestle with that sort of decision. I did however, work as a volunteer during the 70's for an Ottawa group that helped desperate women get access to Henry Morgentaler's Montreal clinic, and I don't feel bad about that at all.  I'm not God; I don't know everything, but I do know suffering when I see it, and if there was a Jesus at all, his greatest advice was to have compassion for the sick at heart.

Morgentaler didn't perform abortions because he was murderous, sinful and evil, or because of a low regard for human life, or indeed for women. He did it because, having survived the evils of the Nazis, he felt humans should, if nothing else, be at least allowed control over their own bodies, and the right to act from their own conscience and no one else's. I'm sure the women on Twitter know, however, that their stories are interpreted by their detractors as self-centred insults to God, and there's not a hope in Hades of softening the hearts of the Christian Rightists.

"When the great figure of God appears, can the shooting be far behind?" (Mark Twain)

Yep, that's right; the Christian Right is not averse to certain other kinds of killing, and therefore does not advocate for gun control or against capital punishment.

GlobalNews: [Ontario Premier] Doug Ford says he’s in favour of gun control after Liberals release audio

• ... an audio recording of him saying, “guns don’t kill people, crazy people with guns kill people.”

Ford said that when he was running for Premier of Ontario. Now that he's well-ensconced as Premier, he changes his tune.

Politicians have to keep checking to see which side of their slice of bread is facing upward. Ford knows he's safe on the abortion issue so he doesn't need to obscure where he stands on that:

PressProgress: Doug Ford Says He’ll Roll Back These 4 Laws Protecting the Rights and Freedoms of Women 

• Ford’s lousy track record with women in general is pretty well-known ... Ford has a well-documented history of sexist and misogynistic remarks, including calling a female reporter a “little bitch.”

NationalPost: Doug Ford anointed - literally - by controversial evangelical pastor as part of effort to win social conservatives

• Pastor Paul Melnichuk of Toronto’s Prayer Palace, who was found not guilty last year of sexually assaulting members of his congregation, conducted the ceremony ...
• “Go online … register, register your family and friends, because that’s the only way we can make a change in this province,” Ford told them. “And we will make sure — I can guarantee you we’ll make sure — the church has a voice. All the time.”

Anyway, now that we know for certain that we need to be prepared to take election promises with a massive grain of salt, how should we view Conservative Andrew Scheer's recent pronouncement:

CTV: Scheer says Tories 'will not re-open' abortion issue

• Last summer a group of self-described “grassroots” members pushed for several resolutions involving abortion, euthanasia and gender identity.
• At the time, Scheer and other MPs said they weren’t worried about the apparent rifts in the party.

This being a federal election year and Scheer needing the votes of the undecided, it stands to reason he might be fibbing about not re-opening the abortion issue. Trudeau's got a lot of former supporters feeling embarrassed at how he personally has performed, so, of course, like any politician, Scheer wants to avoid offending the resulting "swing vote". Let's see what happens when the Christian Right tells him they won't vote Conservative under those circumstances.

Or has he already (wink, wink) quietly shared his real intentions with them? The guy's supposedly a devout Catholic, so it's his job, mandated by God, to punish people who have or provide abortions -- and the Rightists are certainly allowed to tell public fibs for God's sake. And even if not really for God's sake, even if deep down they know their motives are dead against Matthew 7, they learned early in life how to get around that.  In fact, that's what "Now I lay me down to sleep" is pretty much about.

The Party, under Scheer's leadership, may well not re-open the abortion issue, but what if they don't actually have to? What if Maxime Bernier and one or two of his minions are elected, and Maxime re-tables the issue, as he had earlier (2016) promised to do when running for the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada:

One of his minions could turn out to be somebody like Brad Trost, who sued his own party, the federal Conservatives, and was banned from Scheer's "Shadow Parliament". Trost is an anti-abortion, anti-gay, ever-so-Christian (let's keep Canada Christian) conservative MP, and next time he runs, under what banner might he choose to do that?

He would certainly be in his element in Maxime Bernier's "People's Party":

TorStar: Maxime Bernier’s alt-right problem

• What the country’s tiny cadre of neo-Nazis and the broader alt-right movement needed was a politician who could bridge the gap between the mainstream and the far-right fringe — someone who was an unabashed supporter of “Western values,” who would clamp down on immigration and multiculturalism. 

CBC: Tory MP Brad Trost ready to go 'all the way' in legal fight with Conservative Party

• He acknowledged that could include a series of appeals which could, in theory, wind its way through the court for years.
• Trost said he is the victim of a "deliberate smear" after the party slapped his leadership campaign with a $50,000 fine for leaking the Conservative membership list to the National Firearms Association, a gun owners rights group.

What do you think the Tories will do? (Actually, "Tories" is not the right term for these guys; the real Tories were "Progressive" Conservatives, but the relatively newly-coined (2003) Conservative Party of Canada is a hybrid -- another whole kettle of smelly fish.  Read about it; these guys will do anything they have to in order to gain - and keep - power.
 
AlJazeera: Canada's political compass is veering far right

• The Canadian political elite is walking down a Trumpian path hoping to secure electoral gains.
• Only days ago, the United Conservative Party (UCP) won a majority government in Alberta's provincial election. The party's leader, Jason Kenney - a steadfast disciple of ex-Tory Prime Minister Stephen Harper - told his giddy supporters that the oil-rich western province was "open for business". Not done recycling that pitiable trope, Kenney added another: "Friends, tonight the silent majority has spoken."

Vice: La Meute: The Illusions and Delusions of Quebec’s ‘Largest’ Right-Wing Group

• La Meute purportedly boasts a membership of more than 40,000 people and ... the organization is notoriously secretive. Its Facebook group is closed, sections of its website are "members only," and leaders are often skittish with media.

Whether or not La Meute has the influence it claims, the Quebec government itself has put forth some very right-leaning laws: Bill 62 and Bill 21.

There's more, but suffice it (I hope) to say that the Christian Right has made significant anti-abortion inroads in the US (in states which still retain the death penalty for criminal adults, and, of course, they proudly don't mind sending their own grown children to die and kill other children in wars intended to spread "democracy" in other countries -- while also taking over their oil production.

NBCNews (May 12/19): Anti-abortion bills mount as GOP-led states angle for Supreme Court fight over Roe v. Wade

• The extremity of the proposals represents a shift in strategy, one abortion rights advocate said.
• "What we're seeing is unprecedented in the sense that we've never seen this many near-total abortion bans moving through state legislatures and getting enacted" ...

Finally, here's a delightful Christian "news" site that would support any politician, anywhere, (even Trump) who would legislate control over the intimate lives of their fellow citizens. It's called a "Ministry" but it would be more aptly called a hate site. You could get a close-up indication there of the viciously judgemental mind of the Christian Right by reading the comments accompanying the news items.

This comment by "Jeanette": "Double minded people! We are keeper of our bodies, but we do not commit murder on and [sic] innocent child" is a prime example of "cognizant dissonance" or "the pot calling the kettle black". The fact is that the Christian Right has never been averse to killing innocent children they have been taught to believe are threats to their way of life.