Kingdom Coming -- THIS is where Yarbrough, Farnsworth, Kavanagh and Mike Huckabee are coming from

We should thank former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for his candid comments today,

"Our party stands for the recognition of the equality of women and the capacity of women," Huckabee told his audience at the Republican National Committee's winter meeting in downtown Washington. "That's not a war on them. It's a war for them. And if the Democrats want to insult the women of America by making them believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control, because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government, then so be it." (emphasis mine)

BAM! Who exactly is saying they MUST control their libido? Has Huckabee ever heard of self-determination? That IS what FREEDOM is about, isn't it?

Isn't Huckabee's logic sort of twisted and perverse? Demonizing those who honor and promote each woman's (and each person's) right to self-determination seems awfully perverse to me.

Huckabee gave voice to the SAME stealth political ideology behind the aggressive, decades long attacks on the rights of American women to make their own health care decisions, and to have a full range of health care services to support those decisions. That line of political thought is deeply embedded in Arizona's Republican dominated legislature. In 2013, Christian Dominionism brought us the 20-week abortion limit that was struck down in federal court as unconstitutional.

Now the 2014 legislative session has already seen attempts to fast track institutionalizing more twisted logic, just like Huckabee's, with Yarbrough's SB1062 and Eddie Farnsworth's HB2153.

Then there's HB2481, Steve Montenegro's declaring "Government may not require a minister to solemnize a marriage that is inconsistent with the minister's sincerely held religious beliefs." This is the bill that Montini and Ruelas, before the bill was even filed, recorded that brief video dismissing the legislation as unnecessary and introduced solely to appease a fringe group of constituents.
 
Well, journalist and author Michelle Goldberg (Kingdom Coming: The Rise of Christian Nationalism) in an interview with NPR's Terry Gross from 2006 observed,

... people on the coasts aren't aware that it [the Christian Nationalist, or Dominionist movement] exists. I often feel that people in New York, where I live, or San Francisco or any of the big cities, feel like it's just this tiny fringe subculture, when in many cases, it's more mainstream than we are.

The Left Behind books are the best selling books of fiction in America and yet secular people on the coasts, unless they are connected to the publishing industry have usually not heard of them and almost certainly not read them. I don't know that anyone, except for people who grew up in that subculture and then left or who has ever been inside of a megachurch. Yet these are an increasingly important part of the American [political] landscape.

Part of it is because the cultural division in this country has become so profound and because there is such a separation in terms of the media we consume that we can kind of be completely oblivious to what is the reality for so many other Americans.

The bottom line to the crAZy religion oriented legislation we've seen in the first 10 days of the legislative session is well beneath the surface. It is NOT just a competition of political memes. It is NOT simply people who value the life of fetuses but lack compassion for the child once it takes its first breath.

It is NOT just about Cathi Herrod pushing her brand of religion. This is about the entire foundation of American society, and by extension Arizona. It is not about Grover Norquist wanting to cause government atrophy such that it can be drowned in a bathtub.

This is about a genuine culture war. They do NOT stand for FREEDOM. They stand for IMPOSING their version of morality on YOU.

Do you want to be governed by people who do not respect the sanctity of YOUR free will to choose your own morality as long as you don't infringe on the rights of others?

Well, those people are working vigorously to expand what "infringe on the rights of others" means. And when they do, YOUR right to live according to the dictates of YOUR own decisions about faith and morality WILL be diminished.

-----

By the way, it's one thing to have personal values that honor the sanctity of life. Nobody, not even Pro-Choice Democrats and Republicans are "pro-abortion." Yet, not two weeks ago, a commenter on Huffington Post stalked me with comments rife with the twisted logic that considers the honoring of rights of American women to self-determination in health decisions to equate to murder.

But it's another thing altogether, likely done with an immense measure of naiveté by Lupe Contreras and Lydia Hernandez, to align themselves with Arizona's most prominent Dominionist, Cathi Herrod. Herrod appears to have captured the two Arizona Democratic lawmakers and snookered them into signing one of her pledges.

Lupe and Lydia, we are going to need you to stand with Arizonans for true freedom and self-determination. The only way we will succeed in minimizing abortions in our state is by broadening access to birth control AND addressing the fundamental economic issues that have caused massive income inequality.