Female editorialists on the march

Some fantastic editorials are coming from liberal feminist writers this week, who want to make damn well sure that there isn't a person in this country who isn't full well aware that BushCo wants to take away your reproductive rights. Via Feministing, Katha Pollitt spells it out for those who didn't know that Bush was talking about Roe when he said Dred Scott.

That he was thinking about Roe explains Bush's odd characterization of Dred Scott as "personal opinion," which got him tangled up when he belatedly realized that--whoops--the Constitution didn't grant "equality to all"; it permitted slavery. "Personal opinion" is what anti-choicers think Roe is. "Strict construction" means overturning it.

I've been pondering the bungling he made when he started to say that the Constitution granted equality to all and then backtracked. I'm not entirely sure why he didn't just stop himself and continue, but in fact he corrected himself, which is actually pretty rare for him to do. My personal theory is that he meant to say "humanity", which is a lie, too, but the one that the pro-lifers want to believe. "Equality" is a hot button word and that's why he corrected himself--the Constitution most definitely does not secure equality between men and women and the pro-lifers very much do not it amended so it does. If nothing else, a Constitutional right to equal treatment for women would make it way harder to pass anti-contraception and anti-abortion laws that single out women as a class whose body can be controlled but not men's. Also, the religious wingnuts that make up a huge percentage of the marching troops of anti-abortion activists who firmly believe that the Constitution is an offshoot of the Bible. A direct contradiction between the Bible (submit to your husbands) and the Constitution if the ERA passed would make their collective heads explode. (Yes, I realize the Constitution doesn't follow the Bible beginning with the 1st Amendment, but they rationalized that away for themselves a long time ago.)

Maureen Dowd is on the ball today with a furious editorial slamming the bishops who are telling their parishioners that voting for the Catholic instead of the poster child for false piety is a sin they have to confess. (I feel sorry for those normal-thinking priests who are likely to vote for Kerry themselves that will have to hear these confessions.) She's angry that they are reducing all the moral stances of the church to one single one--abortion is wrong, but apparently war is A-OK with the Lord.

Some of the bishops - the shepherds of a church whose hierarchy bungled the molestation and rape of so many young boys by tolerating it, covering it up, enabling it, excusing it and paying hush money - are still debating whether John Kerry should be allowed to receive communion.

These bishops are embryo-centric; they are not as concerned with the 1,080 kids killed in a war that the Bush administration launched with lies, or about the lives that could be lost thanks to the president's letting the assault weapons ban lapse, or about all the lives that could be saved and improved with stem cell research.

Their stance is utterly confusing from a "pro-life" point of view, especially since they know that the Shrub gets a kick out of executing criminals, or people who may be criminals but probably aren't since the forensics department of Houston was so willing to concoct evidence against them. It's puzzling indeed until you remember another big thing for a good number of the men in the Catholic hierarchy is keeping women in their place. Viewing this not from as Catholics making alliances with Christians like Bush who missed all that lamb talk in the Bible, but as men who have religious authority over women making alliances with a man who is willing to use governmental authority to keep those same women in line, it makes perfect sense.