god. and his plan.

The Governor of South Dakota stood yesterday, on a pedestal of self-righteousness, and had the gall to say, when asked if rape shouldn't be a factor in allowing a woman to have an abortion, "God has a plan."

As a liberal (I know it's a four letter word--but today, I am proud to wear the label)...I spend many hours of many dinner parties defending the right of religous people to base their actions in faith. Indeed, if I had a nickel for every time I have said, "we can't judge them simply because they believe in a higher power," I would be a very wealthy woman. But today...I'm through.

I'm damn tired of the god-has-a-plan line of thinking.

I heard it after 9/11...and after a 7-year-old child was beaten to death by her parents in New York City...and again today about the rape. God has a plan for one in six women to undergo the pain and solitude and devastation that is rape? God has a plan for a child to be sexually assaulted ever 3 minutes in America? Why is that, religious zealots? Are you going to sell me some line about original sin and Eve and the apple? I'm mad as hell. and here's why.

God has a plan is the ultimate cop-out. I mean, come on. Stand up for yourselves. Take responsibility for your actions and the actions of those around you. Don't hide behind God. Read the book you all tout so loudly and passionately...I mean, isn't it right there in the beginning that God gave us, his "greatest creation" (a negotiable label after yesterday's debacle) free will? Didn't Eve eat the apple and disappoint her Creator? He certainly didn't have a plan for that. He was pissed! I mean...if he had a plan, wouldn't he have seen that one coming? Are these people just so busy brushing up on the the two and a half lines about gay marriage that they've forgotten their Genesis?

Here's the thing: when I meet him at the pearly gates, God will look me in the eye, recognize that he gave me free will to do with what I please, and he, and he alone, will judge me and my actions. My body, my life, and my choices are not yours to judge, to dictate, or to limit.

It's time, sane America...it's time for us to look down the barrel of the Christian right and tell them that we simply won't stand for religion clouding up our laws. This is no longer about economics, or education, or the war in Iraq. Instead, this is about a basic right of all women to make their own decisions about their own bodies. This is about the most base and elemental freedom any of us can imagine--the right to have our lives be our own.

if nothing else, this horrifying, terrifying, Orwellian, Atwoodian event should convince us all that the 2006 midterm elections are essential to the pro-choice movement. A Democratic congress is the first step towards blocking what, at worst, might be a full reversal of Roe v. Wade, and, at best, might make abortion an issue of States Rights--giving half the women of America no possible outlet for the procedure in their homestates.

fix your jones for justice for all by donating @ naral.org, plannedparenthood.org, moveon.org, aclu.org, or all four.

don't stop there. VOLUNTEER to help win back Congress @ the dnc website

Posted by sarah t. at 9:38 AM