Editor’s note: Walt Amses is a special educator who lives in North Calais.
With half the world in flames and much of the other half hungry, thirsty or going broke, the national dialogue in the United States, in the midst of a presidential primary, has turned to … Satan. In a campaign unified against marriage equality but blissfully wedded to an absurd hostility toward heterosexual women, the Republican candidates have tethered themselves to the 1950s.
Initially it was the Catholic bishops, swaddled in ornate drapery, wheezing and angry from the tips of their velvet slippers to the Cognac-ruptured capillaries of their dangling jowls. These pillars of the community, complacent for a half century of child abuse, are suddenly outraged at women’s access to birth control.
Next, patriarchy of the GOP, disillusioned by the improving economy – despite their best efforts – and presidential aspirations circling the drain with their delusional candidates, decided limiting access to birth control would resuscitate their fortunes. The seductive and familiar territory of the culture wars beckoned.
Perpetuating the myth that imposing an archaic brand of sexuality would protect “religious liberty,” omits one simple thing: that train left the station almost half a century ago and the last time anyone checked, 98 percent of Catholic women were on board. When the Supreme Court ruled against “Griswold v. Connecticut” in 1965, laws against contraception were invalidated.
Moderate Republicans, fast becoming an oxymoron as Olympia Snow of Maine announced she would not seek re-election, had been hoping their party would come to its senses. They must be disappointed at the bizarre, frequently hilarious, spectacle of the Chris-Christie-round, cotton-candy-pink bishops, dishing on sexuality; or the congressmen, in hastily convened, males-only panels grimly discussing women’s issues.
A young Georgetown law student whose testimony was barred from the congressional hearings was vilified as a “slut” by GOP majordomo Rush Limbaugh while Rick Santorum backer Foster Friess’ suggested women used aspirin instead of birth control pills, holding the tablets “between their knees.”
Never satisfied remaining on the periphery of ignorance, Santorum jumped right in with jaw-dropping gems: John Kennedy’s 1960 speech on the separation of church and state made him “want to throw up”; his response to President Obama’s encouragement toward higher education was “What a snob”; and he believes defense of heterosexual marriage is “the ultimate homeland security.”
The queasy irony about the GOP’s version of “religious liberty” is that it generally stops dead at the entrance to a mosque or synagogue. Santorum believes profiling Muslims is perfectly fine because they’re “the folks most likely to be committing these crimes.” His chief opponent, Mitt Romney, belongs to a religion that makes a practice of baptizing Jews exterminated in the Holocaust, magically turning them into Mormons.
But this isn’t really about religious freedom at all and never has been. It’s about sexual freedom. Particularly with the far right fringe that has hijacked the Republican Party, coupling sexuality with freedom is a bigger threat to the country than North Korea, Iran and Lady Gaga combined.
Christian soldier candidates, cosseted in battle-ready acrylic sweater-vests or middle-aged prescription jeans, weirdly fixated on the sex lives of others, will not be turning back the clock. An election strategy based on the insecurity of evangelical males, only illustrates how far the GOP alternate reality has gotten from everyone else.
