ubercat wrote:
I'm pretty sure you just adopted my argument against me. The reason why evangelicals voted in high numbers is because they are towing the 'religious party' line. These are mostly people in fear of being left out of salvation and afraid of being ostracized in the real world.

Small towns in the US are populated primarily by evangelicals and people who claim they're evangelicals so they don't have to swim upsteam (in life). Many of the 'fake' evangelicals are exploiting the close knit nature of small local churches, so they vote accordingly.

In terms of the neatest part of it, I don't disagree at all. But there are two big elements that you don't take into account and McCain doesn't appeal to.

Firstly the fact that most of the liberal-voting religious consider themselves part of a community of faiths rather than fundamentalists. Even though they might seem like fundamentalists compared to Johnny Messageboard Punkrocker, they might consider themselves to be a particular diverse lentil in the boiling pot.

And also the "spiral", it is impossible to measure the impact of single issue voters on turn outs because polling is completely garbled by the marked different between what people actually turn out to vote for and what they would like to be seen to be supporting. Abortion is historically at the heart of this problem in the UK, and there is no reason to think that it isn't a bigger inaccuracy in the USA. It seems very safe to assume single issue voters gave Bush the presidency, but we will never know for sure. In religious communities and isolated areas the "spiral of silence" is so much stronger, because people are keen to keep up appearances on issues that totally do not affect them. Elderly male voters weighing on abortion are less likely to vote the way that they poll for obvious reasons, whereas a lot of young left-leaning women may vote for a pro-life candidate because they have emotive reasons to support pro-life policies that they might not voice when amongst friends.

And it's so freaking easy to demonize abortion...

For "abortion" read "women". They might be aborting your children without your permission! With your federal tax dollars, even.

Rick Reuben wrote:

Marsupialized wrote:The abortion issue is a personal issue regarding a person's own body.

How can a baby be 'part of a woman's body' if-

A woman is not born with a baby in her?

Many women never have babies in them?

It requires a male contribution to put a baby in there?

A woman's body continues on after the baby exits?

Pay attention bonehead, school is about to be in session.

Most of what you are saying also applies to another living creature.

A tapeworm.



Should a woman not be able to have a tapeworm removed because removing it will end it's life?

numberthirty wrote:

Rick Reuben wrote:

Marsupialized wrote:The abortion issue is a personal issue regarding a person's own body.

How can a baby be 'part of a woman's body' if-

A woman is not born with a baby in her?

Many women never have babies in them?

It requires a male contribution to put a baby in there?

A woman's body continues on after the baby exits?

Pay attention bonehead, school is about to be in session.

Most of what you are saying also applies to another living creature.

A tapeworm.



Should a woman not be able to have a tapeworm removed because removing it will end it's life?

That's good stuff right there.

Yeah, what's it say in the bible about tapeworms? Should the husband have to give his permission to remove the tapeworm?

So wait, should you have to track the person down from who's poop you contracted the tapeworm and ask their permission to get rid of it?

Rick Reuben wrote:

Johnny 13 wrote:I would not want to be in a life long relationship with someone who would be that unstable.

There you go. If your wife aborted without consulting you, you would want out of the relationship. That means you would punish her for doing what she did, thus proving that you felt entitled to the consultation.

johnny 13 wrote:The woman owns her body

The womb is her body, not the entity within it. The entity within it is a mutual creation. Why are people so programmed to believe that a baby is part of a woman's body? It was not in her womb when she was born, so it is not. Men are essential to the creation of a baby. I don't think you can make a rule on exactly how much input a husband should have into an abortion decision, but the argument that he should have zero is bullshit.

Actually, that argument isn't bullshit. There are many possible medical complications to carrying a pregnancy to term. Death is even a possible outcome.

As long as that's the case, I don't give a damn if you are a woman's dad and her husband. That should not mean you have any say over a woman's descision.

Rick Reuben wrote:There you go. If your wife aborted without consulting you, you would want out of the relationship. That means you would punish her for doing what she did, thus proving that you felt entitled to the consultation.

Rick, why would you equate ending a relationship with someone, when it is obvious that you are no longer compatible, for whatever reason, with punishment?

Why would either one want to stay in such a relationship in any case?

Now I know never to mention abortion in any thread I start about anything other than abortion...sheesh.

That said, I do love the tapeworm thing, almost as much as the old Matthew-confuser hypothetical from a few years back where you ask a pro-lifer to consider this: if you are stuck in a burning lab and you can save only one of two things: a healthy 4 year-old girl or a box full of a thousand fertilized embryos...which do you pick?

Then stand back and watch the heads explode.

I'm trying to think like a Fundie here.

The correct answer is take the box of embryos and then sexually interfere with the little girl right?

To a Fundamentalist Christian, the Antichrist is very real and terrifying. This bogeyman concept is often exploited by Fundie leaders to manipulate the reality-impaired into supporting their own political agenda(s), and to demonize respected public figures who hold differing social/political views.

The "Antichrist" label has been used to project "the Ultimate Evil" onto many different figures: The Ottoman Empire, The Pope, various premiers of the Soviet Union, various Fundamentalist Muslim leaders, etc. Some of you are old enough to remember Hal Lindsay's The Late Great Planet Earth and the senseless hysteria that book promoted, which was mirrored by the Cold War rhetoric of the Reagan Administration.

Here's a decent article I found regarding the history of the "antichrist" phenomenon and its manipulation by Christian religious leaders.

The fact that it's being applied to Obama shold not come as much of a surprise. I just hope that the asshat coalition within this country is not so pervasive that such rhetoric would have an appreciable effect on this year's elections.

tommydski wrote:I'm trying to think like a Fundie here.

The correct answer is take the box of embryos and then sexually interfere with the little girl right?

Wrong. The question asked about a girl, not a boy.

Now, if the questions specifically mentioned a fundamentalist father having to rescue a box of embryos or a little girl . . . then you would be correct.

The abortion and "faith" issues are so strong that alot of idiots vote against their economic best interests to get their candidate of God in office. Suckers........