Is it a War on Women?

Yeah, I'm doing it. I know I am not the first and I won't be the last to blog about this. But I feel like we need a bit of a record of all the things being debated about at the government level that has to do with women right now. Seeing as how Legislating/controlling women is so in vogue these days and all. As the photo I borrowed illustrates... WTF?! We, the last three generations that is, thought we had made a permanent foothold into equal rights. That we had forged a path that could not be easily done away with. We let down our guard I guess.

Current legal abortion as a hot women's topic is too easy, so I'll let that pass. And going after Planned Parenthood is nothing new, really, so I won't even go on and on about that. But... the bills coming up about uterus police for miscarriages, no abortion even when pregnant as a result of rape or incest, and no abortion even to save the life of the mother EVEN if the fate of the fetus is also death, make no sense. There are laws passed to criminalize doctors for doing any abortion; even life saving ones. Then there are states forcing women to pay for additional ultrasounds (some by wand) and receive a lecture (that goes against freedom of religion) before they can lawfully terminate a pregnancy . Oh, and there was that bill requiring women get permission of the father in writing before they are allowed to have an abortion (a little awkward, no? if the pregnancy is a result of rape or incest?). How about redefining rape to make abortions harder to get? The whole growing bias that women are not smart enough or, as they say, can't make an informed choice when it comes to their own health care, their own bodies or the decision to have, or not to have, an abortion, I find repulsive.

And so we move on to no insurance coverage for female contraceptives of any kind. Even when prescribed for a medical condition other than to keep from getting pregnant. Um, why aren't contraceptives considered medical? What's with no women experts allowed to speak about contraceptives? What's up with that? More of that, "women can't make an informed choice" crap? We are too stupid? Yet no debate on whether insurance should cover Viagra or penile implants. How about the bill that would make it legal to fire a woman for having contraceptives? And now there are religious leaders saying oral contraceptives cause homosexuality. WTF? the latest state bills signed into law allow pharmacists to refuse to fill out any prescription they feel could be used to induce an abortion and physicians are not allowed to legally withhold information from patients if they think that medical information may result in an abortion or other thing against their personal morals. These "Conscious Measures" are so broad and vague it can be applied to anything. So even if the birth control is prescribed for medical reasons, a pharmacist can block a woman from medicine her doctor has prescribed; medicine she may need for a medical condition. And what if that information the doctor decides to keep from their patient costs them their life? Will the law save them in a court of law? This is not how medical care should be practiced in a civilized country! The religious beliefs of a medical practitioner should not trump the religious and cultural beliefs of a patient, especially if it may result in the suffering and/or death of the patient.


Beyond contraceptives or abortion are bills redefining when life starts. I don't know when life started, but I do know that pregnancy is a continuation of life, not the start. The stupidest bill of them all is the one that passed saying conception or life starts two weeks before fertilization. Besides it being against most faiths (including those who follow the teachings of the bible), it negates contraceptives of ALL kinds, makes abortion illegal at any stage, makes every woman a murderer who has a period or a miscarriage, and makes every man a killer who masturbates. Complete idiocy.

And yet women are being punished for choosing to have their children, too. Another state legislature drafted a bill that would make single parenthood tantamount to child abuse (to try and keep poor, single women from keeping their babies).

Recently the money put into preventative healthcare, especially for women, has been given the label "slush" fund and is targeted to be cut. Their rational is that putting money into cancer screenings, child immunizations and quit smoking programs is a waste of money. I believe it has been proven, without a doubt, that such preventative healthcare GREATLY reduces the cost of healthcare overall for everyone. So this goes into the War on Women category because the preventative measures being funded and the target of cuts are mostly for women.

The Supreme Court said, just last year, women employees couldn't sue Walmart for low wages, low raises, low bonuses and little to no advancement in comparison to male employees because Walmart employs mostly women. ie, a majority aren't allowed to sue. Um, Walmart, like a lot of businesses these days, hire women to lower their bottom line because it is permissible to pay women less then men. You'd think men would be pissed about that. Several states have bills up for vote that would lower the minimum wage of tipped employees. Positions mostly held by women (over 80%). The coup de gras, Scott Walker, the much loved (sarcasm) governor or Wisconsin has repealed the state's Equal Pay law stating that men needed the money more than women.

And here I add yet another bill introduced to make all divorce illegal. Which, even though I think people often get married with little intent to stay the minute things get rough, is wrong on many levels including separation of church and state, freedom of religion, and personal freedoms of course. But the main problem is the lawmaker introducing the bill has it as ALL divorce illegal regardless of abuse. He literally said Women need to remember why they got married in the first place. That takes it to the war on women level. But let's take it even further. Yet another state has DECRIMINALIZED Domestic Violence altogether. Why? Because the police have better things to do than keep husbands from raping and killing their wives or live in girl friends. Even though men abuse much more so than women, this law also does a disservice to men who are abused. What next? Decriminalize child abuse?

A friend of mine hypothesized that Republican lawmakers ARE working on creating jobs... they are trying to get women out of the work place so there will be more jobs for men. I'm starting to believe that is true; certainly the new proposed laws seem to support it.

I found out the other day that in all areas of power, from our state and federal legislators to corporate CEOs to governors to boards of directors to mayors to ambassadors and world leaders, et al, the one area where women, by the numbers, are the closest in equality to men is in our own United States Supreme Court. And they are not equal, just the closest. Women make up just over 50% of the population, but even though we are equal in numbers here, we are not anywhere close to equal numbers in positions of power, and therefore, representation.
 
I also was made aware that Obamacare would require all persons pay the same amount for healthcare regardless of gender or adult age. Did you know that, right now, women pay, on average, 20% more than men for healthcare, sometimes as much as 70% depending on which state they live in?

ALL of that mentioned above has happened in the LAST THREE-PLUS YEARS. I'm not even talking about how historically women are treated... just the last three-plus years and only at the U.S. state and federal government level. Sorry, but that really is a war on women at the top levels. I can't see excusing most or any of that. You can't go, "Oh, you can't pay attention to the extremists." We are talking about representatives here. Lawmakers. People voted in by us!


Seems obvious what we need to do to stop this idiocy and work towards a better representative government... VOTE.

Non-Issues (part one)

There are a lot of issues out there that are political and for the life of me I don't know why. Most are personal issues that should have nothing to do with government. Certainly there are plenty of things I believe the government should get involved in, but the following list (part one) is not included:

Prayer in Public Schools

We have a separation of church and state. WHAT THAT MEANS IS our government cannot tell us who or what or how to worship. Remember our country was founded on the freedom of religion. Remember that your ancestors came here fleeing religious persecution. Freedom of religion was established in the first words of the first sentence of the first amendment of the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;...".

Do you see it? It's so obvious if it were a snake it would have bitten you by now. Not only does the separation of church and state as established by the first amendment keep a government run and funded institution from telling you what and who and how to worship, but it also cannot keep it's citizens from worshiping in said government run and funded institution. Too many big words for you? Individual prayer is allowed in school. By anybody. The first amendment protects your right to pray anywhere you bloody want to. Even in school. Any child, student, teacher, faculty or bureaucrat can pray in school. The law only stipulates that the government (including government paid employees such as said teacher, faculty member or bureaucrat, and government paid for materials such as AP system, copy machine, grounds, buildings, etc.) cannot authorize, be used for, lead or otherwise endorse any religion on its students. I'm going to encourage my child to pray in school whenever he or she wishes. BUT I also intend to teach my child common courtesy so their praying will not disrupt their actual reason, and their fellow students' reason, for being there... which is to learn.

If you want your child to learn about religion, send them to Sunday school or a religious, private school. Let public schools do what they are intended to do: teach your kid history, English and math (and how to play a musical instrument, speak another language, act, report, and so on).

Definition of Marriage

I keep hearing about the definition of marriage these days. Who defines it? God or government? If government does, does that mean churches HAVE to bow down? No. I don't think so. Mostly because I believe this to be a religious issue and we have a separation of church and state for a reason (see above).

I heard about a pastor or priest in Sweden (hello! Sweden not the USA!) who was arrested for discrimination because he would not marry a gay couple. That incident was used to argue against gay marriage here in the states. Personally, in the USA, I can't see a police department doing such a thing. Or a gay couple pressing such charges. I've heard of pastors/priests who refuse to marry people because they say they won't have kids; because one is not the right religion; because one was married before; because it's interracial; etc. Never heard of them getting arrested because of it. It is kinda like, "we have the right to refuse service to anyone", you see posted at restaurants and the like. It applies to churches as well and I have absolutely no problem with it. Not like there aren't plenty of churches, pastors and priests out there who have no problem marrying anyone and everyone. PLENTY of choice out there for religion and church (Hello, county's first amendment, see above for history lesson.).

But back to my main point. Why do churches care if there is gay marriage? Why do they care who a justice of the peace, a boat captain, an internet ordained buddy, etc. marry? If they want to keep gay marriage out of their church, fine and good, they have that right already after all.

And don't come back and say it will then lead to people marrying animals. That is just plain stupid! Until, of course, animals have birth certificates, social security numbers, are able to say "I do" and sign their names. But I really doubt we'll see that in our lifetimes. ;)

Anyway, you can get married in a church without a license if you want. You don't get the wonderful government bennies, but as far as you and your church are concerned, you are married in god's eyes, right? Churches probably have the right not to acknowledge common law or marriage done outside of the church, regardless of its legality by the government, right?

No one dies because of gay marriage. It is not like their getting married changes your marital status. Or changes the ability for single, straight people to get married one iota. Gays need to know that if they are with someone for decades and one partner dies, some third cousin can't step in and take everything they ever owned jointly. They need to know they can visit their loved one in the hospital and make medical decisions when necessary. They need to know they can keep their child if one partner dies. These are important and they shouldn't have to become a corporation for such things to be legal for them.

So what exactly changes if gays get married? Just the three things I pointed out above. Are those three things really against god's will? And I don't see why it is not legal already. There is nothing out there that says same sex marriage is illegal. I don't know why governments actually have to legalize something that already is really. I think that is why the definition of marriage has come up. Because gay people haven't realized it is already legal (or at least not illegal) and straights need to make it illegal before they find out.