I forgot to add "Tony Perkins' soulless dead eyes."
Which is also why I avoid Chick-Fil-A, though it breaks my heart. Curse those crazy Christians and their delicious, delicious chicken!
I hope I hear back from them, after taking all that trouble, but as far as I know the Corinthians never wrote St. Paul back either, so I won't hold my breath. Surveys are fun!
The plates will feature a drawing of a young boy and a young girl in a two-inch box on the left side, with the words "choose life" along the bottom, where regular plates now have the motto of "Grand Canyon State."Aside from allowing motorists to publicize their views, the arrangement also has financial benefits. Out of the additional $25 the state charges for special plates, $17 goes to the sponsoring organization.
"Proceeds from these licenses will support basically providing alternatives to abortion and promoting life," Herrod said, predicting her organization will be able to sell thousands of the plates.
The proceeds will go to the Arizona Life Coalition, which means they will be distributed among member organizations such as Crisis Pregnancy Centers of Tucson and Phoenix as well as Herrod's own Center for Arizona Policy. Despite the assertion by the AZ Life Coalition that disseminating "accurate information" is required by member organizations, rest assured that the money that will now be funneled to them with the full cooperation and facilitation of the state will help promote the ongoing message that abortion always causes psychological harm to the woman, imperils her future fertility and the health of any future children she might birth, as well as supporting Christian evangelizing of panicked women who happen to find the Crisis Pregnancy Center first in the phone book.
My only solace is that the wording on the plate, "Choose Life," implies--thoroughly inadvertently, I'm sure--that choice should still be the major component of the process, rather than compulsory full-term birth.
The natural response would be to push for a plate reading "Preserve Reproductive Choice," but the state commission created to approve special plates is ready to commit institutional suicide rather than risk being asked to approved the next special-interest plate that comes down the pike--this approval took a federal appeals court judge to force them to wield the rubber stamp--so this may be the last special plate Arizona gets. And that makes Cathi Herrod very happy.
Herrod said the legal fight to get the plates was worth it. "The 'choose life' message affirms the value of every human life," she said. Herrod said that message will "absolutely have a positive impact" on those who see the plates.
You're right about that, Cathi. Seeing one of those plates will absolutely make me want to impact the driver's face with my fist. How awesome would it be if the first one I see is on your car? Answer? It would be totes awesome, at least for one of us.
Pastor Warren, while enjoying a reputation as a moderate based on his affable personality and his church's engagement on issues like AIDS in Africa, has said that the real difference between James Dobson and himself is one of tone rather than substance. He has recently compared marriage by loving and committed same-sex couples to incest and pedophilia. He has repeated the Religious Right's big lie that supporters of equality for gay Americans are out to silence pastors. He has called Christians who advance a social gospel Marxists. He is adamantly opposed to women having a legal right to choose an abortion.
Neat! We voted for change and got an inauguration speaker that couldn't be much Bushier unless he grows the goatee out into a full neckbeard!
Fuck. We've been looking at the Cabinet, we've been looking at the Blagojevich connections or not, we've been looking at the goddamn puppy possibilities and feeling pretty good. Should we continue to focus on the Education pick and avert our eyes from Warren because he just doesn't matter, or does Pastor Prop 8 matter just a little more than that?
Maybe this is simply a craven ploy, a right-wing trump card played to finally negate the Rev. Wright card the Republicans led (and somehow slipped back into their hands to play again and again). After all, most of us who voted for Obama managed to roll our eyes and shrug Wright's histrionics away; shouldn't we do the same with Warren? I do not think so. I do not think so because this was a calculated move to create an association for some incomprehensible political end rather than failing to sever an existing long-term association. I do not think so because Rick Warren does a hell of a lot more to foment bigotry and operationalize it in law than Jeremiah Wright could ever dream of. Wright is annoying. Warren is fucking dangerous.
Or maybe it's not craven politics at all and Rick Warren is the guy Barack Obama really thinks is the best to speak to the nation's soul on the occasion of his inauguration. And that one I don't want to think about at all. I can handle him being an unapologetic politician. I can't handle him being the kind of douchebag who thinks Rick Warren should be pastor-in-chief for even ten minutes.
More howling may be found at FireDogLake, Atrios, Americablog, Washington Monthly, Shakesville, Digby, Bilerico, and Pam's House Blend.
Thanks, Top!Secret G-woman!
But I can do my job there, in developing our natural resources and doing things like getting the roads paved, and making sure our troopers have their cop cars and their uniforms and their guns, and, and making sure our public schools are funded, but really, all of that stuff doesn't do any good if the people of Alaska's heart isn't right with God. And that's gonna be your job--as I'm doing my job, let's strike this deal: your job is gonna be to be out there reaching the people, hurtin' (zuh? herding, maybe? is that better?) people throughout Alaska, and we can work together to be sure God's will be done here.
Rewind and listen to that again. She's pretty clearly saying she believes government is ineffective unless it goes hand in hand with evangelism. I'll govern, but it ain't a-gonna do squat unless you and you and you get out there and bring people to Jesus, and so my job performance is based at least by half and possibly more on you going out and evangelizing, so get a move on already. Neat! Thanks, John McCain!
Kansas activities officials are investigating a school's refusal to let a female referee call a boys' high school basketball game.The Kansas State High School Activities Association said referees reported that Michelle Campbell was preparing to officiate at St. Mary's Academy near Topeka on Feb. 2 when a school official insisted that Campbell could not call the game.
The reason given, according to the referees: Campbell, as a woman, could not be put in a position of authority over boys because of the academy's beliefs.
St. Mary's is run by the retro-Catholic Society of St. Pius X, a lovely little schismatic group that believes in rather arcane bits of theology from the totally old-skool Church as well as believing that major purchases should not be made on Sundays, that women shouldn't wear men's clothing and that standards of modest attire should be enforced more rigorously for women than for men, that surgery to remove an ectopic pregnancy is never okay until the embryo has died on its own, and, oh yeah, that slavery isn't necessarily always a bad thing. On the plus side, they teach that it's not a sin to serve soft drinks as long as they aren't drunk purely for pleasure or in excess, that you don't necessarily have to cut off all communication with your daughter who is living in sin, and that it is permissible to perform old-time country folk music on TV. But not Gospel music, ever.
Aaaaaannnnnnd where does the SSPX stand on feminism (or "the feministic movement," as they so charmingly refer to it on their website)? Do you really need to ask? Actually, the discussion opens with this howler:
The Church has always been, historically, a great defender of woman.
And kind of goes downhill from there.
The natural order differentiates the two sexes by subordinating the one to the other. In the order of creation the woman comes after man. She is subject to man though not his final end.
There is a subordination which many choose to ignore, a subordination given us by Divine revelation: "The head of every man is Christ; the head of the woman is man; and the head of Christ is God." Feminism refuses the true nature of woman, confuses the natural and supernatural relations between the sexes and embarks upon a deviant path at the end of which the suicide of thought and the death of womanhood is inevitable.
The suicide of thought? Come on now--there's no need for suicide when the Church kills your independent thought processes for you!
Getting back to the point, though, while I find the thought of living under such a stifling philosophy repugnant and am very sad for the women in the SSPX families, it ultimately matters to me not because of my personal emotional reaction to the crap trotted out on their website and likely in their weekly homilies, but because it's a prime example of religious extremism reaching out to gobsmack other people who do not subscribe to their beliefs.
How much cash did the referee miss out on by not working that game? If the Arizona interscholastic association pay scales are any comparison, it was probably in the neighborhood of forty bucks. Not huge in the grand scheme of things. But, as with so many other fights of principle, it's the precedent here that matters more than the specific economic opportunity being denied. In a publicly funded athletic association, denying employment to a certified professional on the basis of gender can't fly. The Kansas association is reviewing the incident and St. Mary's written policies before deciding whether to boot the school.
Beyond the seemingly cut-and-dried issue of whether a religious institution may discriminate while operating under the umbrella of a public association, I find myself shuddering at the kinds of assholes this school is churning out into the greater society when it teaches that an adult woman has no authority over minor boys. God, I hope the first female cop who pulls one of these guys (or their coaches or teachers or priests) over for speeding has a microphone on her dashboard camera. That's going to be just charming.
Women may hold no authority over men. Isn't that one of the facets of religious extremism we cite as a reason to invade other countries, at least as long as they (1) don't have nukes or (2) have leaders who like to go on long walks on the beach with our leader?
Slight update and props to the male referees at the gym who refused to play along with the bullshit and walked off the court with Campbell:
Fred Shockey, who was getting ready to leave the gym after officiating two junior high games, said he was told there had been an emergency and was asked to stay and officiate two more games.
"When I found out what the emergency was, I said there was no way I was going to work those games," said Shockey, who spent 12 years in the Army and became a ref about three years ago. "I have been led by some of the finest women this nation has to offer, and there was no way I was going to go along with that."
Scorning people for their faith is intrinsically repugnant, and in this case it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of how far evangelicals have moved over the last decade. Today, conservative Christian churches do superb work on poverty, AIDS, sex trafficking, climate change, prison abuses, malaria and genocide in Darfur.Bleeding-heart liberals could accomplish far more if they reached out to build common cause with bleeding-heart conservatives. And the Democratic presidential candidate (particularly if it’s Mr. Obama, to whom evangelicals have been startlingly receptive) has a real chance this year of winning large numbers of evangelical voters.
This is a reiteration of the argument that's been simmering among bloggers in the Seed science writers group for the past year-plus, that people in the non-evangelical (well, non-theist, actually) world need to reach out to religious people gently and respectfully when trying to circumvent the imposition of a particular brand of religion on the political and legal umbrella we're all obliged to stand under.
Kristof isn't blind to the warts of fundamentalism, citing "typically conservative views on taxes, health care or Iraq" as well as pointing out that "moralizing blowhards showed more compassion for embryonic stem cells than for the poor or the sick." But he argues that the work of groups like Doctors Without Borders, Catholic aid groups, and innumerable small independent churches are the new face of religious conservatism, which liberals should now welcome rather than regard warily with a jaundiced eye.
It’s certainly fair to criticize Catholic leaders and other conservative Christians for their hostility toward condoms, a policy that has gravely undermined the fight against AIDS in Africa. But while robust criticism is fair, scorn is not...
We can disagree sharply with their politics, but to mock them underscores our own ignorance and prejudice.
I don't see many--or any, really--liberals mocking or scorning religious aid workers who help the poor and oppressed in this country or abroad by living the gospel's directive to clothe the naked, feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, and comfort the ill and imprisoned. As long as no strings of conversion are attached to that help, hey, go for it and good on you.
Our scorn is reserved for those who use their faith as a convenient excuse to deny civil equality, physical autonomy, economic equity, and intellectual independence to people who do not share their beliefs. For those who find belief and the bible an acceptable substitute for critical thought and hard data. For those who would use religion as a cudgel to bash public policy into a crude semblance of the legalistic passages of their scripture that retains none of the references to humility, service, and love, but conveniently reinforces their self-image as the righteous, sole arbiters of morality and possessors of absolute truth. For those who judge and condemn the specks in other people's eyes while sporting beams in their own big enough to build seven crosses times seven on Calvary.
Those are the people we mock and scorn, Nick. Not those who serve and let live, but those who would compel the whole world to live as they would have us live.
Mr. McCain said in the interview that he agreed with the results of a poll that showed that a majority of Americans believe the Constitution establishes a Christian nation.
“I would probably have to say yes, that the Constitution established the United States of America as a Christian nation,” he said.
No word on whether he also agrees with the majority of Americans--quite possibly the same respondents--who believe God created the earth in seven days and had Noah march T. rexes into the ark two by two.
Goddammit. Anyone declaring their candidacy for president should be required to pass a high school civics exam before their name goes on the ballot. And any of them spouting this Christian Nation bullshit should go back to remedial Bible class and circle the passages relating Christ's governmental analogies for the kingdom of God--plenty of references there to kings, none to constitutional republics that I recall.
Now that the House has approved a bill that includes crimes against homosexuals, bisexuals and transgender individuals in federal hate crimes statutes, pro-family groups are attempting to prevent a similar measure from passing the Senate. Representatives from groups like the Southern Baptist Convention, Concerned Women for America, Vision America, and Jews Against Anti-Christian Defamation held a press conference in Washington, DC, to voice their displeasure with what they view as an attack on Christian expression.
"Christian expression" includes assaulting and murdering gay people? What was that verse, again, ah, it's right here somewhere... oh yes. Jesus wept.
The first spectre always trotted out so eagerly is the gay bogeyman who hits on innocent straight guys who are just trying to watch the football game.
Janet Folger of the ministry Faith 2 Action says the hate crimes bill passed by the House is aimed at pastors or anyone else who has the "audacity" to disagree with the homosexual agenda. "Mike is standing at a football bar, or he's standing at a restaurant, watching a game," she posits; "Bruce comes out of the restroom, and he's touching up his makeup. He's a cross-dresser with red-nail polish and a five o'clock shadow. He comes out and hits on Mike. Maybe he puts his arm around him or maybe he brushes or puts his hand through his hair."
The average man would "maybe want to push off such unwelcome advances," Folger observes. However, she warns, "That, if you touch him, is a hate crime."
Again, always, and forever, the fact that this argument continues to be made and eagerly lapped up by the fundie masses speaks volumes more about these people's conceptions of heterosexuality--specifically, about straight male sexuality--than about gay sexuality or hate crimes. If straight men are not allowed to beat gay men to a pulp, the reasoning goes, then gay men will start behaving toward straight men like straight men do toward women. That is, with a sense of entitlement to the straight man as a commodity that exists solely to arouse and fulfill the gay man's pleasure, and the straight man will have no recourse but to stand there and take it just like a woman should.
If any other formulation of male-female dynamics existed in Janet Folger's mind, it might occur to her that uninvited physical contact is inappropriate for anyone to initiate, even if the anyone is male, and that anyone who is the subject of the unwanted bad touch is allowed to rebuff it (although "rebuffing" someone's hand brushing through your hair generally doesn't extend to "bash face in with barstool"). Even when the toucher is male. Her message and mindset are clear. If a woman has the misfortune to be attractive to a man (and especially if she deliberately makes herself attractive), the man can't help but hit on her, and she's gotta take it. If a gay man sees a straight man, he is both automatically attracted to him and powerless to resist the impulse to hit on him. What's worse, the straight man is automatically feminized by being the object of male attraction, and now the government is trying to complete that emasculation by preventing him from killing his would-be suitor--which, of course, is the only possible straight male response to the power-sapping experience of being hit on by a man, regardless of whether it involved physical contact, a verbal proposition, or simply the perception that the gay guy was eyeing him funny.
It's telling that the gay panic defense and the Christians desperate to preserve it invariably focus on the mythical gay male transvestite trying to grab a straight guy's nuts. I have yet to see any handwringing over the drag kings and PE teachers who will come out of the woodwork looking to grope the straight gals or at least rotate their tires should anti-gay hate crimes be officially frowned upon.
Beyond that, of course, the thing that annoys me to no end about this crap is its deliberate dishonesty about the nature of the hate crimes statutes--you'll be fined up if you say homosexuality is wrong, you'll be locked up if you push a guy away who's running his hands through your hair (is that really how gay men say hello to strangers? I hadn't noticed). None of the statutes can be construed as banning people from reasonably defending themselves against unwanted physical intrusions, and none of the proscribed behaviors come anywhere close to First Amendment territory. You're free to spend your days preaching about Leviticus and making straw Bruce after straw Bruce dressed up however you want. However, beating the crap out of a guy, shooting him several times, and dumping his body in a field because he asked if you wanted a blow job is not okay. Understand that distinction? I think Jesus might have.
In November, Arizona became the first and only state in the nation to turn down a measure defining marriage.Now Matt Daniels, president of the Alliance for Marriage, says he is counseling Arizona lawmakers to make sure they offer a more acceptable ballot measure next time around — one that doesn't ask voters to deny benefits to couples.
Great. The anti-marriage equality Prop 107 narrowly failed at the polls last November, purely because the campaign against it went to great lengths to avoid all but the most oblique or buried (three or four clicks deep on the website) references to gay people. It was probably too much to hope that the anti-gay side would stand down after that volley failed, content with banning same-sex marriage at the statute level rather than by constitutional amendment. Way too much to hope, as it turns out.
But forces in this state have already said they won't settle for anything less than a constitutional amendment that makes it illegal for even straight couples to enter into civil unions or receive domestic-partnership benefits."I strongly disagree with Matt Daniels' comments," said Cathi Herrod, president of the Center for Arizona Policy, which authored Proposition 107. "Our goal has been to protect the institution of marriage, not just the name of marriage."
Bullshit. Your goal, Ms. Herrod, has been to kick gay people in the teeth any way you can under the guise of a moralistic "will of the people" ballot measure. If you wanted to "protect marriage" according to the arguments your side has spewed, you'd do better to outlaw divorce, outlaw civil weddings (and perhaps any religious weddings not performed under the auspices of a Christian or Jewish ceremony), and mandate procreation.
Of course, this forces me into the paradoxical position of having to root for a Herrod-formulated proposition to be the one landing on the next ballot, given that version's failure the first time around. If the Center for Arizona Policy puts forth a reworded measure explicitly denying civil unions or benefits only to same-sex couples, while preserving them for straight couples, there's no way it would pass constitutional muster. The downside would be the huge symbolic gobsmack of seeing exactly how many of my fellow citizens would gleefully vote for such a vindictive piece of legislation.
It wouldn't be surprising, but that wouldn't make it any less sad.
The Center for Arizona Policy's mindset is summed up by this passage from their position paper on "Public Policy and the Church:"
Sure, Christians could and should strive to obey God's Word without worrying about everyone else. But if we really believe that God loves everyone, and we know that His revelation about how we should behave would benefit everyone, isn't it the ultimate expression of Christian love to strive to have public policy reflect the perfect wisdom of God's law in every way possible?
So hey, we could go ahead and live and let live, but wouldn't it be so much more loving for us to impose our narrow interpretation of our religion's holy book through legislation compelling everyone in the country to live by the rules we chose for ourselves? Fuck. What truly galls me is when these people insist they're not really Dominionists; it's just that their vision of perfect wisdom to be enforced with the cudgel of the law coincides--amazingly--with a fundamentalist reading of the Bible. And then they howl that by not formalizing Christian religious dicta into American civil law, we're forcing the True Christians to live like us heathens.
Mandating marriage equality does not compel straight fundamentalist Christians to marry someone of their same gender or eschew a church ceremony, any more than legalized abortion compels all pregnant women to go in for a D&C. That's the reality-based version of the world. In their twisted zero-sum version of the world, opening all civil contract law to all competent, consenting adults constitutes the creation of special rights that diminish their own.
I am sick of it all.
Now we're world champions! And so there's an awful lot of shining glory up here again, even more than last time, but we're giving it all to God again, because that's what God is here, sticking together and believing that we could, and I know God has looked after us on this journey...Then there was Dungy, who maybe hadn't heard about the actual storms to the north, talking about his team's struggles against adversity this season:
We said there's gonna be a storm, we said the Lord doesn't always bring you directly through, sometimes you gotta work for it.Ah. So God was in Florida this week (the folks cowering in their bathrooms might have wondered), but apparently too distracted with the Holy Colts to notice the tornadoes bearing down on trailer parks and retirement communities in areas inexplicably bereft of warning sirens. He had the foresight to toughen up the Colts with the metaphorical storm of being down 18 points in the AFC championship game, but couldn't be troubled to flick a couple of funnel clouds away from people's houses. Nice.
"I'm proud to be the first African-American coach to win this," Dungy said during the trophy ceremony. "But again, more than anything, Lovie Smith and I are not only the first African-American but also Christian coaches, showing you can do it the Lord's way. We're more proud of that."All the previous Super Bowl coaches, I guess, have been Hindu or Jainist or something. Noted Muslims Mike Ditka and Dan Reeves must be mortified to have that finally brought out into the open.
After arguing Scripture, the Hesses point to a number of more worldly effects that a Christian embrace of Quiverfull could bring. "When at the height of the Reagan Revolution," they write, "the conservative faction in Washington was enforced [sic] with squads of new conservative congressmen, legislators often found themselves handcuffed by lack of like-minded staff. There simply weren't enough conservatives trained to serve in Washington in the lower and middle capacities." But if just 8 million American Christian couples began supplying more "arrows for the war" by having six children or more, they propose, the Christian-right ranks could rise to 550 million within a century ("assuming Christ does not return before then"). They like to ponder the spiritual victory that such numbers could bring: both houses of Congress and the majority of state governor's mansions filled by Christians; universities that embrace creationism; sinful cities reclaimed for the faithful; and the swift blows dealt to companies that offend Christian sensibilities.Hell, why stop with swift blows to companies that offend their sensibilities? Why not just stone all of the heathens while they're at it?
Prominent evangelical Ted Haggard's murky admission of sin following allegations of an affair with a male prostitute has reignited a volatile argument over the roots of homosexuality — a debate where religion, politics and science collide.
Scientific evidence, though far from conclusive, points strongly toward biological underpinnings of sexual attraction. Many evangelical Christians believe that people can exercise choice over how they deal with same-sex attractions, and some in the movement have begun to acknowledge at least some genetic role.
"Whatever the root cause, people make a choice," Chambers said. "Not about their feelings, but about what they do with those feelings based on convictions and not on science."
An Associated Press photo of the ceremony also shows a smiling First Lady Laura Bush and Dybul's homosexual "partner," Jason Claire. During her comments, Rice referred to the presence of Claire's mother and called her Dybul's "mother-in-law," a term normally reserved for the heterosexuals who have been legally married.
"We have to face the fact that putting a homosexual in charge of AIDS policy is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the henhouse," says Sprigg. "But even beyond that, the deferential treatment that was given not only to him but his partner and his partner's family by the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is very distressing."
He also notes that Rice's comments defy an existing law on the books protecting traditional marriage. "So, for her to treat his partner like a spouse and treat the partner's mother as a mother-in-law, which implies a marriage between the two partners, is a violation of the spirit if not the letter of the Defense of Marriage Act," the FRC spokesman states.
On Monday I posted about the Christian Right’s coming battle against contraception (shorter version: none for anyone ever) and mentioned my grudging admiration for the morality brigades’ perseverance and dedication to to their mission, abhorrent as I personally find it. Part of the strategy has been to crank out the kids like bunnies, homeschool them, send them to evangelical colleges, and groom them to enter public life so as to influence legislation at every level, toward the ultimate goal of crafting laws reflecting conservative Christian values (or Biblical literalism, depending on how pessimistic you’re feeling at any given moment).
The articles in the Chicago Tribune and LA Times mentioned the intent to chip away at the availability of contraceptives, following the manner in which abortion access has been steadily constricted, in large part by enacting state laws giving pharmacists the right to refuse to dispense medications that violate their own personal consciences.
Four States (Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Dakota) have passed laws allowing a pharmacist to refuse to dispense emergency contraception drugs. Illinois passed an emergency rule that requires a pharmacist to dispense FDA approved contraception. Colorado, Florida, Maine and Tennesee have broad refusal clauses that do not specifically mention pharmacists.
California pharmacists have a duty to dispense prescriptions and can only refuse to dispense a prescription, including contraceptives, when their employer approves the refusal and the woman can still access her prescription in a timely manner.
Given the increasing presence of evangelicals in legislatures of all levels over the past decade or so, I wondered if they might be stacking the pharmaceutical deck as well. So it came as little surprise that the Christian Pharmacists Fellowship International has established student chapters in 30 pharmacy schools out of the 89 or so institutions granting at least a B.S. in pharmacy across the country, including at major players such as Purdue, North Carolina, and Florida.
The CPFI position on the “conscience clause” is as follows (emphases mine):
Pharmacists have the moral and legal responsibility to refuse to dispense a prescription that, in the pharmacist's judgment might be harmful to the patient, either directly or indirectly. Therefore, the Board of Directors of CPFI supports the right of all pharmacists to refuse to dispense a prescription that goes against their moral conscience.
No regulatory authority should be allowed to force a pharmacist to dispense a prescription against his/her best judgment or refer a patient to another healthcare provider. Likewise, a pharmacist should not engage in any activity that impairs a patient from seeking care from another provider.
Furthermore, the Board acknowledges the responsibility of Christian pharmacists to follow Biblical principles including the sanctity of life and life begins at the time of conception. Therefore, CPFI supports the right of Christian pharmacists, based upon Biblical principles and their moral convictions, to exercise their conscience within the realm of professional practice.
The “either directly or indirectly” phrase is quite vague, and it’s difficult to think that was unintentional. Indirect harm to a patient covers a troublingly wide expanse of territory, including that nebulous realm of the patient’s eternal soul—presumably the target of the conscience clause refusals. The insistence that pharmacists shall not be compelled to refer the patient to the other, non-evangelical pharmacist at Walgreen’s or to the CVS down the street is troubling. And the “responsibility” of Christian pharmacists to insist that life begins at conception is the grand finale, the big cake topper.
To be fair, CPFI maintains chapters at only slightly more than a third of the major pharmacy schools in the US (I did not consider associate-degree-only colleges and technical schools in this compilation), and most of these schools support a variety of student organizations. The faculty advisors don’t mention CPFI prominently in their online profiles, if at all, and there is no evidence that the organization is exerting undue influence within the respective colleges of pharmacy. Nor are hard membership numbers readily available.
In that sense, this posting may reflect more paranoia than imminent threat to freely accessible contraception in the US. However, given the numbers of students in the programs where CPFI is present*, it is an unavoidable fact that pharmacists who are very likely to invoke a conscience clause (or push for such legislation in states where it has not yet been enacted) are being churned out at a steady rate. Additionally, ample anedotal evidence exists documenting instances in which individuals have encountered absurd, near-Atwoodian barriers to acquiring emergency contraception. It is imperative that we remain vigilant as one segment of this society seeks to impose its own version of morality on all people, regardless of their personal belief systems. Find out where the candidates in your local races stand on conscience clauses and keep their asses out of office if they are even remotely conciliatory to the idea.
