> >

The Jesus Take: The Culture of Life


The moral code of the religious right has more loop holes than the tax code.

I'm not sure I can keep up.
Last November after the election we learned Bush supposedly won, because liberals and homosexuals want to weaken the institution of marriage. Remember that?

Fast forward to March 2005 and Congress is telling the husband of Terri Schiavo he shouldn't have the right to make end of life decisions for his wife. The very type of decisions that are made quietly and privately by families, including members of Congress, every single day. Recently, the majority party took the unprecedented step of sending the Schiavo case to federal court because they didn't like the outcome in Florida state court. The state court ruled in favor of her husband. It backed his right to act as her legal guardian. It allowed him to remove Terri's feeding tube after 15 years of exhaustive medical and legal review . I wonder should the Defense of Marriage Act be amended to replace homosexuals with Congress and the Executive Branch?

It boggles the mind. This is the same Congress that just passed $28 billion in additional cuts to Medicaid. Who the fuck is gonna pay for this "culture of life"? Now we hear Congress will soon consider a bill to bar family members from removing life support if there's a dispute and no living will is in place. Again, who's gonna pay for this culture of life? If the family does not have adequate health insurance and their assets are liquidated (Congress just passed bankruptcy "reform" that offers no protection to families facing medical crises) who's gonna foot the bill? Congress may believe life is precious, just not precious enough to fund.

But make no mistake about it though, Terri's Law will not placate the religious right. Just listen to what they're saying: They believe that removing life support is murder, period. A living will won't make it okay, it'll make families in similar circumstances guilty of assisted suicide. If these zealots can push through their political agenda the only way a person will be able to die with dignity is if they run out of money. If they have their way, families will no longer be able to make family decisions about letting their loved ones go.

The ignorance here is profound. It's like "these people" have never had to face an end-of-life crises. All their talk of damnation-this and murder-that won't make it any clearer for families trying to decide if their loved ones have suffered enough. Either they don't appreciate that or they just don't care. These decisions are not cut and dry, they're painful and often times people second guess themselves for the rest of their lives. But that's the way it is with most family matters, you do the best you can. This bizarre christian sect wants to enforce their stunted, poorly defined sense of morality on the rest of the nation. They want to be able to judge us and tell us when it's okay to kill and when it's not (100,000 dead Iraqis , YES - Terri Schiavo, NO). They want to be able to tell us when we should respect the sanctity of marriage and when we should push it aside (gays and lesbian getting equal rights, BAD- stopping Michael Schiavo from making decision for his wife when she can't, GOOD). They want to tell us when we should care for children and when we should abandon them to the free market and a life without hope or safety (abortion, E-VIL- Cutting children from welfare, cutting Medicaid, privatizing education, forcing down wages so both parents HAVE to work, REALLY, REALLY GOOD). There is no rhyme or reason underpinning their proclamations. Their belief that their every political whim is divine providence cheapens real faith.

It is real Christians who should be the most enraged with these Pharisees . This sect of true believers have thrown the Gospel of Love out the window in favor of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. Real Christians should stand against these heretics who use the blood sacrifice of their Lord as a weapon or war and hatred against their enemies. Real Christians should remember on the night Jesus was betrayed, he told Simon Peter he would deny him three times. By their silence, real Christians deny the message of Jesus, they deny his sacrifice.

Posted: Wed - March 30, 2005 at 10:19 PM        

©