I got a kick out of Lawrence O’Donnell last night when he called the latest assault on women political suicide. The GOP is busy trying to spin their attack on women and contraception as an attack on religion. This woman isn’t buying it. Old white men, who are completely out of touch with the modern woman, are busy trying to tell us what to do with our own bodies. They have an antiquated vision of women—one where father knows best, and the little lady needs guidance because she can’t be trusted to think for herself.

We are woman, hear us roar.

A friend of mine is planning a get together of women to discuss reelecting President Obama. She said that people she invited to this event, to take place next week, have been calling and asking if they could bring their daughters and friends. Women are organizing. Women are strong. Get out of our way. Get your “small government” out of our bedrooms.

Yesterday Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, convened a hearing to talk about women’s health, but he banned all female witnesses. Women serving on the committee walked out in protest, a first for Eleanor Holmes Norton who has been in the House for over 20 years.  Before the clock struck Midnight the Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi had sent out an E-mail to Democrats. The full text follows:

We almost couldn’t believe it.  Today, at a House Oversight Committee hearing, House Republicans convened a panel on denying access to birth control converge with five men and no women.  As my colleague Congresswoman Carolyn Maloney asked, where are the women?

Join me in our call to Speaker Boehner, Eric Cantor, Chairman Issa and all House Republicans to demand that women be brought to the table when discussing women’s health issues. Help us gather 50,000 signatures before Congress heads home tomorrow.

Sign the petition >>

Thank you for standing up for what’s right and joining our fight.

It is apparent that Republican men have forgotten that more women than men vote in every election. We aren’t going to be voting for a bunch of male chauvinist pigs. As of this writing almost 25,000 people have signed Nancy’s petition. That happened over night while most women were sleeping.

Homework

Story About Democrats Walking Out of Issa Hearing

Link to Petition

I’ve written extensively on my firmly held belief that the Republicans are waging a war on women. But I’ve been quiet on the recent nonsense about contraception and the Catholic Church, a political wedge issue with no merit other than to drive voters, who might otherwise vote in favor of Democrats, into the desperate arms of some pretty weak Republican presidential candidates.

Yesterday on Meet the Press, Rick Santorum essentially said that all the angst for him was personal, that he’d never support a policy that would deny birth control to women. He claimed to be a good Catholic, who agreed with the teachings of his church.

Yesterday my mail box was filled with posts about Santorum’s hypocrisy during his life, including one post that detailed all of the beliefs of the Catholic Church that Republicans do not support. Most of the E-mails concerned his wife and things that have happened to her in her life. I did not fact check any of them, so forgive me if I am guilty of repeating untruths.

One story, which should have nothing to do with Rick Santorum’s bid for the presidency, claims that Karen Santorum lived with an abortion doctor, many years her senior,  without benefit of marriage. It claims that Karen left the good doctor because she wanted children and Rick was attractive enough as a sperm donor to jettison her belief that abortion might be a necessary procedure at times.

The other story is tragic and can only cause pain to the Santorums when they see it replayed in a presidential campaign.  It claims that Karen Santorum once had a late term abortion that saved her life. Nothing in the story indicates that the Santorums blithely aborted a child. It was a procedure that saved Karen’s life after she became infected by an earlier procedure, which was an attempt to save the life of the fetus.  Nonetheless, the procedure that reportedly saved Karen Santorum’s life is one that many of the out of touch men, including Rick Santorum himself, say they would deny women.

Of course these stories are in the news because Santorum’s star is rising as a GOP candidate for president. Santorum is a Catholic. Catholic Bishops picked a fight with President Obama. Can anyone say wedge issue?

Jonathan Turley blogged today about how all of this is Catholic V. Contraception angst has little to do with the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on a state religion. You should read the entire post yourself, but here are some quotes:

“A black man, accused of being secretly a Muslim, a socialist and an illegitimate pretender to the presidential throne, has accomplished what all of the post-Vatican II reconciliation committees and joint worship services and inter-faith conferences could not.”

“No longer will the Pope be called the Antichrist, nor Holy Mother Church the Whore of Rome. “

“Christians have reunited under the banner of Richard “Coeur de Lion” Santorum to defeat apostasy and reclaim America for Christendom.  The enemy this time?  An HHS regulation requiring most health insurance plans to include FDA approved forms of contraception in coverage for preventive health services.”

“The newest crusade, like its historical predecessors, is largely fueled by the bad faith of its leaders and the ignorance of its foot soldiers.”

“It has never been the law that the First Amendment exempts religion from all civil authority.  The First Amendment “embraces two concepts,-freedom to believe and freedom to act.  The first is absolute but, in the nature of things, the second cannot be.”  Cantwell v. Connecticut, 310 U.S. 296, 303-304 (1940)”

Homework

http://jonathanturley.org/2012/02/13/contraception-and-separation/