Palin: a Pat Robertson feminist

If Sarah Palin is a feminist, I'm a Rosacrucian!

Or should we let them grow up in an atmosphere of love and rules to become potentially Edgar Allen Poe, Nelson Mandela et al. ???????

Yeal9 - I've continued to ask you what is the point of your list. You refuse to answer. I simply added to your list. My point in adding these people to your list is not to say that we should kill babies because they may grow up to be serial killers, but to point out how worthless (and pointless) your list is. Stay on topic, please.

Because the discussion here has been about pregnancy and abortion, I have to assume that your list is meant to show some of the wonderful (and not) people the world would have missed, had they been aborted. However, just because someone is adopted doesn't mean he or she was an unwanted pregnancy. In fact, many (most?) of the adoptees here were not adopted because they were an unwanted pregnancy, but because something happened to their parents after they were born.

So your list is pointless because it has no bearing on abortion, and worthless because there are good AND bad people who were adopted.

That's MY point when I added those names to your list. I was simply commenting on the list itself and its value - I was NOT commenting on adoption or abortion itself.

Thanks for the discussion, though. It's been fun.

"So we should kill all babies because they might grow up and become serial killers?"

Your mythian belief system prevents you from thinking logically.

You might want to stick to knocking on wood, throwing salt over your shoulder, or whatever it is you do to ward off the bogeyman.

So we should kill all babies because they might grow up and become serial killers? Or should we let them grow up in an atmosphere of love and rules to become potentially Edgar Allen Poe, Nelson Mandela et al.

Yeal9 - You still haven't explained the point of your list of famous adoptees. Nonetheless, I think you forgot a few. Please allow me to add them for you...

Ted Bundy - serial killer
David Berkowitz (better known as Son of Sam) - serial killer
Aileen Wuornos - serial killer

Nature or Nature's God is the #1 taker of everyone's life. That gives some rational for killing the unborn or those suffering from dementia, mental disease or Alzheimer's or anyone who might inconvenience our lives???

We constantly battle the forces of nature. We do not succumb to these forces by eliminating defenseless children!!!!!

With respect to saving the life of a mother vs that of her and her husband's child"

With modern technology, that situation is a rare event. When it does occur, the decision should be a made by the mother and father of the child. With no father in the picture, the decision should be left to the mother or her parents if the mother is incapacitated.

And it is very, very disturbing that we give legal protection to the fertilized eggs and the developing young of protected animal and insect species but give no legal protection to our developing young ones.

Again, some famous adoptees:

Andy Berlin - entrepreneur: chairman of Berlin Cameron & Partners
Anthony Williams - politician
Aristotle - philosopher
Art Linkletter - comedian
Bo Diddley - musician, performer
Buffy Sainte-Marie - musician, actress
Carl-Theodor Dreyer - Danish film director
Charlotte Anne Lopez - Miss Teen USA
Christina Crawford - author
Clarissa Pinkola Estes - author
Crazy Horse - Lakota war chief
Dan O'Brien - decathlete
Daunte Culpepper - football player
Dave Thomas - entrepreneur: founder of Wendy's
Debbie Harry - singer
D.M.C. - hip hop artist
Edward Albee - playwright
Eric Dickerson - athlete
Faith Daniels - news anchor
Faith Hill - country singer
Freddie Bartholomew - actor
George Washington Carver - inventor
Greg Louganis - athlete
James MacArthur - actor
James Michener - author
Jean Jacques Rousseau - philosopher
Jesse Jackson - minister

fr yeal9:

>Some famous adoptees:...Eleanor Roosevelt - First Lady...

Nice try, but not true. Eleanor Roosevelt was NOT adopted by anyone after losing her parents when she was very young. She lived with her Grandmother Hall, but was NOT adopted by her.

Read history and learn.

I am reminded of a doctor in Brazil who was excommunicated for giving an abortion to a 9 year old who was raped by her father and would have almost certainly died.

I think this is a situation where belief in an afterlife isn't a 'comfort'. It is a draconian weapon. When you 'know' that someone is going to heaven, why not enforce strict rules? Why even bother with hospitals at all? The RCC should abandon their modern medicine and leave it all up to God. We'll see who people will pick after that.

Rush Limbaugh and other right wing Republicans have often ranted about the evils of feminism and yet one of the top right wing Republicans in the nation now claims the title of “frontier feminist.” Is Sarah Palin really a feminist?

The concept of feminism generally refers to the idea of gender equality. This concept causes a bit of a contradiction for politically active Bible literalists like Sarah Palin. On the one hand in her speech to the Susan B. Anthony List, Palin talks about how women can be professional and still be mothers. This message is very much consistent with the ideals of feminism. On the other hand, the Bible has numerous verses about the role of women to be submissive to their men. Women are often treated as property in the Bible.

You can read the rest of my response to this topic:

http://www.examiner.com/x-8928-Philadelphia-Atheism-Examiner~y2010m5d19-On-Faith-Sarah-Palins-feminism-faith-and-abortion

I will be responding to every issue posted in the 'On Faith' section. If you would like to be notified when my new response is up, please subscribe.

It's Roveian backwards-talk.

There's nothing 'feminist' about taking away womens' rights to choose, to have autonomy over what happens in their own bodies; whatever you believe the right choice may be.

The anti-choice movement does in fact simply want to remove all such choice, by calling all abortions the same as late abortions and all abortions murder, and birth control the same thing as abortions, and rape kits the same as abortions... and on and on.

A feminist way to be 'pro life' is to focus on helping *mothers,* not in telling them to submit to men and their mouthpieces. ...Like Palin.

The "Pat Robertson feminists" oppose not only abortion, but often birth control as well. Yes how can women ever hope for social and economic equality without easy access to birth control. This proves we'll never move forward by relying on selective interpretations of Iron Age theology.
Posted by: DAN46

Ah, but Palinesque "feminists" don't really want social and economic equality for women either. I've known several women who call themselves feminists in one breath, and in the next,say things like "It's fine for a woman to work until she has kids, then she needs to stayhome with them." Or "It's fine for a woman to work as long as her husband is okay with it." Or "It's fine for a woman to have a job as long as she doesn't earn more than her husband."

For those who oppose abortion, perhaps we can sum up: "Don't want an abortion? Don't have one."

Just don't let your religious point of view prevent my wife, daughter, or friend from having one (should they so choose.)

And,please, don't get into that "But, my religion is the only true religion." Please, please, learn a little from history. People have been killing each other since the dawn of time because of this very competing claim.

Being against abortion is good. God also expects people to be sexually pure until marriage. How does Sarah Palin explain how her daughter Bristol got pregnant? Surely not by having pre-marital sex. GASP!!!!! Little Tripp must be another virgin birth.

Avoiding one sin does not negate the other sin, Sarah. Don't go off nominating Bristol for sainthood just because she didn't have an abortion during your short-lived political campaign. She got pregnant because she had pre-marital sex, which is still a sin.

Just because Bristol thinks the world needs to know what her 'life as a single mom' is like (at $15,000 to $30,000 per "speech") doesn't mean she's got the life experience, the knowledge, to have any effect on the teen pregnancy problem. Will her speaking fee go up after she has the second, third, out-of-wedlock kid? What makes her limited knowledge of life worth $5, let alone $15,000 to $30,000?

If Bristol thinks talking about having an out of wedlock kid is worth $15,000 to $30,000 per "speech", (sadistically I actually kind of want to hear what ridiculous and pathetically smoozy slogans Bristol will come up with, just like her mama grizzly Sarah) what will Sarah Palin's younger daughter be taught to do for money? The whole family seems to be a bunch of money-hungry #$%*@'s.

Yeal9- a very impressive list of adoptees. Please add me to the list. However, I am pro-choice.

It saddens me that whenever I have a "discussion" with protesters outside of family planning clinics, I always get the same answer to the one question I ask, "How many children have you adopted?" Invariably, the answer is, "none"

They stand there praying for an end to abortion but do nothing for the children that are already in this world in need of parents.

I can legitimately call myself pro-life and pro-choice. I can also call myself anti-abortion and pro-family. Labels can be manipulated for one's own purpose. I don't think anyone wants to see this as a necessary procedure but it certainly is a necessary choice a woman should have.

The people who stand in protest of abortion and a woman's right to choose and that DON'T adopt unwanted children are the same people that stand in the way of a loving homosexual couple's ability to adopt that said unwanted child.

It is illegal in the state of Florida for a homosexual couple to adopt a child. Now THAT is a "sin."

I think you should have quit while you were ahead. If you go back to the original questions, the last paragraph didn't seem to fit the subject, although I agree with you. Otherwise a good description of Palin feminism and a good essay.

Yeal9 - What's your point?

As amusing as the last line of the 2nd to last paragraph is, I don't really get how you go from criticizing idiotic fundamentalists in general to closing with "...just one more example of ... immoral and heartless teachings of the Catholic Church." As fundamentally corrupt as the Catholic Church (and perhaps any organized religion) is, they do a great deal of good work for the poor and working class. Perhaps the good is the bathwater and the bad is the baby in the case of the Catholic Church, but I think you're driving away the target audience for this sentiment as well as drifting off target.

I wish you stayed on point so that I could bash Robertson instead of your essay. There's nothing too bad to say about him--the dregs of humanity. Palin, being an ideological bedfellow, probably isn't much different.

Mr. Silverman,

Thank you for commenting on the health risks involved in pregnancy. For some reason, we seem to mostly focus on abortion as a choice, which it can be. However, it isn't always.

Sometimes carrying a pregnancy to term can kill a woman. Sometimes a fetus simply won't survive outside of the womb. And sometimes some people who consider themselves 'pro-life' are willing to kill pregnant women (and doctors, I note) in the name of that belief.

Remember, pregnancy and childbirth are not always straightforward. Women die in childbirth. Women are rendered sterile or disabled in pregnancy and childbirth. And, tragically, some fetuses won't ever live more than a few hours or days outside of the womb. That's real. Does God make mistakes? A catastrophic pregnancy might just be the best evidence.

It's so difficult to have an intelligent, responsible discussion regarding serious issues when the topic must always be connected to some theological tenet. The merits of a woman's right to choose stand on their own and require no assistance from any religious belief. Palin considers herself knowledgeable about religious matters, because she's held a bible and even read it on occasion.

Some famous adoptees:

Andy Berlin - entrepreneur: chairman of Berlin Cameron & Partners
Anthony Williams - politician
Aristotle - philosopher
Art Linkletter - comedian
Bo Diddley - musician, performer
Buffy Sainte-Marie - musician, actress
Carl-Theodor Dreyer - Danish film director
Charlotte Anne Lopez - Miss Teen USA
Christina Crawford - author
Clarissa Pinkola Estes - author
Crazy Horse - Lakota war chief
Dan O'Brien - decathlete
Daunte Culpepper - football player
Dave Thomas - entrepreneur: founder of Wendy's
Debbie Harry - singer
D.M.C. - hip hop artist
Edgar Allan Poe - poet, writer
Edward Albee - playwright
Eleanor Roosevelt - First Lady
Eric Dickerson - athlete
Faith Daniels - news anchor
Faith Hill - country singer
Freddie Bartholomew - actor
George Washington Carver - inventor
Greg Louganis - athlete
James MacArthur - actor
James Michener - author
Jean Jacques Rousseau - philosopher
Jesse Jackson - minister
Jesus - adopted by Joseph the carpenter (Bible)
Jett Williams - country singer and author
Jim Palmer - athlete
John J. Audubon - naturalist
John Hancock - politician
John Lennon - musician
Langston Hughes - poet and writer
Larry Ellison - entrepreneur: chief executive of Oracle
Lee Majors - actor
Leo Tolstoy - writer
Les Brown - motivational speaker
Lynnette Cole - Miss USA 2000
Malcolm X - civil rights leader
Mark Acre - athlete
Matthew Laborteaux - actor
Melissa Gilbert - actress
Michael Reagan - author, talk show host
Moses - Biblical leader
Nancy Reagan - First Lady
Nat King Cole - singer
Nelson Mandela - politician
Patrick Labyorteaux - actor
Peter and Kitty Carruthers - figure skaters
President Gerald Ford - politician
President William Clinton - politician
Priscilla Presley - actress
Ray Liotta - actor
Reno - performance artist, comedian
Sarah McLachlan - singer
Scott Hamilton - figure skater
Sen. Paull H. Shin - politician
Sen. Robert Byrd - politician
Steve Jobs - entrepreneur: co-founder of Apple computer
Surya Bonaly - figure skater
Tim Green - football player/commentator
Tim McGraw - country singer
Tom Monaghan - entrepreneur
Tommy Davidson - comedian
Victoria Rowell - actress
Wilson Riles - educator

The "Pat Robertson feminists" oppose not only abortion, but often birth control as well. Yes how can women ever hope for social and economic equality without easy access to birth control. This proves we'll never move forward by relying on selective interpretations of Iron Age theology.