Palin pick helps change attitudes toward women

And if she ends up helping McCain lose…..then what? What better way to destroy the political credibility of women than to put an incompetent one in high office.

If the Republican Party wants to do women a favor, why not rethink their position on the ERA? Of course, Sarah Palin probably thinks that’s a real estate broker.

Let me work on the headline of this column….

Palin pick helps change attitudes toward women held by sexist religious fundamentalists

better…still not perfect, let’s try again

Palin pick helps change attitudes toward women by those stuck in the 17th Century

hmmmm…I’m gonna keep working on it. By the way I see website for evangelicals posit a number of 100 million, but a more objective report via the Council on Foreign Relations website says:

“Their adherents are estimated to range from 40 million to 75 million, a widely varying figure because of the lack of institutional identity, such as that which exists in mainline Protestant denominations or in the Roman Catholic Church.”

http://www.cfr.org/publication/11341/

P.S.: Mr. Haussaman’s column begins “Contrary to what many on the left are saying, the Sarah Palin pick has the potential to positively and dramatically shift attitudes toward women in this country.” It seems to me this is one convoluted sentence. Is the author saying that “the left” is wrong because it already embraces gender equality and doesn’t have their minds stuck in some antiquated mindset that was discarded by “the left” decades, if not centuries ago? Is that a bad thing to have discarded this mindset? Is it wrong for “the left” to point out that Palin is for gender issues what G.W. Bush has been for “edumucation”? Wouldn’t another, better way, to start this column be: “What the left doesn’t understand is that there are still a buttload of Neanderthals in this country, and they are actually hung up on the ancient question of whether women should just churn butter and churn out babies.”?

What Scot said.

Palin pick helps change attitudes toward women held by massive and frightening subset of population who believe in an imaginary magical father figure in the sky

Oh, and yeah, Scot, FTW.

Actually, Sarah Palin’s pick does have the potential to do some good.

I’m no Palin supporter, BUT now that she and the Republican party are screaming “sexism” every time someone asks a legit question, we’re finally seeing that the double standard doesn’t work if you’re the ones who pushed it in the first place.

Has everyone forgotten all the truly snarky—and dare I say it? “Sexist”—attacks on Hillary Clinton?

Now the tables are turned and many people can’t help but notice the hypocrisy of those who cast the first stones . . .

As for the number of evangelicals in America—Gallup has been asking the question since 1976. The number who say they are evangelical has fluctuated between a low of 33 percent in 1987 and a high of 47 percent in 1998. But, as Wheaton reports (http://www.wheaton.edu/isae/defining_evangelicalism.html) that is probably too high. More accurate estimates are that some 25-30 percent of the population, 70-80 million, are evangelical, and even that estimate doesn’t account for the African Americans who are evangelical… So about 30-35 percent, or 100 million Americans, are evangelicals.

As VP candidate Palin challenges nothing but the most backward sexist stereotypic views held by a small proportion of the farthest wingnuts with the tiniest brains.

The R’s “platform” if they had one, would decidedly not be about initiating progressive change on behalf of women. Just being one isn’t enough.

Reading these comments, well, they just crack me up. Wait. Let’s review.
Someone named Scot says the headline should read either, “Palin pick helps change attitudes toward women held by sexist religious fundamentalists” or “Palin pick helps change attitudes toward women by those stuck in the 17th Century.”
And then Scot adds for good measure in an attempt to rewrite Heath’s first sentence: “What the left doesn’t understand is that there are still a buttload of Neanderthals in this country, and they are actually hung up on the ancient question of whether women should just churn butter and churn out babies.”?
And, well, there’s Chimpy Whosawhatsit or whateverthehellisyournameis. Chimpy says, “I’m treated to the zillionth analysis of Sarah Palin from the perspective of an evangelical blogger” and then adds “Palin pick helps change attitudes toward women held by massive and frightening subset of population who believe in an imaginary magical father figure in the sky.”
OK, wait. I’m a little confused. So who’s the intolerant, judgmental bunch? My, my, my. It’s so easy to be so smart and smug when we’re among friends, isn’t it? Are you some of the same folks who said you’re interested in intelligent coverage of issues. PLEASE!
If you’ll allow me a few remarks.
To Chimpy, I’m happy you’ve read so many analyses of Sarah Palin on this very point. That is of course one way one could read your sentence: That you’ve heard this ad infinitum. Or one could read it a different way: that you don’t want to hear it at all. Put more bluntly, are you stuck in your little world, my friend?
To Scot, if one were to read Heath’s column—I mean actually read it, and not glance at it on the way to writing your comment—one would see that Heath talked about diversity in the evangelical community. There are those who have more lenient views of women’s role in the pastorate. And of course there are those, likely the majority, who don’t.
To both of you, learn to use words such as “likely” or “maybe.” I used the word “likely” just now as a qualifier because, you know, I don’t know for sure. It’s something I picked up in school. Frankly, I think qualifiers are sorely lacking in debates today in the U.S.. Everybody is so sure they know everything, which is of course the first sign that they don’t much. As someone wise once said, the more I learn the more I realize I don’t know.
I guess I have a problem with your comments because I grew up in an evangelical house in Georgia decades ago. I do not consider myself an evangelical now, and in fact probably would find myself at odds with many beliefs that form the central tenets of evangelical Christianity. But I know one thing: Many of the people I knew growing up, including my parents, were good, solid people, just as many of the people you’ve known throughout your life no doubt have been good, solid people. And to hear them described as ‘neanderthals’ and ‘sexist religious fundamentalists’ who believe in a ‘magical father in the sky’, well, it’s condescending and demeaning. I’m sure you meant it in the best way, though.
But please, save the easy generalizations for somebody else’s sandbox.
And, oh, by the way, there’s a lot more people across the globe—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus—who believe in sort form of supernatural being/beings who have power to affect reality than those who think he, she, it, they is/are an “imaginary magical father in the sky.”
Maybe one day those who don’t believe this way will be in the majority. But until then, you will remain in that enlightened minority that is helping to lead all us poor deluded folks, or more accurately, ignorant slobs, to some form of self actualization.

Trip:

Thanks for your reply. As for “someone named Scot” you seem to imply with “someone named” that it is somehow wrong to be named “Scot” and/or I am hiding behind this quite obviously made up name. Well, being named “Scot” might be a terrible burden to carry, but I guess my folks felt I could handle it when they named me that. My parents having the last name Key, that would make my name “Scot Key”. I would therefore be “someone named Scot Key”. As awful as that may be, rest assured I am not “someone named Scot” but merely…Scot.

And speaking of my folks, my mom is Church of Christ, one of my sisters is an evangelical and I can play the “my relatives are more evangelical than your relatives” game if that’s what you want. Whether these relatives of mine are “good, solid people” might be up for debate, but anyone, evangelical or otherwise, who needs the Palin candidacy to finally come around to thinking women should be able to do anything outside the home is a socio-political Neanderthal, imho.

My relatives who may feel this way included. Trust me, we don’t talk politics much when I go back home for a visit. In fact, my mother’s only question in this regard on my last trip home was “Is it true that Obama is a Muslim?” I only wish this were not a true story.

“And, oh, by the way, there’s a lot more people across the globe—Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus—who believe in sort form of supernatural being/beings who have power to affect reality than those who think he, she, it, they is/are an “imaginary magical father in the sky.”

I fail to see the difference, but whatevs.

I realize I’ll always be in a tiny minority. Religious belief is an evolutionary response to existential fear, and existential fear is compounded by poor education, hunger, poverty and lack of opportunity—all of which are on the rise, and will continue to be as resource-hungry humans compulsively breed, an act that itself is often driven by antiquated belief systems.

Belief systems that also drive voting patterns, which in turn create antiquated and awful political systems.

Sucks to be me. :(

I envy your certitude, Chimpy, just as I envy the certitude of so many of those who are religious. In many ways, you remind me of them, in the sense that you are sure that you are right.

I am sympathetic to your view that religious belief is an evolutionary response to existential fear only so far as I’m willing to contemplate various explanations for what I struggle to understand.

Frankly, I am constantly amazed at what science has explained over the last century. What you said sits squarely in the evolutionary biology camp. And as the 20th century is sometimes defined as the century of physics, I’ve heard that what physics was to the last 100 years biology will be to the 21st century. So I am curious and hopeful to see what comes out of biological research.

But I seem to have less faith in science’s ability to answer certain questions than you do. Answer me this, Chimpy. Will science ever be able to absolutely answer what came before the big bang? Or why it’s impossible to determine a particle’s position and velocity at the same time? (Heinsenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, with which I am positive you are familiar.)

Your answer likely is a simple one: science will one day overcome these quandaries. But that is an article of faith, my friend. You believe in the power of the scientific method, as do I. I just happen to have a more humble opinion of its power. For all I know you are a philosopher of science who will rebut every point of what I have just said. But science is itself based on faith, if not in a deity, then in the hope that the scientific method works.

Just for a little pleasure reading, you ought to pick up The Pensees by Blaise Pascal, the 17th century mathematician, scientist and, yes, religious philosopher. Incidentally, Pascal was such a good mathematician that the writers of the seminal computer program named it after him. He was pretty humble about humans’ ability to answer certain questions. But, of course, he does come from the 17th century. If that’s a turnoff, try Michael Polanyi. Or maybe Karl Popper.

Chimpy said: “Religious belief is an evolutionary response to existential fear, and existential fear is compounded by poor education, hunger, poverty and lack of opportunity—all of which are on the rise, and will continue to be as resource-hungry humans compulsively breed, an act that itself is often driven by antiquated belief systems.”

I think there’s a fair amount of truth in this statement. What is existential fear? The realization that death will happen—that then brings the experience of life into utter clarity? A sense of not being fully self-actualized and resisting death? Isn’t religious belief really about not dying? About not wanting to let go of life? If someone has a well-developed religious faith in an after-life experience, do you think they don’t experience existential fear…?

I find this line of questioning generally productive for my own understanding of life and how to approach it.

What I don’t find productive is the tone and tenor of chimpy’s comment. He suggests that finding personal salvation through some sort of belief that life doesn’t end at death, however you define that salvation, is a cop-out. I don’t believe that at all. In fact, I can see that the experience of life can be greatly enhanced by faith based practices. Why else do hermit monks spend years in the desert meditating? Life is mysterious, and I’m happy to leave it at that.

As to politics, and the effect that religion has on voting patterns and political systems…

First, I generally have disdain for Chimpy’s type of disdain. From a purely practical standpoint, it does no good to view the masses with contempt due to some notion of spiritual and intellectual superiority. It makes one quite ineffective when it comes to organizing, because that superiority complex most certainly translates. Not to mention, it might lead one to believe that political power can be built through safe intellectual outlets, like the internet, rather than engaging with the masses in the actual real places that they are found. You know, like the local sports bar, rotary or scrapbooking club, or—gasp—the church. The reason the religious right is so powerful, btw, is because concerted effort was made over time to “organize” them politically.

But secondly, its somewhat delusional to think a “tiny minority,” as Chimpy refers to his viewpoints, is “right” (this is a common belief among some religions, it should be noted). The fact is, we are the same species—it’s called human. The notion that a small minority knows “the truth” about what is unknowable is, of course, highly suspect—whether that supposed truth be atheistic or all about the afterlife.

Regarding Heath’s column, I think it’s a very interesting thing to reflect on. While I don’t believe a Palin government would be good for women in general, I can see that it might have a positive effect on a certain sector of women when it comes to power within their own communities. I’m referring here to those whose lives are very intertwined with patriarchal religion. Is it important? For that community, writ large, perhaps so. Do they matter? I don’t know how one could be a feminist (which is a word in sore need of a definition these days) and think it doesn’t. Not to mention, who am I to invalidate the life of my sisters, to tell them that they are wrong to embrace religious patriarchy? I’ve found that I’m not willing to do that, because its a profoundly judgmental position to take regarding their choices. I’m more inclined to take a positive approach, pushing for greater freedom where it seems possible to find it.

Scot, thanks for your reply.
I certainly do not want to play the my-relatives-are-more-evangelical-than-yours game. I’m not interested in one-upmanship on this topic at this point in my life.
The purpose of my long-winded comment above is, Please don’t over-generalize. So many people tend to universalize their own experience, forgetting to take a step back and ask whether indeed their experience accurately reflects a universal truth.
While I don’t want to get into a contest over whose relatives are more evangelical, I do want to pass on a story from my life to illustrate the point about diversity among evangelicals.
My mother felt the call to ministry around 1985, but she was denied that path because of a growing movement at the time in the SBC to prohibit the ordination of women. (Prior to the 1980s, there was a nascent movement to ordain women in the SBC, but it quickly died with the fundamentalist takeover of the denomination) Rather than give up on her quest, my mom applied to and was accepted at a Presbyterian USA seminary in Atlanta. During her studies, she became a Presbyterian. Today she is a Presbyterian minister. Now one could say, thank you Trip, for making my point. She had to leave the Southern Baptist convention. But here’s the catch: my mom considers herself an evangelical Christian. What’s more, my dad—who was the chairman of deacons (top layperson) at the church where the Southern Baptist Convention started in 1844—supported my mother every step of the way toward her ordination.
I also had the occasion along my mom’s journey from layperson to pastor to watch people at several congregations, including the Southern Baptist church where I grew up, sidle up to her or my dad to quietly encourage them or to say thank you for what they were doing. Now one could focus on the word ‘quietly’ in the preceding sentence and say, ‘See, those people had to be furtive about their support.’ I’ll concede that point. But what I choose to focus on is that these people existed in these openly conservative churches and to say that perhaps there are a few people like them in churches all over this country but you may not know it.
So, you see, when I hear crass generalizations about all evangelicals being knuckle-dragging neanderthals it doesn’t quite fit with my experience, or the complexity of a very, large community. In an earlier comment I said that growing up I was surrounded by evangelicals who were good, solid people. What I didn’t say was that I knew evangelical Christians who didn’t fit comfortably into some pre-fashioned mold of what someone else expected an evangelical Christian to be. I realize that my experience may not reflect everyone else’s. But I know one thing: it certainly was not unique.

You wrote: “And yet, many of those same people have become the most excited supporters of the McCain/Palin campaign, and it isn’t because of the social moderate at the top of the ticket.”

You are perpetuating the myth that McCain is a social moderate. He is not. Look at his record and what he has to say about “social” issues such as choice and marriage equality. He is fervently against both. In that respect he and Palin are no different.