The coming theocracy

I want to call your attention to an article entitled, "Why Don't Men Write About Abortion?" by Bob Burnett. Here's an excerpt:

My theory about why the Religious Right's systematic attack on reproductive rights gets so little attention from mainstream men is that most guys aren't conceptual. The notion that Christian Conservatives are pushing the US into theocracy is just too big, too sophisticated a concept for most men to grasp.

Yet that's what's happening. The roughly one-third of Americans who are aligned with the Religious Right want the US to become a theocracy, a rigidly Christian nation. This is too abstract a goal to serve as a useful organizing slogan, and so instead, the cunning leaders of the Right use inflammatory issues like abortion, gay marriage, and the teaching of evolution to rally their lemmings. But lurking behind their emotion-driven organizing is the notion of the US as a theocracy. One that will be run by men, of course.

What's this got to do with abortion, with reproductive rights? They're the most visible symbol of men's control over women's bodies. That's been one of the hallmarks of ultra-conservative Christianity since the third century, around the time of the first Council of Nicea...

And here's how the article ends:

The organized assault on reproductive rights, which produced the South Dakota legislation, is part and parcel of a plan to shift America from democracy to theocracy. It's a threat to everything that most of us believe in. Today they're trying to control how we make private medical decisions. Tomorrow it's how we think.

Americans are so used to being a secular state that we're relatively unprepared for an attack by well-financed theocrats. We've been conditioned to expect an attack on democracy to come from without, rather than within. Nonetheless, we're under vigorous, continual attack from the Religious Right.

That's why the abortion issue is of vital importance. It's so important that men need to pay attention and write articles. Abortion is not just a women's issue.

I do think that tomorrow they're going to be trying to control how we think. This issue is really very serious indeed. The theocrats are wealthy, well organized and determined to win. Their latest strategy is to declare that there's a war on Christians. Fundamentalists seem to think that if they're not allowed to shove their religion down other people's throats that they're somehow being persecuted. It's really important that this attitude be challenged.