Caught On Tape
Nov. 16th, 2005 10:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nemorathwald"Memo May Have Swayed Plan B Ruling in WashingtonPost.com.
One of the silver linings of an administration's dependence on the loudest minority of zealots in its religious base is that they're so loud they open their mouths and insert their feet, as Pat Robertson recently did when he warned Dover PA that God might smite them for voting out the anti-evolutionists on the school board.
A conservative doctor gave a sermon at his church about how his memo to the FDA prevented the availability of a contraceptive. Of course churches tape their sermons because they're in the business of getting their message out. So now this videotape is giving credence to the claims of the contraceptive's supporters that the FDA's rejection of the contraceptive ignored scientific evidence in order to make social decisions for Americans about their private lives. Decide for yourself from his sermon:
"I argued from a scientific perspective, and God took that information, and he used it through this minority report to influence the decision," Hager said. "Once again, what Satan meant for evil, God turned into good."
...
Hager has been a highly controversial figure because of his strong views against abortion and emergency contraception and in favor of abstinence education. In his October sermon, he said that Christians such as himself were at "war" with people who would take faith and values out of medical care.
Does he mean the FDA should reject the contraceptive because Satan meant it for evil? Or does he mean that Satan meant the scientific evidence for evil but God turned it into good? Of course when a person who says that goes on to say he has a "scientific perspective" he means that the evidence he sees happens to go along with what he would still go on believing even if the evidence contradicted it.
In this situation we are not talking about just another ranting extremist from the back pew of a one-room church in the two-horse town of Incest West Virginia who a reality TV show dredges up and puts her with a pagan family in a Jerry Springer style. All the TV producers intend to do with that is incite fear and hatred that's not really merited by an important situation.
What we are talking about is someone influential enough to take contraceptive decisions out of your hands, which merits some concern. At this point a sober and thoughtful perspective would be to say that decisions made by our government officials and their policy committees ought to be accountable to all citizens, of whatever faith or lack thereof, to reason about together. An official's private faith in his or her unprovable assertions is completely unaccountable.
One of the silver linings of an administration's dependence on the loudest minority of zealots in its religious base is that they're so loud they open their mouths and insert their feet, as Pat Robertson recently did when he warned Dover PA that God might smite them for voting out the anti-evolutionists on the school board.
A conservative doctor gave a sermon at his church about how his memo to the FDA prevented the availability of a contraceptive. Of course churches tape their sermons because they're in the business of getting their message out. So now this videotape is giving credence to the claims of the contraceptive's supporters that the FDA's rejection of the contraceptive ignored scientific evidence in order to make social decisions for Americans about their private lives. Decide for yourself from his sermon:
"I argued from a scientific perspective, and God took that information, and he used it through this minority report to influence the decision," Hager said. "Once again, what Satan meant for evil, God turned into good."
...
Hager has been a highly controversial figure because of his strong views against abortion and emergency contraception and in favor of abstinence education. In his October sermon, he said that Christians such as himself were at "war" with people who would take faith and values out of medical care.
Does he mean the FDA should reject the contraceptive because Satan meant it for evil? Or does he mean that Satan meant the scientific evidence for evil but God turned it into good? Of course when a person who says that goes on to say he has a "scientific perspective" he means that the evidence he sees happens to go along with what he would still go on believing even if the evidence contradicted it.
In this situation we are not talking about just another ranting extremist from the back pew of a one-room church in the two-horse town of Incest West Virginia who a reality TV show dredges up and puts her with a pagan family in a Jerry Springer style. All the TV producers intend to do with that is incite fear and hatred that's not really merited by an important situation.
What we are talking about is someone influential enough to take contraceptive decisions out of your hands, which merits some concern. At this point a sober and thoughtful perspective would be to say that decisions made by our government officials and their policy committees ought to be accountable to all citizens, of whatever faith or lack thereof, to reason about together. An official's private faith in his or her unprovable assertions is completely unaccountable.
