Ding-A-Lings of Spring
Political pregnancies, creationists and cattle-rancher Cliven
The rain of ridiculous ravings from America’s political right continued unabated as spring took hold. Let’s look at a few examples.
Last week, Chelsea Clinton announced that she and hubby Marc Mezvinsky are expecting a child. Conspiracy mongers in the right-wing media went crazy. Steve Malzberg of Newsmax suggested, based on a thick file of nothing, that the pregnancy was deliberately timed to help Grandma Hillary’s expected presidential campaign. Oh, sorry, he did have one bit of evidence: Chelsea had mentioned in an interview that her mom was constantly asking about grandchildren.
News flash: This is what mothers do. My own mother, despite having several grandchildren already, used to ask if I would be giving her one, though she was unprepared to discuss surrogate pregnancies. The notion that the Clintons could have ordinary human impulses is apparently unthinkable to some.
LifeNews.com reported on what we might as well call ”BabyGate,” as ”Abortion supporter Chelsea Clinton announced today that she’s pregnant – not with a fetus or clump of cells but with a ‘child.”’
OMG, she’s pro-choice but she’s having a baby?! What hypocrisy! What murderous gall! I hardly know where to begin with the loopy malignancy of this, which made me laugh out loud. It perfectly captures the presumptuousness of people who cannot get their heads out of other people’s uteruses. Only in the fevered busybody brain could respecting a woman’s right to make her own reproductive choices mean that you actively desire the killing of unborn babies.
I write this with fresh memories of an adorable little girl in her Easter finery running happily up and down the aisle at Israel Baptist Church while a deacon told the congregation that she was fine and to let her be. (To the reader who accuses me of genocide for being pro-choice, who is wondering what a demon like me was doing in church Easter morning: I was invited by my friend Rev. Mark Thompson, who led a vigil for the murdered Dr. George Tiller in 2009 and called him a martyr. Feel free to have an aneurism.) I confess I was more attentive to what the restless children near me were doing than to what the deacon was saying. The little girl especially enjoyed twirling around with her arms outstretched like Julie Andrews in the Alps.
Believe it or not, as I sat there with my Baptist friends and their families, it did not once occur to me that the little monsters should not have been born. I love children, not in the sense W.C. Fields did (“preferably parboiled”), but for their rambunctious and questioning little selves. Those of us who don’t want to see a party in thrall to fanatics retake the Senate cannot point out often enough that religious bullies have no monopoly on loving children. The obsessed anti-abortionists in Congress recently showed their godly devotion to child welfare by cutting food stamps.
In other news: Touting the latest in science education, Carl Kerby of the creationist group Answers in Genesis claims that dinosaurs (tiny baby dinosaurs) were aboard Noah’s Ark. Creationists think the biblical flood happened just over 4,000 years ago, whereas the fossil record shows that dinosaurs disappeared 65 million years ago. Off by a whisker!
Meanwhile, Alan Keyes praised Apocalypse-seeking rancher Cliven Bundy, calling him a latter-day Rosa Parks. Sure, refusing to pay grazing fees like other ranchers for using public land is totally like being an African American in Alabama in 1955.
Bundy’s armed standoff with the Bureau of Land Management also prompted the head of Tea Party Nation to plug Operation American Spring, next month’s planned pro-coup Washington rally to force President Obama from office.
As a defensive measure, I recommend self-medication. Here’s to the revolution.
Richard J. Rosendall is a writer and activist. He can be reached at rrosendall@starpower.net
.
Support Metro Weekly’s Journalism
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!
