on the war of the religious right against the separation of church and state and it's current attacks on the rights of women

I don't really like to get involved in politics, at least not the way that politics are practiced in this country lately. I know this may come as a big surprise to those of you who also know me on FB, but I didn't fight for women's equality in the 70s and 80s just to let all that progress be erased by the christian religious right and their political puppets in the Republican party. We ignore these people at our own peril.

They are not satisfied with just outlawing abortion which they have not yet been able to do although they have managed to attach a lot of stringent, heinous, and invasive regulations to access in their attempt to legislate their particular religious views on the subject.

Not content to let their beliefs rule their lives, they want their beliefs to rule everyone's lives and if the recalcitrant won't accept their god, savior, or moral views as the one and only guiding light, then they will force that upon them by insinuating their religion into the laws of this land.

Only, the law of this land, the intent of the founders of this country, is based on the separation of church and state. While the ultra-religious would have you believe that this is a christian country it is, in fact, not. This is a country with a lot of christians but it is also a country with a lot of muslims, jews, buddhists, sikhs, hindus, wiccans, deists, agnostics, and atheists to name a few.

The religious right began their attack on our country in the mid-50s when they terrorized our citizens with their witch hunts for communists. 'God' was not mentioned in our national motto, our pledge of allegiance, or on our money until that time.

The christian religious right has been intent on subverting the will of the founders of this nation ever since and their current target is the women of this nation who have fought long and hard to equalize their standing in this country. They are doing everything they can to restrict women's access to contraception and preventive health care with their constant attacks on Planned Parenthood and their other proposed and passed legislation even to the point of redefining 'rape'. Their most recent attack in Wisconsin is legislation declaring single parenthood to be child abuse.

It is not for them to decide with whom, when, why, and how often women have sex. It is not for them to decide when or if a woman has children and what she does to prevent it. It is not for them to decide what medical care she needs and when she needs it. It is not for them to decide when life begins. It is not for them to decide any of that for anyone other than themselves. It is, frankly, none of their business, especially when their self-appointed authority comes from their religious scriptures of a mythical vengeful father god. They do not get to decide what is right and natural for human beings when their justification comes from these same 2,000 – 5,000 year old religious myths.

Make no mistake, they have no agenda against men. They are not trying to restrict men's access to birth control nor preventive health care for them and in fact have no problem with insurers covering medications that enable men to continue to have sex even after their bodies have naturally given up the effort. They are not trying to restrict men's activities in any way.

What they want is for women to be out of the work force, back in the home raising and home-schooling their children with a christian based curriculum, subservient to and totally dependent on their husbands, sending us back to the day when we had no choice but to have child after child until it killed us. They want their version of god and religion to be the litmus test for this country even to subverting the law of the land to their religious 'authority'. Sound familiar?

They do not want strong, healthy, independent, intelligent women who control their own destinies and when we fight back, when we defend ourselves against their constant attacks on our freedoms, and that includes our freedom to be free of their religion, then they cry foul. They accuse us of being immoral, of being anti-god, of denying them their rights to their religious freedom, of attacking christianity.

Religious freedom does not mean being able to or having the right to impose your beliefs on the rest of the population. Religious freedom means being able to live your life as your religious doctrine dictates. Your life.

The law of the land still trumps religious agendas and that includes providing health services they may be personally opposed to as long as they operate in the secular sphere. You cannot be free of prosecution for murder when you commit such because 'god' told you to. Neither can you refuse to provide legal medications through medical insurance policies in the secular sphere because your 'god' says it's wrong.

There is no war on religion, there are no attacks on christianity. There is only self defense against those who would define us as narrowly as possible, who would impose their version of god on us, who would marginalize and vilify every expression of humanity that they don't approve of and deny us our human and civil rights.

And so I will continue to speak out against these attacks on our freedom and I hope you do too.