Page Two

Let's start today with some words of Christian love, some neighborly good feelings offered by those so pure of purpose that they can dictate to all: Chris Danze and the gang determined to outlaw safe and legal abortion, stop contraception, end sex education, limit sexual equality, and restrict personal and religious freedoms. They want their religious beliefs to be the guidelines to control your behavior, their morality to provide the strictures by which you live. These folks are so close to God they can ignore his teachings: "Do not judge, and you will not be judged. Do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven." Some excerpts from a recent letter circulated by Danze and his cohorts:

"Dear protectors of the least of our brothers and sisters,

"Boycott prayer of the day: Let us pray for the doctors and nurses who use their skill to kill instead of heal, that they repent and return to the service of the sick. Christ is Risen! By his Resurrection, He has destroyed the power of death, and therefore the power of abortion. The outcome of the battle of Life has already been decided. Life is victorious! Let us pray that all pro lifers will spread this victory to every segment of our society.

"Our Father who art in heaven ...

"Curtis Cline, the project manager for the Planned Parenthood 'Choice Project' was installed as President of the Austin chapter of the Association of General Contractors. ... See attachment for photo of Curtis. He is on the far right.

"The foundation construction subcontractor has been identified. He is ... A plumbing permit has not been taken out with the City. The foundation cannot be poured legally without a plumbing permit, which is an 'open record'. We monitor the city permit records three times a day.

"Please contact the construction participants below. Ask them not to participate in building this 25,000 square foot abortion factory that will kill children and maim women.

"Assume your calls are being recorded and anything you say may be on the local evening news.

"Please inform them:

1) It is wrong to build an abortion chamber.

2) It is bad for future business to build an abortion chamber.

"Please remind them that churches and church building committees in Dallas, Fort Worth and Austin will be informed of their participation. ...

"We need to send a message to Planned Parenthood and this country, that PP's sixty-five year reign of terror has peaked and will come to an end.

"If there are indications that an abortion facility is slated to be built in your community please contact Texas Contractors and Suppliers for Life. We are interested in exporting this boycott strategy worldwide to hasten the demise of the global child killing industry. Thank you. ...

"Please remind your church and church building committee to work with pro-family subcontractors and suppliers only.

"Thank you

"BELOW IS A LIST OF THE ABORTION CHAMBERS THAT ARE CURRENTLY KILLING CHILDREN AND DAMAGING WOMEN IN AUSTIN TEXAS. ...

"Owner/Serial Killer," "Head deathscort," "and various other roving serial killers, brought in from outside of Austin area," "Medically licensed serial killers," "(recently came out of retirement to kill again) ..."

"Reproductive Services is The City of Austin's contract killer. This organization has received millions of Austin taxpayer dollars to kill children whose mothers are poor. It's cheaper to pay 'Repro' to kill a poor mother's child by abortion then to pay the hospital to deliver a live baby. The City Council and the City's 'Medical Assistance' Program are obviously doing the math. ...

"Please pray for these local active serial killer/abortionists:

"Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen 'O my Jesus, forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy."

A few things to note:

1) Danze and the crowd are not in need of God's mercy. But you are.

2) Planned Parenthood has a 65-year history of terror, during half of which they didn't perform abortions. The terror being contraception advice, family planning, and education. The terror being personal control over one's body and family.

3) This is not about personal acts of conscience but applied bullying, veiled threats, and constant intimidation. This is God's work? The tactics are the same the Jersey mobs used to control the waterfront when I was a kid. Does God's word purify mob rules? Are threats and intimidation acceptable Christian tactics? Given that many in the mob were good churchgoers, they'd probably answer "Yes."

4) When they say "protectors of the least of our brothers and sisters," they only mean the unborn, not the living.

5) "Life is victorious! Let us pray that all pro lifers will spread this victory to every segment of our society." "Life" here means "birth." Once mothers are forced to give birth, they're on their own.

6) "It's cheaper to pay 'Repro' to kill a poor mother's child by abortion then to pay the hospital to deliver a live baby." Which logically would mean that, cost being no object, they should be for increased taxes to help cover health, human services, and education costs. I'm waiting for that position paper.

7) They should be insisting on the state's commitment to unwanted children, that foster care systems be much better funded, with highly qualified staff handling reasonable workloads, but this is nowhere on their agenda. They want the state out of the family and the household when it comes to sex education, familial disputes, parental competency, and health and human services support. They want the state involved only to restrict the availability of contraception and deny reproductive freedom.

8) Finally, as with the state's recent read-and-wait-before-abortion program, they are concerned with the health of the mother. It is more scarring to have an abortion than to give birth to an unwanted child? It is more scarring to have an abortion than to give that child up for adoption or to raise the child even if one has no skills, desire, or means? I'm not making judgments; I think those equations are shockingly complex. But they don't; they find them simple: We can't trust women to decide whether or not to have an abortion without the state's intervention, but we can trust these same women (some children, really) to have a child. It is scarring to have an abortion, they claim, but not to live through nine months of an unwanted pregnancy. They care for the mother, as the abortionists do not, even if it means shaming them into doing what they don't want and stigmatizing them if they do.

If you truly believe life begins at conception, your path is set. One would expect that such folks would also oppose the death penalty or any war and be vigorous supporters of the state-supported social safety net, though there is an argument to being against abortion and in favor of the death penalty or just wars. But if one so passionately believes in the sanctity of life that he or she is against contraception, moral consistency demands militant pacifism.

Don't expect it. This campaign isn't about God; it isn't about morality; it isn't even about being pro-life. It is about controlling behavior. Sadly, it is about a very pathetic sense of safety – imposing their view of how the world should be because it offers a much more limited, controlled, and less threatening environment. It is based on a bogus romantic view of the past, which argues that things were better then, with the family sacred, religion dominant, and God everywhere. This world was destroyed by such secular intrusion as prayers being taken out of classrooms and abortions being legalized. Secular humanists, in a conspiratorial attempt to destroy the moral fiber of this country, assaulted God.

God is more powerful, glorious, and ever-present than that line of thinking argues. Suggesting the world was such a better place ignores the epidemic of tolerated inequities: child labor, exploited labor, racial and religious discrimination, unspoken affirmative action for the dominant classes, limited opportunity, rampant institutionalized sexism, accepted sexual battery, and so on. Instead of the government assaulting religion, Danze and the gang want the government to impose religious fanaticism.

I would like to see fewer abortions. Planned Parenthood's programs are exactly what will bring this about. The anti-legal-abortion gang wants to force us back into a world that never existed. Even they have to admit that if their agenda passed, the short-term impact would be horrific: no contraception, no sex education, no family planning, no abortion, no sex counseling. The notion being that then the consequences of sex and freedom would be so brutally illustrated that, though it might cost one generation, it would shock the next ones back into proper Christian behavior. Anti-abortion isn't just pro-birth, it's about punishment – for sex, pleasure, and freedom.

Listen to what they are really saying; consider their simplistic view of the world. In it there isn't much room for the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, personal and religious freedom, or even any interpretation of the Bible, of God's word, other than theirs.

The biggest differences between Danze's gang and the fanatic Muslim fundamentalists are their name for God, the holy books that they follow, and some of their language. Their view of religious and personal freedom, as well as of the modern world, is otherwise pretty much the same. If this seems too exaggerated, think about it. You could create a questionnaire about the modern world, sex, and the boundaries of personal freedom to which each of those groups would offer nearly identical answers.