How The GOP Went Back To The 1950s In Just One Day | TPM2012

Very neatly, and on three separate fronts, conservatives in America turned the clock back to the 1950s with their rhetoric about women’s rights Thursday, according to women in politics on both sides of the aisle. This could be a big problem for the GOP when the calendar reaches November.

RELATED: Santorum Funder Friess: ‘Gals’ Used To Put Aspirin Between Their Knees For Contraception

Let’s take a look at Thursday, February 16, 2012, the day Washington fell into a time-warp.

• On Capitol Hill, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) held hearings on contraception and religious freedom that produced the now-famous picture of a table full of men called to weigh in on access to contraceptives. Democrats wanted a woman — a Georgetown law student with a friend who lost an ovary because the university doesn’t cover birth control — to say her piece at the hearing, but Issa wouldn’t let her on the panel. He said she wasn’t “appropriate or qualified” to discuss the topic at hand.

Jaws dropped in the women’s rights community.

via How The GOP Went Back To The 1950s In Just One Day | TPM2012.

Some Thoughts:

• I am a conservative woman who opposes the legislation proposed by the Obama administration – in all its forms. I believe it is patently unconstitutional to require religious institutions (whether or not they are churches) to provide access contraception and abortifacients if it violates their religious convictions.
• It does not impinge on any individual’s constitutional rights for religious institutions not to provide them, because they are available elsewhere, and whether or not employees choose to acquire these medications through other avenues does not impact their employment.
• The above article is promoting an obvious falsity: that a friend of Susan Fluke (the Georgetown student) lost an ovary because the university doesn’t cover birth control. Engaging in that type reporting whips people into a frenzy of emotionalism on false pretenses.
• No one is advocating that women not use contraception. Any suggestion in that regard is false.
• We (conservatives) are insisting that the constitutionally protected rights of everyone be protected. That includes the Catholic church’s right to decline coverage of medication and/or procedures that run counter to Catholic theology.
• Casting aspersions about the GOP returning to the 1950s is, again, another tactic to whip people into an emotional frenzy. Further, what exactly is bad about people being more discrete, about women (in particular) having more respect for ourselves & our bodies than is currently the trend, about dating without the expectation of sex, about maintaining virginity until marriage, about men & women taking some personal responsibility?

More to come…

Obama Re-Election Credited With Burst of Gun Sales | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth

Gun sales are booming across Texas, and some buyers say their growing belief that President Barack Obama’s re-election is inevitable is fueling their race to bear more arms.

So brisk have sales been that the rush has created a nationwide shortage of firearms and ammunition, the Star-Telegram reports. Fort Worth gun shop owner DeWayne Irwin said the rush is similar to one seen shortly after the president’s 2008 election.

Alan Korwin, author of nine books on gun laws and operator of a gun laws website, tells the Star-Telegram that some are worried that Obama’s re-election would embolden a major gun control push.

Korwin said people worry that if Obama wins “he will go after firearms in a way we have never seen before.” He added the belief is fueled by perceived disarray in the field of candidates for the Republican presidential nomination.

via Obama Re-Election Credited With Burst of Gun Sales | NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth.