politics and religion – Feminism and Religion

Dear Anti-Harris Progressives: Here’s how to help Palestine (and the economy, and everything else) by Trelawney Grenfell-Muir

First, understand without doubt: I agree with the anti-genocide protesters (and the progressives who are frustrated about our rigged economy). I couldn’t agree more that we need an arms embargo against Israel. I support the progressives who are protesting at Harris rallies, saying they refuse to vote for any candidate who does not commit to an arms embargo, so that no more US arms will be sent to wage ethnic cleansing against the civilians (mostly women and children) of Palestine. Harris has advocated for a ceasefire, she has met with the protesters, and she has responded politely to their protests against the genocide. But when they continue to chant that they won’t vote for her, she responds, “You know what? If you want Donald Trump to win, then say that. Otherwise, I’m speaking.”

I do not like the hand we’ve been dealt. Our democracy, always deeply flawed, has become increasingly weak and unstable. In fact, many professors and analysts increasingly define the US as a plutocracy – governed by and for the top 1%, in which the average citizen has little to no voice or impact on policies. Monopolies have consolidated in order to help destroy democracy, driving costs of living up and wages down. The Military Industrial Complex, with its staggering domination of the international markets, has locked the US into endless war, often in support of autocracies over democracies. And the same billionaires who are causing climate change, are investing in high tech solutions to save themselves from the apocalypse while the rest of us go extinct or become their slaves.

The Purpose of Women by Beth Bartlett

12^th century theologian Thomas Aquinas didn’t think much of women. He’d known less than a handful during his lifetime – his mother, who sent him off to a Benedictine monastery when he was five, as was the custom at the time, and later abducted and imprisoned him, with the help of her other sons, seeking to “rescue” him from his choice of becoming a Dominican priest; his two sisters who were sent to him while imprisoned to dissuade him from his choice; and the prostitute his brothers sent into his prison cell to try to tempt him to sin and break his vows – unsuccessfully. So perhaps it is no wonder that Question 92 of his Summa Theologica asks, “Should woman have been made in the original creation?” Though more likely his question was prompted by the milieu of misogyny in which he was raised and lived, having been educated in the theological tradition of Augustine who believed women to be the “lesser” sex and necessarily subject to men, and highly schooled in and known for reviving the thought of Aristotle, who said of women, “a woman is a misbegotten man.”[i]

Legacy of Carol P. Christ: LET’S ASK MITT IF MORMON PATRIARCHAL BELIEFS AFFECT HIS VIEWS ON WOMEN’S EQUALITY

This was originally posted on September 10, 2012. Moderator’s Note: While Mitt Romney is not running for office at this time, there are many politicians, of varying religions, who are and who deserve to be questioned in this manner.

Why has Mitt Romney’s Mormon faith mostly been a non-question in his political life? John Kennedy was asked if he would obey the Pope or make his own decisions, Jimmy Carter was asked how his Baptist faith would affect his Presidency, and Barack Obama was asked if he agreed with the sermons of his preacher. Why is the press afraid to ask Mitt Romney if he agrees with the patriarchal teachings of his church and if so, if this affects his views on the rights of women?

Like other patriarchal institutions, the Mormon Church believes that women’s place is in the home. Every Mormon man is a priest and a patriarch in his own home. Mormon belief teaches that men are to make the final decisions in the family, that only they can be leaders in the church, and that they are the members of the Mormon community who should speak and act in the public (non-home) dimensions of life. Traditional Mormons believe that “ [The] LDS [woman is] always [to] accept counsel from her husband, and not as just his opinion, but as God-inspired revelation.”