As if this murder reflects on the tens of millions in the pro-life movement who don’t murder abortion doctors.
Nice try.

“As if this murder reflects on the tens of millions in the pro-life movement who don’t murder abortion doctors.”
Sam, I think this murder reflects on the tens of millions in the pro-life movement who don’t murder abortion doctors the same way that the terrorist acts of the Taliban reflects on the millions of Muslims who do not engage in terrorist acts.

RJohnson’s comment suggests how the pro-abortion extremists like himself and Raushenbush will exploit the murder of Tiller to demonize pro-lifers.
You people need to get a life.
It is disgusting to objectify the murder of this one individual for political gain. Mourn the death of this doctor, but don’t politicize it. That is very inhuman. The man has not even been buried yet.

RJohnson,
The very significant difference is there are far too many Muslims in the world who approve of the Taliban and Al Qaeda actions.

You know, it would be credible for pro-lifers to distance themselves from the violent actions of the few if it were not for their rhetoric: “corrupt, alcoholic, profiteer, drug addict, blasphemer, liar, defiler, butcher, perverse, foul, evil, unethical, murderer, malicious”
It’s a very small step from believing that your “opponent” is like that, to acting on such belief. It sets such terrorists up for being considered (or thinking that they will be considered) martyrs for the cause of righteousness.
It’s not about exploiting his murder. It’s a very legitimate anger for the vile, dehumanizing rhetoric of the movement in general.

I was pro-choice as a young adult. After becoming a Christian, I could no longer defend abortion. We have so much more science now than in 1973 on the capabilities and complexities of humans in uteri, that destroying them is indefensible to me. Anytime one group of people becomes convinced that they have the right to kill another group of people–we’re in trouble, and have lost our moral compass. We are no different than a Hitler who killed “unwanted” Jews.
Whomever killed the doctor is guilty of murder, too.

Mourn the death of this doctor, but don’t politicize it. That is very inhuman.
You’re kidding, right? This was a political assassination. Tiller was killed because his actions disagreed with the political opinions of his assassin. This assassination is inherently political. To ignore the broader context – in which the words used by opponents of legal abortion to characterize those who disagree with them do political and social work in energizing and engaging publics in what appear to be quite uncontrollable ways – is to do Tiller an incredible disservice.
This was not just another murder. He wasn’t killed by a mugger on the street after his wallet. He was targeted specifically by an assassin because of the assassin’s political beliefs, and to pretend otherwise is to bury our heads in the sand.

Yeah James, but this was an isolated incident. Abortion is an epidemic. Murdering abortion doctors is not. Let’s watch how much we capitalize on murder.

And the pro-choice side has to change the way it talks, too. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t hear all pro-lifers being condemned as “misogynists” or “enemies of freedom” or “right-wing extremists” or “fundamentalist freaks” or some other hateful rhetoric like that. It’s not our fault alone that passions flair up on both sides.

Nate, you’re right that such rhetoric from pro-choice people is unlikely to lead to mutual understanding and agreement.
The thing is, though, rhetoric from pro-choicers is also not likely to incite people to murder. It’s one thing to decry one’s political opponents with strong language; it’s another thing altogether to suggest that they are rabid murderers, unethical, malicious ‘butchers’ who are out to make a profit on others’ misfortune.

Nate,
The trouble is – we on the pro-choice side of the aisle aren’t out there bombing clinics, murdering people, splashing teen-age girls with blood and calling everyone who disagrees with us on even one jot or tilde in the Bible un-Christian.
Your side, is. Your group has a history of supporting and inciting violence.
We saw exactly the same hatred on the floor of the US Congress during the Hate-Speech debate – claims that Matthew Shepard wasn’t murdered for being gay, there is no danger arising from inciting people to attack other transgender, doctors and homosexuals.
Yeah, right.
Your side planted this seed by de-humanizing women, gays and transgender. Now our society is reaping the consequences of what you sowed. Today is not the day to be pretending innocence – this is directly and unequivocally the result of the hateful Christian right.

Yes, this is about using language to dehumanize people. When you call someone a murderer, you begin to justify treating that person as subhuman, even to the point of taking that person’s life. It’s a tactic that has been used throughout human history to justify the killing or enslavement of millions of people. Slaveowners did it. Hitler did it. The Taliban does it. If you deny that anti-abortion extremists are not responsible, you deny history.

“Yeah James, but this was an isolated incident. Abortion is an epidemic. Murdering abortion doctors is not. Let’s watch how much we capitalize on murder.”
There is a history of violence perpetrated by pro-life sympathizers. The AP ran with the following story yesterday (as reported here in the Sacramento Bee):
http://www.sacbee.com/827/story/1906464.html
- May 31, 2009: Prominent late-term abortion provider George Tiller is shot and killed in a Wichita church where he was serving as an usher. A suspect identified by authorities as Scott Roeder was booked into Wichita’s county jail on a charge of first-degree murder.
- April 25, 2007: Authorities say Paul Ross Evans placed a homemade bomb in the parking lot of the Austin Women’s Health Center in Texas. A bomb squad disposes of the device, which contained two pounds of nails. There are no injuries.
- Oct. 23, 1998: Dr. Barnett Slepian is fatally shot in his home in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y. Militant abortion opponent James Kopp is convicted of the murder in 2003 and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
- Jan. 29, 1998: A bomb explodes just outside a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic, killing a police officer and wounding several others. Eric Rudolph later pleads guilty to that incident and the deadly bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. He justifies the Alabama bombing in an essay from prison, writing that Jesus would condone “militant action in defense of the innocent.”
- Jan. 16, 1997: Two bomb blasts an hour apart rock an Atlanta building containing an abortion clinic. Seven people are injured. Rudolph is charged by federal authorities in October 1998.
- Dec. 30, 1994: John Salvi opens fire with a rifle inside two Boston-area abortion clinics, killing two receptionists and wounding five others. Sentenced to life without parole, he kills himself in prison in 1996.
- Nov. 8, 1994: Dr. Garson Romalis, who performs abortions in Vancouver, Canada, is shot in the leg while eating breakfast at home.
- July 29, 1994: Dr. John Bayard Britton and his volunteer escort, James H. Barrett, are slain outside a Pensacola, Fla., abortion clinic. Barrett’s wife, June, is wounded in the attack. Paul J. Hill, 40, a former minister and anti-abortion activist, is later convicted of murder and sentenced to death.
- Aug. 19, 1993: Dr. George Tiller is shot in the arms as he drives out of parking lot at his Wichita, Kan., clinic. Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon is later convicted and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
- March 10, 1993: Dr. David Gunn is shot to death outside Pensacola, Fla., clinic, becoming the first U.S. doctor killed during an anti-abortion demonstration. Michael Griffin is convicted and serving a life sentence.
Absent from this list are the property damage cases, such as the pro-life activist who drove his car into a Planned Parenthood clinic in Bettendorf, IA, or the pro-life activist who damaged a women’s health clinic in Iowa City, IA.
Reaganite, if we were seeing this kind of pattern of violence from Muslim terrorists here in the US, you would be among the loudest voices here on Beliefnet calling for the seizing of CAIR office equipment and the jailing of their personnel as “people of interest” in a conspiracy case. You would probably join with other conservatives such as Rod Dreher in calling for all of the Mosques in the nation to be raided to see if there were any evidence of their supporting such violence.
Yet you stand in the role of CAIR in denying what is clearly obvious…there exists a pattern of violence among the members of the pro-life community. This violence is inspired by rhetoric from the right that demonizes their opponents. Your comments demonstrate how religious extremists can ignore violence committed in support of their viewpoints while condemning violence committed by others.

Let’s talk about the real hypocrites commenting on this post. We pro-life people are at least consistent. We condemn this murder AND the hundreds of murders this abortion doctor committed.
I am seeing a lot of indignation under this post who care ONLY for the murder of this doctor. You will never have credibility with us with this kind of blatant irrationality and inconsistency. Do you REALLY think it’s okay to kill a unborn child, especially when he/she could live outside the womb?
If so, we will NEVER be able to find common ground with you, NEVER be able to “let bygones be bygones” with you, and NEVER be able to vote with you.

Well, Sam,
since it is the declared goal of your movement to murder homosexuals, transgender and those doctors and nurses who help women in deep trouble, I guess we needn’t worry about your “voting” with us.
Why not just plain be honest and come out and say you are glad the poor man was murdered?

Sam, abortions are not murders. You know that. You call them murders to further your propaganda aims, but you undermine the side you purport to support with such false claims.
The majority of Americans support Roe v. Wade. The politicians that the pro-life crowd put their hopes in, the Republicans, did nothing to speak of about this issue, except take your money and offer you lip service. The approach of the pro-lifers has failed. Do you really want to start to make threats now? Today?

“We pro-life people are at least consistent. We condemn this murder AND the hundreds of murders this abortion doctor committed.”
This is everything that’s wrong about the pro-life movement. You have no basis on which to condemn Dr. Tiller’s murder, if he was really the genocidal, mass-murdering maniac your rhetoric says he was, then it was justice, if vigilante justice, that brought him down. You can make a martyr of his assassin: the killer stopped someone that was perpetrating a Holocaust, right?
What’s the basis for this so-called consistency? Why don’t you come out and say it, that Karma is a beautiful thing. Cheers to the hero who sent George Tiller where he belongs…straight to hell? That’s what consistency looks like, if you believe your own rhetoric.

Jesus said you would know people by their fruit and murder of the innocent is clearly condemned in the Bible. Tiller’s fruit was evil as is the man who killed him, I think they both might end up in Hell. It is clear that Liberals do not have to stomach to be faithful to biblical truth and want to wash away the parts they do not like or make it politically correct. Remember, Orwell warned the Left about this for accusing people of being thought criminals.
Many leaders in the Bible called people: spiritual prostitutes, idolaters, murderess, and sinners. But such terms hurt our feelings today so we must deny the biblical truth of such things and the bad fruit that is evident by those who do such actions

The pro-life movement must respond with more than condolences for Dr. Tiller’s death, they must change the way the talk about those who disagree.
You’re right – and I would add to that that they need to take other forms of action as well. What is the “pro-life” movement going to do to ensure that there are no more Scott Roeders? It isn’t just a matter of rhetoric; this man stood among the pro-lifers at numerous events and was quite active in the movement. Surely someone must have been aware that he favored violence against abortion providers.
Thus, for starters, I’m going to go ahead and demand – yes, demand – that all pro-life organizations have a stated policy that anyone who condones any kind of violence against abortion providers is not only unwelcome in their group or at their events, but will also be reported to law enforcement. Anyone who hears anyone condoning violence who doesn’t report that to law enforcement is an enabler and accessory, and also should be unwelcome in any reputable pro-life group.
I also think that militant anti-abortion groups should be treated exactly the same as any other terrorist cell. The FBI should be monitoring these groups’ message boards and online communications if they aren’t already, and should be asking judges for the authority to wiretap and intercept emails. Known members of militant anti-abortion groups should be put on terror watch lists, just as any member of a suspect Muslim group would be, and monitored for terror plots. What happened yesterday was an act of terrorism, plain and simple, and should be treated as such.

http://www.abortionviolence.com
Not all of the 8,519 incidents are directed towards pro-lifers, but a hefty number of them are, and countless others that I myself have witnessed (assaults, vandalism, etc) are not on the list. To say that only one side commits violent acts (including homicide) is ignorant of the lengthy track record of violence perpetrated by abortion advocates.
James – most major pro-life organizations already do have statements against violence, and every single smaller organization I’ve been involved with over the years has also taken a zero tolerance stand not only on violent actions and words, but also derogatory phrases directed towards abortion clinic staff and the expectant mothers going in. Acknowledging that will not help abortion advocacy groups as much as labeling all of us as thugs and terrorists, so they will continue using vitriolic language to describe the largest human rights movement in American history.

And just because I consistently see exaggeration about the reasons why women sought abortions at Tiller’s clinic:
“About three-fourths of Tiller’s late–term patients are teenagers who have denied to themselves or their families that they were pregnant until it was too late to hide it” – Peggy Jarman, spokesperson for Dr. George Tiller – Kansas City Star, August 26, 1991

To paint all pro-life advocates as perpetrators of violence would be just as wrong as labeling all Muslims as terrorists.
Or to label Islam as a violent religion.
I just don’t know anyone who would do that.
Right…

@Adrenalin Tim:
“This is everything that’s wrong about the pro-life movement. You have no basis on which to condemn Dr. Tiller’s murder, if he was really the genocidal, mass-murdering maniac your rhetoric says he was, then it was justice, if vigilante justice, that brought him down.”
No, what is *right* about the pro-life movement is that we don’t take God’s role into our own hands. We have a very limited role in deciding who lives and who dies, which resides solely within a governmental structure and not the hands of any individual. The point of the pro-life movement is that it is wrong to take the power over human life into your own individual hands, which is why we use words like “murder” to convey its enormity. A vigilante does the same kind of act the abortionist does; he takes a human life into his power unjustly, and he destroys it. We condemn both alike.
The slavery analogy is good, albeit not as the commenter intended. The pro-lifers aren’t dehumanizing abortionists; they are humanizing the unborn, just as the abolitionists humanized the slaves. When you humanize a slave, then yes, it condemns his master as a tyrant and the legal regime that allows it as a tyranny. When you humanize a fetus, then yes, it condemns the abortionist as a murderer and the politicians who permit it as accomplices. But those are right consequences of treating human beings as human beings.
As long as people take unjust power over human lives, be they slaveowners or abortionists, there will be those of us who will oppose them by telling the truth, and unfortunately, there will probably also be those who oppose them by taking up the same wrongful tactics. All we pro-lifers can do is to firmly maintain our principle that unjust power over human life is wrong and to hope that both sides, pro-abortionist and vigilante, come to see that they are wrong.

@James Gilmore:
Thus, for starters, I’m going to go ahead and demand – yes, demand – that all pro-life organizations have a stated policy that anyone who condones any kind of violence against abortion providers is not only unwelcome in their group or at their events, but will also be reported to law enforcement.
I agree completely. I am in the process of starting a new organization and this will be one of its policies. I am also going to write to every pro-life organization I belong to and ask them to adopt this policy — not that the murder cheerleaders are very interested in joining groups like PLAGAL or Consistent Life anyway, but it would set an example.

“We have a very limited role in deciding who lives and who dies, which resides solely within a governmental structure and not the hands of any individual.”
This further goes to show the hypocrisy. Again, you have no basis in consistency to decry both the murder of Dr. Tiller and the termination of pregnancies. If the authority of life and death resides “solely within a governmental structure”, then abortion, being that it is perfectly legal per the government, cannot and must not be termed “murder”. Words have meanings, remember? “Murder” is the unlawful taking of a life.
If the argument is all about respect for the rule of law and the authority of “governmental structure”, then abortion is permissible (within the constrictions set forth in law such as Roe and Doe) and vigilantism is wrong.
If, however, the issue is “tak[ing] unjust power over human lives” (under a particular definition that includes fetuses, and considering current US law immoral and unjust), then an abortion provider is a mass-murderer, and his assassin is as heroic as Bonhoeffer.
You can’t have it both ways. Dr. Tiller’s killer is either a hero for taking out a genocidal maniac, or he’s a criminal (and Tiller was not).

I hear that in El Salvador, the law treats abortion as murder no matter the condition of the mother or cause of pregnancy. Women who seek abortions have to get unregulated back alley operations. If the job is botched and they come to the hospital with internal bleeding, they are shackled to their beds and charged with murder. Some are sentenced to prison terms exceeding 30 years.
Is this the application of holy law the abortion-provider killers demand from the US government?

JP,
So you excuse murdering doctors as their just deserts?
Wonderful.

It’s absolutely hilarious to me to be lectured about violence from those who aren’t disgusted at late-term abortions. You have ZERO credibility. This post has zero credibility.
We in the pro-life movement get to be upset about abortion doctors being murdered. For you to be upset is a joke. Our consistency is in check…where’s yours?

“This further goes to show the hypocrisy. Again, you have no basis in consistency to decry both the murder of Dr. Tiller and the termination of pregnancies. If the authority of life and death resides ‘solely within a governmental structure’, then abortion, being that it is perfectly legal per the government, cannot and must not be termed ‘murder’. Words have meanings, remember? ‘Murder’ is the unlawful taking of a life.”
Your response is based on a premise that does not follow from anything I said. I didn’t say that the government had the right to define “murder.” I said that only the government had the right to take lives, which specifically includes capital punishment, and then only for just cause.
The primary sense of the term “murder” is presumably grounded as being unlawful in the sense of moral law, and only subsequently (and perhaps imperfectly) in the positive law. A corrupt government might look the other way in allowing wrongful deaths (say, honor killings), and presumably, most people would have the moral sense that they were murders. Taking the innocent lives of the pre-born is certainly “murder” according to the natural law, and that is the sense in which many pro-lifers use the term. Others refer to the Biblical definition and divine moral law, which results in a similar conclusion. You’ll have to explain to me how people using the term in a perfectly ordinary sense in their moral philosophy makes them “hypocrites.” I can’t see it.
“If the argument is all about respect for the rule of law and the authority of ‘governmental structure’, then abortion is permissible (within the constrictions set forth in law such as Roe and Doe) and vigilantism is wrong.”
Other than noting the fact that you’re not keeping up with the law (e.g., Casey v. Planned Parenthood altered Roe), I don’t disagree. Vigilantism is wrong. If someone wants abortionists punished, he should try to persuade the government to uphold its moral responsibility and outlaw abortion, not take the law into his own hands to the point of violence or killing.
“If, however, the issue is ‘tak[ing] unjust power over human lives’ (under a particular definition that includes fetuses, and considering current US law immoral and unjust), then an abortion provider is a mass-murderer, and his assassin is as heroic as Bonhoeffer.”
Obviously, we don’t think that killing a mass-murderer unjustly is any better than killing a fetus unjustly. The assassin in this case would be a villain, and he should be treated as such. There’s no such thing as an acceptable number of murders, no matter how many lives you think you will save.

“So you excuse murdering doctors as their just deserts?
Wonderful.”
No, it is absolutely not their “just deserts.” Nobody deserves to be murdered, not even a mass-murderer.

“We in the pro-life movement get to be upset about abortion doctors being murdered.”
“If someone wants abortionists punished, he should try to persuade the government to uphold its moral responsibility and outlaw abortion, not take the law into his own hands to the point of violence or killing.”
“Nobody deserves to be murdered, not even a mass-murderer.”
Sorry, it still smacks of disingenuity. If I really believed that my neighbor was raping and torturing his children, and the government would not or could not intervene, I would very likely pursue extralegal means to stop him.
“There’s no such thing as an acceptable number of murders, no matter how many lives you think you will save.”
Sorry, but your rhetoric belies your true beliefs. I imagine this would be your response upon learning of concentration camps in Nazi Germany:

“It’s immoral and contrary to natural law to murder Jews! I’m going to have to do something about that! Let me…wait 4 years, and vote for someone who may or may not do anything about it. Let’s try to get a judge appointed who can overturn the law allowing Hitler to murder the Jews – and send the issue back to the leadership of individual gas chambers to decide whether to continue the killing.
“Vigilantism is wrong. If someone wants [SS guards] punished, he should try to persuade the government to uphold its moral responsibility and outlaw [killing Jews], not take the law into his own hands to the point of violence or killing.”

It’s ridiculous. The response is so Milquetoast in proportion to the gravity of the crime (as you purport to see it).

Sam,
And when did God retire and make your His replacement?
The mere fact that you deny me any concern about loss of life should be enough to make the case for any reasonable person:
You fundamentalist Christians have gone completely off the deep end. You have lost the ability to understand that the US is a secular, Constitutional Republic and not a christianist dictatorship.
I have stated here on many occasions that I find abortion a bad thing. I have also stated that, as a man, I have no standing to tell a woman what to do with her body.
How dare you lecture me just because I firmly believe that women have the right to self-determination?
To usurp upon yourself the only right to feel remorse over unjust death is beyond belief, it is to reduce me to sub-human status.
Oh, right – as a gay man I already am sub-human in your eyes.
I’m out of here for this evening. You horrible people enabled this murderer. Don’t think God has failed to take note.

You horrible people enabled this murderer. Don’t think God has failed to take note.
That’s what makes me the most angry about all of this. Those who have for years been using dehumanizing rhetoric and terrorizing Dr. Tiller and his staff, calling him “corrupt, alcoholic, profiteer, drug addict, blasphemer, liar, defiler, butcher, perverse, foul, evil, unethical, murderer, malicious”… now they get to walk away and pretend that they have no responsibility, that their actions didn’t create the environment where such a horrific act could occur.
Bah.

Dr. Tiller was not a murderer. He performed a procedure that was 100% legal. Calling Tiller a murderer is baseless, inaccurate, illogical, dogmatic and hysterical.
Scott Roeder, the Right-Wing Authoritarian (RWA) follower who murdered Dr. Tiller is an example of what happens when the hallmarks of RWA followers reach a critical mass state: intense internalized FEAR combines with a very high degree of SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS to produce EXTREME AGGRESSION against whomever and whatever threatens the follower’s leader or ideology (ironically, “pro-life”). Roeder’s psychological disorder is defined by the following: illogical thinking, a highly compartmentalized mind, double standards, hypocrisy, blindness to himself, a profound ethnocentrism, and dogmatism.
I doubt that Roeder will turn out to be a Social Dominator or a Double High because people with those disorders rely on the RWA followers like Roeder to do the dirty work. The Social Dominators and Double Highs are the “pro-life” extremist leaders, including members of the clergy, hate radio commentators and right-wingnut TV pundits who keep the hateful anti-choice rhetoric ramped high. Gullible suckers like Roeder take the bait.
Dr. Bob Altemeyer spent 40 years researching and publishing about what makes the Right-Wing Authoritarian follower, the Social Dominator leader, and the worst-case-scenario combination of both, the Double High danger to society, tick. Google “The Authoritarians” and you’ll find the PDF of Altemeyer’s free online reader-friendly 264-page summary of his research which he wrote shortly before he retired.
I have no association with Altemeyer or his research. I came upon it will I was trying to answer the question, “Why do so many people continue to support failed ideologies long after their leaders have been discredited and the ideologies have been proven to harm the followers?”

@Adrenalin Tim:
“If I really believed that my neighbor was raping and torturing his children, and the government would not or could not intervene, I would very likely pursue extralegal means to stop him.”
This isn’t a case where the government won’t intervene. If you save the children, they will jail you, thus ruining your life, and hand the children right back to the abuser. It’s an injustice we have very little power to fix or correct, much like slavery was. You have to accept reality, not pretend the world is what you wish it would be.
“The response is so Milquetoast in proportion to the gravity of the crime (as you purport to see it).”
It’s little different than what abolitionists did in the U.S. and what Germans did to help Jews escape. Sometimes you have to realize that you can’t save everybody, and that if you try, you’ll just squander your own life fruitlessly, particularly when there is socially pervasive support for the evil regime. A foolish idealism doesn’t help. But that is why we are single-issue voters; nothing else is relevant until this one is fixed. And that is also why the rhetoric is so severe. Sugar-coating this issue is not an option, because it is comparable to any of the most monstrous governmental evils of the last couple of centuries.

@Panthera:
“To usurp upon yourself the only right to feel remorse over unjust death is beyond belief, it is to reduce me to sub-human status.”
Although it may surprise you to hear me say it, I agree with you entirely. it is natural to feel remorse for this death, and the embittered pro-lifers should feel it as well.
@Wingnuttia-Free Zone:
“He performed a procedure that was 100% legal. Calling Tiller a murderer is baseless, inaccurate, illogical, dogmatic and hysterical.”
Non sequitur. Believing that there is a natural law is hardly the exclusive province of the religious, and based on considerations of natural law, it is not baseless or inaccurate or illogical to call Tiller a murderer. Nor is it dogmatic; many atheists agree with the logic of the position. Nor is it hysterical; there is no emotion involved.
Your distinction is helpful, though, for distinguishing reasonable pro-lifers from extremists. Reasonable pro-lifers will appeal to reason; see, e.g., the protest at Notre Dame. Unreasonable pro-lifers will be ideologues who appeal to the will of the followers for blind adherence. But it isn’t correct to assume that everyone who espouses a right-wing (or left-wing) position is relying on the appeal to hysteria or emotion.

When did from conception to natural death NOT define being pro-life? I guess it depends on your religion but for some who claim to be pro-life life begins at conception and ends at birth.
In my book that makes them pro-birth and NOT particularly pro-life.

Could you please provide the date, time and place where the alleged church disruption
took place?
Were the disrupters arrested?
Could you provide their names?
What has been the follow up in court?

JP
I am pleasantly surprised. One of the first casualties of the culture wars was the sense of humanity towards those with whom one disagreed. The right-wing Christians excuse everything by pronouncing us abominations.
Because I am a gay, married Christian I am attacked here endlessly. Should someone here dare to speak up about the racists Rod Dreher encourages and succors over on Crunchycon, he kicks them off his forum.
Let one of us state that each woman must make these decisions for herself as only she has standing and we are – if only in the virtual world – splashed with blood and acid.
The whole debate we had here recently on the topic of torture led to an even greater hardening of the fronts – with the pro-torturers spewing anti-American sentiments towards those of us who oppose torture and, as always, cherry picking the Bible to defend torture.
So this murder is playing out against a background of basically two groups which have become more and more furious with each other over the last months and less and less able to see any value in the positions taken by their opponents.
Personally, I can well understand that a woman who has been raped or upon whom incest was committed would not want to carry the child to term. I can also understand the decision to have an abortion made by a woman who has been told by competent medical authority that the child she is carrying will suffer horrible pain for a few weeks of life – then die in agony.
Dito the woman whose child has died in utero or for whom, should the pregnancy progress, it will be at the cost of her own life.
For women in such situations, there must be medical attention available. To deny it to them is inhumane.
Personally, I would place a great deal more trust in the “pro-life” motives of the anti-choice for women groups if they were actually engaged in doing anything to help women and children.
They aren’t.
All they do is to bomb, murder, throw blood and harass young women in horribly difficult situations.
The only way I know for a solution to the culture wars is for us to find a means of tolerating differences in values.
The first step has got to be that this hatred directed at us by the far Christian right stops. The murder and bombings must stop.
The 1500+ murders, beatings and rapes of gays and transgender every year in the US is very much a part of this problem.
Since you are closer to the conservative Christian side than I am, what do you propose we do that we might bring an end to this war?
(I’d suggest for starters that the right-wing Christians stop denying gay Christians our Christianity, dito for the dismissal of pro-rights for women Christians.)

“Since you are closer to the conservative Christian side than I am, what do you propose we do that we might bring an end to this war?”
To stop thinking of it as a war for one thing, or at least as a war against other people. There’s certainly an accurate description of Christianity as a war against Satan, but even that analogy doesn’t require making one’s opponents into the enemy (as opposed to victims of the enemy). The goal isn’t to defeat the person; rather, it is to help the person win his own personal war against the Devil. If people thought of themselves as medics rather than soldiers, that would be a much better analogy. Your job as a medic is to save people from the carnage, not to defeat them, even if you know that you’re going to patch them up only to have them go right back to the same thing.
Disrespecting someone’s decisions doesn’t serve that cause, because the only antidote to the Devil is to have the person make the right choices. Particularly with respect to abortion, what doesn’t improve people’s choices is useless; they’re going to have custody over their unborn child as a matter of biology. I particularly like one pro-life organization, Birth Choice, that emphasizes that aspect of the process and that does provide support for women to make those choices.
The flip side of having your choices respected, though, is that you have to own your choices responsibly, which means that it’s fair game for someone to say that you’ve made a bad one. I’m no fan of “You’re not a real Christian” for the same reasons I gave above; real Christians make mistakes too. But I think it’s entirely fair to say “Jesus does not approve of this choice” or simply “What you’re doing is wrong; go now, and sin no more.” You’ve got to take responsibility for the fact that identifying yourself according to your personal choice (“gay” in this case) invites people to identify you with your behavior and thus plays into the same sort of attack mentality against your person that we both want to avoid. Identity labels, even those as innocuous as “gay” or “Latina” or “feminist,” obscures the distinction between choice and person for the worse.

“Identity labels, even those as innocuous as “gay” or “Latina” or “feminist,” obscures the distinction between choice and person for the worse.”
I would suggest we add the word “Christian” to that list, since nobody (to my knowledge) is born a Christian.

JP,
I certainly find your suggestion one not consider it to be a war worth thinking about.
Part of the anger from my side (I mean me personally) arises from the fact that I live between two cultures. Here, in Europe I am legally married (and our Christian church married us, too). My husband and I have been married for over four years, monogamous and faithful, true and committed partners now for over 24 years.
Accepted both legally by the secular community and loved and welcomed by our Christian community.
The moment we step off of a plane in the US, our marriage is not recognized, there is no single church in the area my parents live which accepts gays couples.
Our rights are not respected (we have done the whole multi-thousand dollar legal contract thing, twice had to go to court because the local hospital and local government wouldn’t accept it until a judge forced them to)…
In short, my anger on this topic has a very clear and valid basis. To me, what conservative Christians do in the US is to attack my marriage.
I have no problem with individual churches rejecting me – but I fail to understand the validity of one group of Christians imposing their views on secular marriage and all the other Christians who do recognize our marriage.
That is where the “culture wars” come into play. How do you suggest we find a solution here?
(I chose my own personal situation as an example as it is obvious at this point that the abortion discussion is far too heated to proceed).
Why do conservative Christians feel they must tear my marriage asunder?
Why can’t they leave us alone?
What possible rationale is there to be found in attacking us?
We last saw exactly this situation (frequently with the same strained Biblical justifications) over interracial marriage. Must we repeat the same scorched earth mistakes?

“That is where the ‘culture wars’ come into play. How do you suggest we find a solution here?
(I chose my own personal situation as an example as it is obvious at this point that the abortion discussion is far too heated to proceed).
Why do conservative Christians feel they must tear my marriage asunder?”
From the perspective of a conservative Christian (or at least from my perspective), it’s the detachment of the concept of marriage from its purpose, which is essentially to encourage people to care for their natural offspring in a committed relationship, that creates the objection. Absent that connection, the entire concept of marriage becomes valueless. But we don’t want it to be valueless, we want the normative condition to be that parents raise their natural offspring in a committed relationship. Unlike racial barriers, which have no basis in the fundamental biology at all, these are specifically tied to the ability to have natural ofssrping. Indeed, marriage between people who can’t have natural offspring are essentially pointless, but because determining fertility is an inexact science that would be extraordinarily difficult to administer, we employ as a slightly overbroad proxy for “capacity to naturally generate offspring” that the parties are of the opposite sex.
For things like visitation in hospitals, it’s pretty much ridiculous that it’s tied to marriage anyway, and the fact that it is results from an overbearing legal system that discourages any kind of common sense. A private organization, like a hospital, is so paranoid about running afoul of some federal regulation that it adopts a privacy policy that is far stricter than is necessary in order to be “safe,” because the hospital would be sued for release of information of the wrong person before you could spell l-a-w-s-u-i-t. But marriage is a statutory safe harbor, so they’ll disclose it to spouses, because that’s easy.
The real problem is not that gay people can’t be recognized as married, but that there’s no incentive for recalcitrant institutions to be anything beyond unhelpful even to a gay person who deserves their cooperation. That sort of discrimination SHOULD be unlawful, because it has nothing to do with any kind of difference relevant to the purpose of marriage, and there’s no reason that married people should have an *advantage* in obtaining that sort of access. Having that as the default rule for marriage is fine, but it can’t turn into a de facto denial of access for everyone else (which is exactly what it becomes in far too many cases). But that cause is served exactly by specifying what marriage is and why it is advantageous and what sorts of discrimination should therefore be wrong, while opening marriage up to other sorts of unions undermines the purpose of marriage that I outlined above.
The point isn’t to attack your own marriage (as you would view that relationship) but only to point out that your marriage has absolutely nothing to do with fostering the care of offspring by their biological parents. I have no problem with having opt-in provisions for all sorts of benefits of marriage that essentially have nothing to do with the primary purpose, but on the flip side, extending protections dealing with the primary purpose of marriage would be equally irrational and undermine that purpose.
As to judgmental churches, I would take the same opinion I took above. If you can’t convince people, then judging them is a rather poor substitute. For what it’s worth, we are friends with a same-sex couple who adopted several children and who attend all sorts of events at our parish, and I’ve never seen them hassled once. Another friend told me about a Catholic funeral for a man who lived with his same-sex partner for many years. I think it’s much easier to judge people than to love them, but the latter is what Christianity is about.

Thanks, JP – I’ve found you a good and interesting conversation partner. I appreciate your views, I definitely appreciate your repudiation of vigilantism.
“This isn’t a case where the government won’t intervene. If you save the children, they will jail you, thus ruining your life, and hand the children right back to the abuser.”
I guess that was my point: not only will the government not intervene to stop the ‘abuse’, but they’ll side with the ‘abuser’ in any legal dispute.
It’s an injustice we have very little power to fix or correct, much like slavery was. You have to accept reality, not pretend the world is what you wish it would be.
I agree. One of the risks of living in a society with a representative government is that the individual is obviously not going to agree with all the decisions that are made – even decisions that affect innocent lives.
Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings had a good post explaining the rationale for eschewing violence:

If anyone who believes the government had adopted a policy that would lead to the killing of innocent people is justified in killing people to stop this, then we might as well just decide not to have a government at all. During the Bush administration, half the country would have been justified in trying to assassinate the President and members of his administration. Any corporate executive who works for a company that does not adequately protect its workforce from poisoning or injury would have to watch her back. Etc., etc., etc.

“The response is so Milquetoast in proportion to the gravity of the crime (as you purport to see it).”

It’s little different than what abolitionists did in the U.S. and what Germans did to help Jews escape.
Indeed, but some did use violence: John Brown or Claus von Stauffenberg. Again, if I go around telling everyone that my next-door neighbor runs a concentration camp out of his basement, I bear some bit of the responsibility when someone fancying himself a martyr takes up arms.

JP,
I certainly find your suggestion one not consider it to be a war worth thinking about.
Part of the anger from my side (I mean me personally) arises from the fact that I live between two cultures. Here, in Europe I am legally married (and our Christian church married us, too). My husband and I have been married for over four years, monogamous and faithful, true and committed partners now for over 24 years.
Accepted both legally by the secular community and loved and welcomed by our Christian community.
The moment we step off of a plane in the US, our marriage is not recognized, there is no single church in the area my parents live which accepts gays couples.
Our rights are not respected (we have done the whole multi-thousand dollar legal contract thing, twice had to go to court because the local hospital and local government wouldn’t accept it until a judge forced them to)…
In short, my anger on this topic has a very clear and valid basis. To me, what conservative Christians do in the US is to attack my marriage.
I have no problem with individual churches rejecting me – but I fail to understand the validity of one group of Christians imposing their views on secular marriage and all the other Christians who do recognize our marriage.
That is where the “culture wars” come into play. How do you suggest we find a solution here?
(I chose my own personal situation as an example as it is obvious at this point that the abortion discussion is far too heated to proceed).
Why do conservative Christians feel they must tear my marriage asunder?
Why can’t they leave us alone?
What possible rationale is there to be found in attacking us?
We last saw exactly this situation (frequently with the same strained Biblical justifications) over interracial marriage. Must we repeat the same scorched earth mistakes?

OK, I so hate this stupid interface.
JP, I just spend an hour writing a (hopefully) rational response to you and what got posted was a combination of an earlier post and a URL which was copied to memory…
At least this nasty interface attacks all of us equally.
No time to recapitulate everything, so very basically:
Thanks for not giving me the usual knee-jerk conservative response.
I get that you don’t consider my marriage a real marriage. That is one of the two issues confronting us if we are to end this culture war.
First, the US is the last country in the Western world not to grant gays human status. This will change in the near future and my legal, secular marriage will be recognized in the US, too.
My Christian marriage is already recognized by several denominations and churches here.
Second, we have data from the FBI (not necessarily a left-wing hothouse of alternative-life-style advocates) confirming that there are over 1500 violent attacks (rape, murder, severe beating with intent to kill) of gays and transgender in the US every year.
I have no problem with your church not recognizing my church having married us – the Catholic church doesn’t consider LDS marriages valid, nor do they recognize the know-nothing red-nex marriages in Rome.
It’s an old and filthy Christian tradition, but one we have all agreed to live with and I can certainly live without your church giving me its “stamp of approval”.
So there we can happily agree to disagree.
The problem is – secular marriage will soon be legal. We gays and the transgender (not the same group, transgender are spread across the sexuality spectrum) are pretty much done with being victims and it is only a question of time before the young Christians going out and attacking us will find the police and courts, even in Texas, less than sympathetic.
These are the questions I’d like to see answers from you on – how will you deal with this coming reality.
My feeling is, you have two choices.
First, you can continue the scorched earth politics we have seen up until now. Kicking children out of their families, denying us our rights (and thanks for at least recognizing the basic inhumanity of denying us visitation rights). Delaying the inevitable recognition of us as humans and thus entitled to civil rights.
Or, you chose another path. I don’t mean to abandon your firmly held convictions, but to lay down your arms and get out of the way.
Maybe you see a third way? In any case, regardless of how you feel about us theologically, can you see it in your heart to address the violence against us?
(In hopes that the stupid thing works this time…I press le Button…).

Hey Panthera:
We on the babies-have-a-right-to-live side aren’t “out there bombing clinics.” That’s a silly mischaracterization, and you should be ashamed of yourself for saying it. There must be 200 million pro-lifers in the U.S.A, and one vigilante goes off. Do the math, friend.
And I could point to a handful of liberal greens out there who bomb homes in suburbia, too (think of the Seattle bombings). Does that mean ALL environmentalists are killers? Sheesh. Can we get back to using logic and reason?
Shepard wasn’t murdered for being gay. No one in America cares about what you do in the bedroom.
Both Tiller (who murdered 60, 000 kids) and his assassin (who killed one) are wrong. They BOTH must be opposed.

Maya,
Even the sheriff’s report acknowledges that Matthew Sheppard was tortured and murdered because of his homosexuality.
The monsters who did it admitted to this fact.
Since you persist in denying even that facts about gays and transgendered in America being physically attacked, there is hardly a reason to believe one word you say.
Pro-Life for you obviously means: From conception to delivery. After that, especially if the person is not heterosexual, to hell with them.
No, you personally may not be out there killing people – but anyone who can actually deny that Matthew Sheppard was murdered because of his sexuality is beyond reason.

We on the babies-have-a-right-to-live side aren’t “out there bombing clinics.” That’s a silly mischaracterization, and you should be ashamed of yourself for saying it.
Please direct me to your public demand that any pro-life organization have a strict and enforced code against advocating, condoning, or failing to condemn in unequivocal terms any act of violence. Such a demand should also include codes dictating that anyone who fails to report the advocacy or failure to condemn violence to the legal authorities is also barred from the organization. If you haven’t made such a demand yet – would you be willing to do so now?
There must be 200 million pro-lifers in the U.S.A, and one vigilante goes off. Do the math, friend.
First, 200 million pro-lifers? By what reasoning? The highest poll numbers I’ve seen put the number at 51% – which would be somewhere around 152 million people if you count that as a percentage of every man, woman, and child in the country. I’d be willing to wager that number gets quite a bit smaller if you actually tell them what a life-from-conception definition of “pro-life” is – a blanket prohibition on all forms of abortion, in vitro fertilization, and any birth control form that prevents implantation.
Second, one vigilante? You need to do your homework on the pattern of violence perpetuated by the opponents of abortion rights. You are aware that Tiller himself had been shot once before by a domestic terrorist, right? You are aware that domestic terrorist Eric Rudolph was primarily motivated by his opposition to abortion rights, right? Read this article for the truth about the violence of the pro-criminalization movement.
Shepard wasn’t murdered for being gay.
What?! That is a bald-faced lie. Everyone involved in the case – the killers, the law-enforcement officers, the courts, everyone – said that he was murdered for being gay. If you want to believe so strongly that the “Christian” movement of hatred against gay people somehow remains nonviolent that you’ll ignore things like this, there can be no reasoning with you.
No one in America cares about what you do in the bedroom.
That is the biggest load of bull I’ve ever seen. If nobody in America cared what LGBT individuals do in the bedroom, there would be equal rights in marriage and nondiscrimination laws for employment and housing. If nobody in America cared what LGBT individuals do in the bedroom, the conservative churches wouldn’t be heretically and sinfully engaging in hatred and discrimination against gay people in their church bodies or in their pulpits. That this country’s pandemic of antigay discrimination and hatred continue to exist – and is led by the church (which is a massive betrayal of Christ) – is evidence that many, many people in America still do consider it their business what someone else is doing in his/her bedroom.

For what it’s worth, here is a refutation of the mischaracterization of Dr. Tiller in this thread. Kansas Stories are the true stories of some of the patients he treated. Surely there is enough compassion in your hearts to recognize that these women made a choice out of love that was the best for them and their families.

I got sick out of the blue, so I haven’t had an opportunity to comment the last couple of days. But I didn’t want to leave what has been a respectful discussion, so let me say a couple of more things as my last words, and thanks for the dialogue.
@Adrenalin Tim:
I think that my position reflects well over 90% of the pro-life movement, so the fact that you haven’t many of these kinds of discussions before suggests to me that the sides really aren’t communicating at all. The widespread distrust on both sides appears to be interfering with mainstream conversation, so it’s defined by a clash between the extremes. That’s a shame. I wish more people could talk like this.
I agree that there will likely be John Browns when confronted with any serious evil, those who feel compelled to do something, even a wrong thing, to opposite it. But I’m sure you would also understand that most pro-lifers would say that the fact that this reaction happens reflects the enormity of the crime. Yes, from our view, people tend to overreact, sometimes in brutal ways, when very bad things are happening. But to join in a conspiracy of silence to avoid that consequence would clearly be a more serious violation of conscience. We don’t have an option to whitewash the situation if it is as we believe it to be; there is no way to soft-pedal it.
@Panthera:
I’m not sure if you live in the South, but I’m a Louisiana native and a Texan, and I think you are far too optimistic in terms of the Inland South and even much beyond that being open to gay marriage. Unless forced to comply by the U.S. Supreme Court, which is a highly dubious prospect in the next quarter-century even on the most favorable jurisprudential possibilities, I strongly suspect that I will draw my last breath long before most Southern states recognize gay marriage. Realistically, there’s nothing like the political will it would take to do that, and the resistance is not going to be overcome by force.
In that kind of environment, I think the “human rights” approach to marriage will only build hostility that is already going to prove intractable. Quite honestly, that threat is what causes ignorant rednecks to resort to violence. Instead, the compromise I was proposing was to focus on what should be right of any autonomous human beings, regardless of their ability to biologically reproduce. That approach would prevent marriages being given benefits that really should be given even-handedly to all. Arguing marriage as a “human right” is always going to appear dubious for all sorts of reasons, not the least of which is that the purpose has never been to allow any sorts of person to enter “committed relationships.” But if you focus on the number of things that have been tied to marriage that don’t have a thing to do with biological reproduction, then you have an argument that even opponents of gay marriage can’t responsibly oppose, and it doesn’t trigger that animalistic threat response that drives savage people to violence.
Maybe I’m wrong, and maybe the South will be strong-armed into compliance. But I really don’t see the political will within the United States for that to happen, and if it doesn’t, then I think both sides need to work to find a way to operate in the resulting climate in a way that doesn’t incite hatred.
Thanks for the discussion, guys.

If Shield’s analysis holds true, then we will likely see an uptick in violence against those who support a woman’s right to chose for herself.
It is chilling to note that violence against gays and transgender has been on the upswing recently – in lockstep with the granting of human status to us in more and more states.
Even the most hard-core anti-human rights for gays and transgender, anti-choice for women Christians must have comprehended by now that not only are the Republicans out of power, but the chances of their coming back into power before the Supreme Court retirements have been replaced with moderate to liberal Justices is basically null.
So what follows next? It is now just a question of a few years before we gays are granted fully human status throughout the US. Will the conservative Christians in Texas start lynching us? How many more true-blue-patriotic-Christians in Kansas will decide they have to kill and bomb and terrorize even more desperate women and doctors/clinics when Obama, Congress and the Supreme Court decide yet again that women are free agents and not private property?
As near as I can tell, the approaches made by Obama towards the Christian right on finding ways to reduce abortion have been rejected utterly – it’s either no sex ed, no contraception, no abortion or nothing for the far right.
Where do we go from here? Frankly, I don’t see folks on the left extending the hand of friendship forever, not when we are getting beat up and shot at…and the “he got what he deserved” luke-warm comments from the religious right – even Catholics! – has not exactly made us optimistic.

JP,
I do hope you are feeling better. The stress of these last days clearly is no help.
Sorry ’bout the last post, this interface is awful.
My time is split between Europe and the Deep South. This is why I am very strongly opposed to the “well, just go to a lawyer and draw up papers” solution many conservative Christians recommend – in an emergency, it doesn’t work. Twice now, it hasn’t worked.
So, yes, I quite agree with you – a large part of Appalachia and the South will never, ever, under any circumstances treat us as anything but sub-human.
Stipulated.
This minority, however, can not – as so many conservative Christians here so helpfully point out – be the basis for making laws. When I say minority, I mean minority. The conservative Christians here completely overlook that even today – June 2009, over 30% of the American population already lives in states (and, until congress overrules it, if they, indeed do) Washington DC where gays are accorded fully human status.
What will happen is what is already happening – Rod Dreher, who encourages and coddles racists on his site – has already commented on the impending death of many small town and rural areas, especially in the South. His analysis is, predictably, is that all those young folks prefer the sinful delights of the big city to sittin’ aroun’ on the veranda of a night now that the darkies no longer sing in the fields.
More to the point, every single gay and transgender who can, leaves. Look at me – graduated summa cum laude. Best in my class in student teaching. Certified to teach four languages and the natural sciences and math. Not welcome in my parents’ district because I’m gay. Here in Europe, they took me with open arms. Not to brag, but my students have done best in the national exams for the last 14 years. In my whole country.
But hey – you have to set priorities.
This is what will happen. Obama will see that those paragraphs of DOMA which prevent federally recognized civil unions are repealed. Gays will be permitted civil unions which are recognized in all 50 states and territories. America will finally honor her commitments and resume reciprocal recognition of all marriges – something the US stopped doing and which has not sat well with the rest of the civilized world.
Fools in Kansas and the Deep South will kill a few of us. More of us will leave. Ultimately, the rest of the US will accept us and life will go on just as it has in the other 17 Western countries in which we are accorded full human status. Appalachia and the South will continue to be marginalized, with certain metropolitan areas standing out.
There will be the usual screams of secession and howls and nothing, ultimately will come of it for the simple reason that the South can not survive without the north. The only state which the other 49 would gladly see go and which could survive, won’t. Unfortunately.
The elections following on to the repeal of DOMA and the granting of human status to us will see the congressional leaders who support us rewarded or ignored. Since the only folks left in opposition are basically all from Appalachia and the South, it won’t matter one whit.
My mother marched in Atlanta for Negro rights way back when. I can remember my father’s fury and his nearly moving the family back home he was so afraid for her. I’m old enough and know the South well enough to know it’s hopeless here. But who cares? The South no longer matters.

It’s a woman’s right to choose, so I chose to have an abortion 28 years ago. I had no idea of the emotional turmoil it would create within me. I regret that I ever made that choice, counting down the years my child would have been had I not aborted him/her. One thing that is left out of a woman’s right to choose is the fact that many women, not only myself, have no idea of the emotional consequences of choosing abortion. Also, the baby within is a separate human being, with a distinct DNA who could have been born a female. The right of that female is not considered. I post this not to stir up a flame, but as a means to let others know that abortion doesn’t help but actually hurts women.