Reason for Hope

I know of someone who took the pill for a very long time, prescribed by her doctor for an entirely different matter other than birth control. For years it was a critical matter of a better quality of life having nothing to do averting pregnancy. It was either suffer greatly or take the pill. Since this person is close to me, I still worry about the long term effects and the certainty of the science. That being said no one wants to see someone suffer. It comes down to science, personal choice in medical care, and personal ethics.

While it is abundantly clear there is a solid minority of ill-informed, theologically driven, Americans who will never understand that, I think it is becoming ever clearer that there is an overwhelming majority of Americans that hold that decisions about women's health are deeply personal and not a matter for the state. Santorum has fired up his base with his shameless diatribe, but the view from here is that so long as Americans, women in particular, continue to speak at the ballot and elsewhere, the place that Santorum speaks from is an increasingly isolated island. The eye of public scrutiny has if anything exposed the narrow sliver of sand from which he preaches (not only on women's health, but other formally taboo social subjects such as gay rights).

Each year the waves of tolerance lap at their shore and erode the sand from beneath their feet. Speaking personally, while I am disgusted by much of the hate speech rhetoric of the right this election season, I am perhaps also more hopeful. The polls indicate that the public isn't buying it. To whatever extent there is a divide in the country on social issues there is much less of a gap in opinion among the young and as the generations change I have no doubt that we are headed for a more loving and tolerant society. As Dr. King said, “Arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

Rather than allow the disease of his narrow-mindedness to hunker down in the heartland, Santorum has spoken the truths, as he sees them, of a cramped and frightened theology. He has made plain his bitter antipathy to liberals, theologians of any stripe other than Catholic, academia and higher education, and of course to gays. To watch the veins nearly bursting across his temple, one easily could come to rather hard opinions. While Santorum does not advocate violence, this is hate speech, just the same. And then as is so often the case the politician glides painlessly above the fray, accepting no responsibility, while the stench of their bile washes across a fearful public. We recall recently how Palin lined up her opponents in the sights of a pistol on her electoral map, and then declaimed responsibility for Loughner. We can agree that may be factually accurate, but the stench lingers.

Yet, as these things go, light is always better than dark. Once in the open people must choose sides, much the way they did in Birmingham and Selma and Montgomery.  The record of history shows people often solidify and then vocalize the opinions they hold in the quiet of their soul more forcefully once hate and intolerance is exposed to light and the need to speak in defense of love becomes a requirement. I know this is more flowery than politics demands or even deserves, but after all what is the need for for political dialogue if not for the goal of advancing the cause of humanity.

Santorum and all the Republicans really have tried to advance their tormented cause. In doing so, it appears they have solidified the informed and protective majority opposition. We have seen the outward vocalization of the inherent tolerance of the American people. Who besides a zealot suffers a turned stomach over the separation of our churches and our state? Santorum and the right have created an environment where science, and choice, and conscience have seen their honor defended fiercely in the public square. The right’s anti-intellectualism has been responded to energetically with reason and an assertion of long settled matters.

Far from winning conversions, he has forced Americans, again women in particular, to say,” Go there at your peril,” and to restate with certainty the tolerant soeiety which is at stake.  With all that we suffer from, all the greed,  the lack of fairness and access, all the misinformation and lies, all the suffering and poverty in our society, and yes all the intolerance, the truth of that one fact alone gives me hope.

“Show a Little Faith, There’s Magic in the Night”… BS