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She felt that the leadership of the pro-choice movement kept her at arms length.

But she felt that the leadership of the pro-choice movement kept her at arms length. The womens movement was by then an established, PR-conscious network of mainstream organizations that aimed for mass appeal, and they were aware that McCorvey was not an ideal representative. She began to feel at odds with mainstream feminism, rejected for her lesbianism, her class status, her initial lie about being raped, and her past flirtations with drug dealing and occult religions. In photographs from that era, she looks uncomfortable at pro-choice rallies. She slouches and frowns; she is dour-faced and plain in a housedress next to civil rights attorney Gloria Allred, who wears a full face of garish 80s makeup and dramatic shoulder pads.

Women used to come up to me all the time and say, Oh Norma, I want to thank you, if it wasnt for you I wouldnt have finished college, or, If it hadnt been for you, I wouldnt have done this, she said in a 1995 interview with ABC News. And I used to look at them and I envied them, because they got to choose, they had the right to choose. And I never had the right to choose. She never managed to climb out of poverty, either, although the attention brought by the decision garnered her two book deals and many interviews and speaking engagements. She began to feel increasingly embittered towards a feminist movement whose leaders were dramatically wealthier, better educated, and divorced from the cultural milieu of the working-class South. She found herself with less and less in common with those who most loudly claimed her cause.

In 1994, she published her first memoir, I Am Roe. At a book signing, the national director of the anti-abortion extremist group Operation Rescue, the pastor Flip Benham, appeared with a group of protesters, and shouted at McCorvey that she was responsible for the deaths of 33 million children. Benham was based in a suburb of Dallas, and opened Operation Rescues headquarters across the street from the abortion clinic where McCorvey was working. She initially refused to talk to him, but eventually took a liking to Benham, and began going to visit him at the Operation Rescue offices during her smoke breaks. She chided him for being too uptight. What you need is to go to a Beach Boys concert, she once joked. Yes, Miss Norma, he replied, I havent been to a Beach Boys concert since 1976. A friendship was born.

Benham baptized McCorvey in front of network TV cameras in 1995, in a backyard swimming pool in Dallas. She wore overalls. It was a major coup for the pro-life movement, who had now captured a major symbol of their opponents and made her their own. At first glance, it seemed like a fit for McCorvey, too. The brand of Evangelical Christianity that Benham initiated her into prized sinners and converts as signs of Gods forgiveness, and in their hands the more sordid parts of her past became plot points in a story of redemption, not public relations liabilities to be swept under the rug. We want very much for her to be absolutely who God made her, Benham said in a TV interview on the occasion of McCorveys baptism. Its not who we want to be, not what we force on her. She can just be beautifully, supernaturally Norma. The pro-choice movement shrugged. She wasnt one of the leaders of the movement, said Susan Hill of the National Womens Health Organization.

McCorvey spent the rest of her life in pro-life activism, gradually evolving a more anti-choice stance on issues such as rape, incest, and abortions in the first trimester. She published a second memoir, Won by Love, in 1997. McCorvey converted from Protestantism to Roman Catholicism a few months thereafter, claiming that she had heard God tell her to join the Mother Church. In 1996, she had publicly renounced homosexuality as sinful, although she continued to live with Gonzales in Dallas until 2004. She sought out the spotlight, preferring high-profile anti-abortion actions in Washington. In 2009, she dumped a box full of tiny pink plastic fetuses onto a table in the offices of thenHouse Speaker Nancy Pelosi. In 2005, she petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn Roe, claiming standing to sue as one of the original litigants. When Barack Obama ran for re-election in 2012, she campaigned passionately against him. He murders babies, she said.

Norma McCorvey had a ninth-grade education, a drug addiction, and a history of being abused, abandoned, and unloved. It is not difficult to see why she was seen as an enticing mark for both sides of the abortion debate. Her desire for justice was perhaps outweighed by her need to be accepted; the grief she felt for the life she had been denied gave way to a grief for the children she believed had been killed by abortion. Now it is our uneasy task to grieve for her.

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What the Culture Wars Did to Norma McCorvey - New Republic

We learned how strong wed become from the force of the opposition that rose against us.

OK, are we going to count the people that come in then, as a blessing or a curse?

These children are among 6,000 of Texas most vulnerable patients whose lives may have been put at risk by the states effort to cut Medicaid costs, their parents say.

I dont think theres any guarantee for the family of the 6-year-old boy.

Despite Horthys WWII-era legacy wearing the medal was not necessarily seen as an endorsement of that leaders anti-Semitic views.

Bild apologizes expressly for the untruthful article and the accusations made in it.

Everybody makes mistakes.

You wont see the KKK charged with domestic terror even though thats what they do.

The status of ethics in an administration tends to reflect the character of the chief executive, regardless of the rules in place at the time.

What was Flynn talking about with the Russians during the campaign?

Here, in convenient list form, are the 30 small questions and three big ones about Donald Trump and Russia.

The American military has failed to publicly disclose potentially thousands of lethal airstrikes conducted over several years in Iraq, Syria and Afghanistan, a Military Times investigation has revealed.

It is particularly focused on demonizing people who are refugees.

The rally took place at the Canada Christian College, an evangelical institution Id never heard of before.

The [more than 50] bomb threats occurred against a backdrop of rising anti-Semitic hate crimes in the nation and the refusal of President Trump to address the issue or to disavow the anti-Semites who say they are invigorated by his electoral victory.

As is, Mosenkis finds that the districts with the fewest white students are currently shortchanged according to the formula by almost $2,000 per pupil, while the districts with the most white students get about $2,000 more per pupil than what the formula says is their fair share.'

The agents apparently detained the woman Feb. 9 after receiving a tip, possibly from her alleged abuser.

It is one of the most serious examples of governmental misconduct that I have come across in my 40 years of practice.

The future of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau continues to remain in question with yet another attack being lobbed at the Bureau this week as [Republican]lawmakers introduced new legislation both in the House and Senate that would abolish the agency.

He had also violated federal regulations around wage theft with his own employees, and threatened to replace workers with machines since, as he put it, theres never a slip-and-fall, or an age, sex, or race discrimination case.'

At the same time that it is Trumps biggest known creditor, Deutsche is in frequent contact with multiple federal regulators.

During Obama, for eight years, I suffered, was unemployed, dependent on my wifes income, he said. Trump got him a job. He is still unemployed now, but he just enrolled in Liberty University to study divinity. Its just a matter of time.

If businesses are forced to pay women the same as male earnings, that means they will have to reduce the pay for the men they employ.

What I call them is, is youre a host.

The Trump administration, it seems, wasnt altogether impressed with the site or its awards.

Youre going to see a lot of love. OK?

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Postcards from the class & culture wars (2.21.17) - Patheos (blog)

Thirty years ago, we all understood what the term culture wars meant. It was about Mapplethorpe vs. Helms and teaching old, dead, white men vs. revisionist and black history. There were lines. Whichever side you were on, you knew where you stood.

Alyssa Kibiloski

The battle lines changed and have morphed into something quite different today. As the first efforts by the Trump Administration to enact an immigration ban sputtered in chaos, confusion and a must see TV legal battle, the implications of the fight over how to provide national security have become clear. So, too, did the historical precedents that informed this newest battle.

Whats most interesting is that these new lines mirror the pitched battles over industrialization in the early 19th century, especially in England, as machinery replaced manpower in textile production, especially weaving. The warriors then were craftsmen, rooted in an agricultural society, who saw their traditions and way of life threatened by the mechanization of their livelihoods.

The protesters - the Luddites - were English textile workers and independent craftsmen who destroyed weaving machinery to protest the mechanization of textile production. They were fearful that years spent learning their craft were wasted and that unskilled workers would take their place. Eventually, the military suppressed the Luddite movement. England became the worlds leading industrial power throughout much of the 19th century.

Two hundred years later, the parallels persist as America moved from an industrial to a post-industrial economy. Workers in the manufacturing sector have seen their jobs disappear and wages stagnate as income inequality has continued to rise for over twenty years, despite some recent upticks. The presumed culprit is cheaper overseas labor, principally identified as Mexican and Chinese. The Luddites of 19th century industrial England have become the America first nationalists of 21st century America.

Symbolized by the debate over renegotiating NAFTA and abandoning the Trans Pacific Partnership, it has become a battle to stem the tide over free trade globalization cloaked in concerns about national security. Internally, the battle lines are also cultural, on issues like Planned Parenthood, immigration and refugees, and Supreme Court picks. The philosophies behind these competing claims are decoded into a broader national debate about American values.

For the moment, the effect is to split the country almost uniformly, depending upon the crisis de jour. Practically, there is a political dimension with the red and blue states recast, within limits, as nationalists and globalists, respectively. The problem with the rhetoric today is that people will get hurt. Its probably where the large crowds protesting immigration policies can do the most good, however, especially if they can humanize the negative impact of America first policies.

There is another danger, already recognized in cities like Boston, New York, Seattle, Washington, and San Francisco. These are the eds and meds capitals of the country whose economies are in each case bigger than those of most countries with which America competes. They are the booming economic engines of the US economy.

Its why the Silicon Valleys biggest technology players have joined together to speak against the immigration ban.

To this end, its important to have clear strategic goals in mind. Here are some first thoughts:

Higher Education Must Choose Battles Wisely

Build a strategy out of the initial tactical responses that have occurred in response to the early policy initiatives of the Trump administration. Protests are fine critical, in fact but choose the battles wisely. Americas leading educators should speak out on policies that affect higher education, linking what they say to social, cultural, and political concerns about American values. Their campuses must be prepared to support them, particularly if they focus on the issues and stay out of the politics.

Higher Ed Must Be Broadly Inclusive

Americas colleges and universities must remove what can sometimes be seen as legitimate criticism and become more tolerant of ideas, including those with which they and their college communities disagree. They must practice what they preach on how best to be broadly inclusive.

Higher Ed Must be Leader in Post-Industrial Economy

Its the economy stupid. American workers list job security as their principal worry. In a world in which do no damage should be a primary operating principle, it is dangerous for the American economy to power down, for example, because of knee-jerk immigration policies. We need the best and the brightest with us. But we also need a Manhattan Project version of a Tennessee Valley Authority initiative to move the Rust Belt mindset forward. The goal is a growing economy to build a robust middle class across the country.

America signaled that globalization would undergird the world economy when Bill Clinton signed on to NAFTA.

It will require sane, reasoned debate. Let us begin.

This article was first published on the Edvance Foundation blog.

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Welcome to New Culture Wars. Same as the Old? - Huffington Post

New York Post

Will Team Trump forget to fight the culture wars? New York Post During the Cold War, peaceniks proposed unilateral disarmament: Let the Soviets keep their nukes, we'll get rid of ours. The Cold War is over, but there's another war going on, a culture war being fought over whether there's anything honorable or ...

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Will Team Trump forget to fight the culture wars? - New York Post

In early February, the Nation published a leaked draft of an executive order titled Establishing a Government Wide Initiative to Respect Religious Freedom. The language is, for lack of a more damning adjective, chilling to any proponent of the Constitution. The order aims to eradicate federal protections for LGBT Americans and their familiesand undermine reproductive rightsunder the guise of religious freedom.

The order announces a lofty intention: protecting Americans from being coerced by the Federal Government into participating in activities that violate their conscience. It then sets out, over four dense pages, its dubious means of doing so: authorizing those who hold extreme and discriminatory views to act on them, while guarding against a violation of conscience by licensing a violation of others fundamental rights.

Upon review, it rapidly becomes clear that Trump cant expect the order to survive judicial review intact. He tips his hand by instructing agencies to issue regulations to implement provisions as legally feasible. The purpose of the order is to normalize and even privilege a set of positions and viewpoints, not to legalize all of them.

The order gives Americans total religious freedom in all activities of life. Lest the sweeping nature of all activities of life be limited by interpretation (or by a deficit of imagination), Trumps draft order suggests specific scenarios: Americans do not forfeit their religious freedom when providing social services, education, or healthcare, earning a living, seeking a job, or employing othersor when interacting with government at any level. Never mind that 61 percent of Americans oppose allowing belief-based service refusals.

From a Michigan pediatrician to a Colorado baker, service providers and business owners who have objected to accommodating same-sex couples would have an affirmative right to discriminate. While it is not illegal to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation in public accommodation in 29 statesthe pediatrician in Michigan faced no legal consequence, for examplethere is a vast difference between failing to make discrimination illegal and explicitly protecting discrimination in lawfederally. While LGBT Americans may be the most obvious targets, unwed parents and their children, for example, could also be discriminated against with impunity under the proposed language.

Unsatisfied by having spelled out the right to refuse to provide social services, Trump dedicates a subsection to making it more difficult for those on the wrong side of the far rights religious beliefs to have a family and care for their children. Adoption agencies and support services would be explicitly granted the right to refuse adoptive parents and families based on belief. This is, of course, redundanthes already bestowed that right. The point of the subsection is political and social.

This subsection is a prcis of the failed Child Welfare Provider Inclusion Act of 2014, the first of several such measures too extreme for Congress to pass that Trump incorporates to establish his far-right bona fides. It is a particularly short-sighted gesture. More than 420,000 children are in the foster care system. Same-sex couples are six times more likely than straight couples to foster children; we are four times more likely to adopt. But if Trumps executive order were implemented, agencies and service providers could deny not only opportunities to foster and adopt but also critical services and benefits to any family whose structure is inconsistent with their religious beliefs. Trumps text then turns to ensuring the right of corporations to discriminate by codifying Burwell vs. Hobby Lobby Stores, Inc., in which the Supreme Court held that the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, which limits government infringement on religious exercise, protects some closely held corporations as well as individuals. Passed in response to clashes between government agencies and Native American religious beliefs, RFRAand offshoot state legislationhas become a favorite vehicle for justifying discrimination in an ever-widening array of settings.

Trump would also resurrect the Russell Amendment, which would have allowed employers to refuse to hireas well as fireindividuals who clashed with the employers religious belief even simply by being gay. He elsewhere mandates federal employers, contractors, and grantees to proactively protect employees prerogative to, in effect, preach prejudice and discriminate openly. Conversely, Trump would kill the Johnson Amendment. On the campaign trail and again at the National Prayer Breakfast, Trump promised religious conservatives that he would do away with this 1954 tax provision barring some tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from endorsing political candidates. Trump cant actually repeal legislation, but he canand here doestell the IRS not to enforce it. The result is the same.

There are more than 1,300 megachurchesthat is, churches with more than 2,000 regular attendeesin the United States. Their total annual income tops $8.5 billion. The Second Baptist Church of Houston alone has 24,000 members and an budget of $53 million. If Trump signed this order, these organizations would change the electoral landscape overnight, especially at the state level.

And Trump does more than license churches to enter the political arena: He grants special protections to organizations like churches and to federal employees who act consistent with any of four enumerated, extreme viewpoints: Marriage is between one man and one woman, sex is for such marriages only, gender is immutable and defined at or before birth, and life begins at conception. Organizations advocating opposite views, by the way, could still be penalized for doing so. But theres limited cause to worry that this provision will survive judicial scrutiny. The first three beliefs come from a Mississippi religious freedom bill that a federal district court ruled unconstitutional. Finally, although Trump had promised not to rescind Obamas executive order creating workplace protections for LGBT employees, in two devastating bullets Trump instructs agencies to reverse all current agency rulings, guidance, and regulations inconsistent with the orderdeclaring that the new document supersedes any previous, related executive orders.

In sum, the order would erase almost all existing federal efforts to affirm LGBT rights, which are still in a nascent and unprotected state as neither Congress nor the Supreme Court has codified protections. The Obama administration established rights through executive orders and administrative maneuvers. For example, agencies interpreted Title VII, which forbids sex discrimination in employment, to encompass gender identity and sexual orientation. These are now vulnerable. Only independent agencies, such as the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or EEOC, would continue to honor these measures if the order were signed.

Continued here:
Resurrecting the Culture Wars - Pacific Standard