Rick Santorum: "mainline Protestants aren't real Christians"
 

I'm sure that's gonna play real well. The dailykos article doesn't note that this is actually from a 2008 event, but if this gets some airtime...

Ibs, has Mother Earth not given birth yet?
She's had an awful long pregnancy now.
And I might be in denial, but I swear it wasn't me who got her there....

Ibram, when was the last time you attended a church service? Because I'm here to tell you, the type of Christians who attend church every week--that is, the demographic that Santorum is courting here--do, in fact, believe that most people who self-identify as Christian are not walking the walk. He's not saying they're secret Muslims, he's just saying that the average "Christian's" behavior does not match the tenets they claim to espouse. Example: the 50% divorce rate among Christians isn't exactly Biblical.

He's far more liable to piss off his supporters by his suggestion that the Catholics only had some small influence compared to the Protestants.

But I think santorum meant - and most people will understand that he meant - that they have become too liberal. Here's a fuller version of quote:

I think moderate, independent christian voters would be pretty turned off by this language. It's one thing to argue that your faith dictates the far-right policies he advocates; it's another to argue that moderate Christians aren't real Christians.

It's the double counting that pisses me off.

Ask a Christian public figure how many people they represent and they'll give you the highest possible figure, based on how many people nominate any kind of Christianity in surveys or the census.

Count how many people go to church weekly and actually live their lives by religious rules ... and you can divide the first figure by around 10.

Meh... moderate, independent Christian voters weren't going to be voting for Santorum anyway. He's said plenty of worse things to turn them off. The stuff above is basic sermon material, and not even the fire-and-brimstone kind.

So Rick's plan if he gets the nomination is to win ONLY conservative votes? I mean, yes, clearly, that IS his plan, but you'd think he would PRETEND he has moderate appeal, and could win the independent vote.

The Republican M.O. for a long time has been to fire up the base and forget everyone else. It's not about what most people support, it's about who shows up on election day. It worked for Bush, anyway.

Someone on Sky News (WARNING - MURDOCH OWNED*) suggested that the amount of people in this country (GB) who attend church weekly is 3 in 10. And that's higher than I would have thought, just from general experience and conversation.

"They" might fulminate in the press about being marginalised, but if they are treated as a minority it's because they are one. And a pretty tinchy one at that.

* yes usually Murdoch's press are pro-Christian - although the Great Man Himself certainly does not live by the Christian faith, I just mean to admit I have little faith in the figure because of its source.

I've read the headline, the quote, and the quoted commentary several times, and I can't find any connection between them. This is a case of "you won't believe what this guy said!" but when you read the quote--he didn't. I'm pretty sure I have decent reading comprehension, so...

Am I just not going into this with the right attitude? Which color glasses do I need to put on for this to make sense?

You just need frames that don't impede your peripheral vision: you can't read one quote out of context of everything the person has vehemently espoused and wonder what all the hubbub is about. You have to read like, one or two more things.

He was funny on Face the Nation this morning, the master of "that's not what I said well that's what I said but this is what I meant" somehow woven into a fabric of I'LL NEVER BACK DOWN BWAAHAAAAHAAAA.

Bob was as incredulous as he gets when confronted with scary nutjob types.

"gone from the world of Christianity as I see it" is not a way I would describe a wide swath of the christian electorate if I was running for office.

Rick Santorum is the kind of guy, where if he were getting ready to burn a woman at the stake would quite seriously look up at her and say "I'm sorry if the ropes are too tight."

I'm waiting for Santorum to start speaking in tongues - oh wait! He does that already.

The Republican party seems to deteriorate more with the passing of each year. Santorium is running on a platform of right wing fundamentalism and outright bigotry. He wants to take away the rights that the women of this country have fought so hard to secure. We are not to use birth control - certainly not have abortions, and if a woman becomes pregnant due to a rape, she must thank god for the blessing he has bestowed upon her. Since families today do not require two incomes, women are not to enter the professions or the workforce, but rather should stay home, barefoot and pregnant and scrubbing the floors.

Santorium is surely one of the most odious if not THE most odious candidate the Republicans have ever come up with. :crazy:

I think what you're ignoring in this calculation Ibram is "compared to". Everybody does this, even you. You've commented on your displeasure at some of President Obama's actions...but you continue to support him because COMPARED TO the alternatives, he's the best option.

For those voters that Santorum is courting when he speaks like this, he's saying to them, COMPARED TO Mitt Romney, or whomever, COMPARED TO them, I'm *more* of what you like, in this case protestant-y christian-y aspirant to power.

Of course this has no appeal to moderate voters, christian or otherwise, but he's not talking to them, and when COMPARED TO the other aspirants, this kind of noise is what they want to hear.

I really despise calling names, so I find myself very frustrated with Rick Santorum.
His "rhetoric" is not political rhetoric in today's sense.
Instead it is the extreme religious theology of his church.

John Kennedy found it necessary during his campaign
to draw the line between his politics and his church.
But Santorum is not making any such attempt.

Instead he is using phrases to code the far-right's attempt to make Obama an outsider,
an outsider in his race, in his religion, in his politics, in his care for the well-being of others.
Santorum is being extremely parochial with respect to education, sex,
women's rights, minority rights, and most other issues he discusses.

So, I'm no longer willing to avoid the use of certain terms when it comes to Santorum.
It's just a matter of which term(s) to use...

An enthusiast displays an intense and eager interest in something
An extremist is a supporter of extreme doctrines or practices, particularly in a political context
A fanatic is not only intense and eager but possibly irrational in his or her enthusiasm;
A zealot exhibits not only extreme devotion but vehement activity in support of a cause or goal
A bigot exhibits obstinate and often blind devotion to his or her beliefs and opinions.
- Bigotry implies intolerance and contempt for those who do not agree

Today, any of these would describe Santorum, but religious "zealot"
seems to me to be the most appropriate, and "bigot" is running a close second.
Santorum is on a religious crusade, and makes no effort to separate
his doctrines from his intentions, should he become President.

I do feel badly in using such terms, but I'm at a loss for alternatives
that come close to describing my reaction to this man.

Whatever his beliefs in regard to religeon, he supports banning birth control. That alone should make him anathema to most Americans.

Hell, even God used birth control. He only had the one kid.

But...he wears a sweater vest. He must be safe.

It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis

Full text

His views presently hold sway in the Scranton diocese. There has been a hard push to the right over the last couple decades essentially telling people to submit or leave. I chose the door. What surprises me is that there are people outside the door willing to play this game.

Wow ! ...if I'm reading you right... :headshake:

Saw a video that mentioned something I hadn't heard before--he's not just against employers/government having to pay for birth control, he's also against having to pay for a prenatal test known as amniocentesis, where a large needle is inserted into the placenta in order to collect a sample and do a direct DNA test on the baby. Pretty much the only reason this is ever done is to confirm a suspected genetic disability the baby may carry, and the procedure itself carries a risk of causing a miscarriage. So since the only reason one would really need to know this information before the child's birth is if one were planning to abort the baby if a severe disability is confirmed, he wants to disallow it.

On the other hand, at least he's not a hypocrite: he has one child with Trisomy 18, and another baby that had something else wrong that only lived 2 hours after being born.

Except that his wife has had a medically-induced miscarriage to save her life in 1996. Oops. I'd call that hypocrisy. While I obviously not only fully support her right to make the decision, and believe that it SHOULDN'T be our business WHAT sorts of medical procedures she's had, the "Frank Rule" - that anti-LGBT politicians' closeted sex lives become public business, when closeted gay politicians fight against LGBT rights - also applies here: if you believe that women DO NOT have the right to medical privacy, you don't have that same right to privacy as a public figure.

There are many reasons to perform prenatal screening tests,
including high risk pregnancies, etc., and not all lead to abortion.
For just one example: neural tube defects... (from Wikipedia)It would not be hypocritical of Rick Santorum to either have
or not have an abortion because he did not have the child.
It's whatever his wife wanted... for whatever was her own reason.

Touche. But Rick DOES apparently think that his wife's doctor - the one that saved her life - should go to jail for murder. He DOES apparently think that his wife's decision to save her life, rather than that of her unborn child, should not be a decision that his wife had the right to make.

Within 1 hour of making that post my Dad tried to give me some phone number from his priest to "stop Obama from making the bishops pay for abortion pills." I try not to be frank with Dad about this stuff but I did tell him that he doesn't want me providing my opinion. There used to be talk of stripping churches of their tax free status, I'm ready to listen.

Can we get a legit source on that... of course that would ironically enough not respect her privacy.

I read it, years ago, in Reader's digest. Reader's digest and me - how much more legit can you get?;)

http://www.examiner.com/progressive-...ve-an-abortion

"when she miscarried" vs "induce labor". A bit of a chasm of meaning between those phrases.

I've seen it reported as an induced miscarriage everywhere I've seen it mentioned. In fact, Joe Klein's post there is the first I've heard of it referred to as a simple miscarriage without medical induction. I'd love to see more information on that. Obviously without actually invading her medical records, all we have are media reports; again, I've seen it consistently referred to as a miscarriage, yes, but an INDUCED LABOR miscarriage is, in effect, an abortion.
The link I gave, which I think is the same one Spexx posted, claims that the Santorums themselves refer to it as a medically induced procedure. If that's true, then my point holds. If it was an unrelated and "natural" miscarriage, that's QUITE a bit different.

Induced labor does NOT necessarily mean a miscarriage nor abortion.
Two of my children were born after labor was induced.
Many times labor is induced because the baby is getting too big for a vaginal delivery.
There are other reasons as well which have NOTHING to do with "abortion"

• The mothers water broke.
• Infection in the uterus
• Certain risk factors
• low amniotic fluid level
• Placenta problems
• and on and on...

PLEASE do not spread that type of misinformation.

Of course it doesn't. Induced labor means induced labor. I'm not equating labor with miscarriage. I'm equating INDUCED MISCARRIAGE with abortion. Inducing labor in the second trimester for a fetus that the doctors recommend should be aborted, that isn't expected to have any chance of survival with the labor is induced, resulting in a miscarriage or stillbirth, is functionally an abortion. Granted, if by some miracle the induced labor had been SURVIVED, the premature and sickly baby would be a baby, yes - but the only difference between inducing labor to cause a miscarriage and an abortion is that in the former case, the fetus, in theory, leaves the body in one piece, out the birth canal.

reading comprehension, dude, before you get all defensive at me. Here's what I said:
here's what I DIDN'T say:
My understanding of what "medically induced miscarriage" means, is that labor is induced. If "induced labor miscarriage" and "medically induced miscarriage" are not synonymous, I retract my flawed terminology.

If the baby isn't viable (as in this context), then induced labor is abortion.
Eta: What Ibram said.

THIS IS FUCKING WRONG

Not getting defensive at all - If anything, I'm being offensive...
(take it away IM) :)

Is this relevant? The woman isn't his property. Are we voting for Santorum or his wife?

Yes, neither, I know!

No its not relevant, at all. Its one side continually talking about issues that have nothing to do with what is really important to our country right now and the other side laughing and egging them on.

No, not many people will be voting for Rick. I had more than my fill of him when he was here. He needs to go out and get a real job at a real company now.

OK, I don't believe there's any such thing as 'Induced Labour Miscarriage/abortion'.

If the doctors don't think there's any chance the baby will survive, then they perform a termination. If they think the baby has a chance then they will induce labour (and I'm not sure what the time frame is, but I don't believe they will give the mother drugs to commence labour until the baby has lungs which function, which can't happen till at least 32 weeks gestation. Prior to that, if the baby is to be born early term under a doctors recommendation, I think you will find that in almost every case, a C section will be performed because the baby simply wouldn't survive the upheaval of a natural birth before that age. Of course there are always going to be women going into labour much earlier than they should and in that case, the goal posts are moved substantially.

What I'm trying to tell you men is that there is no hard and fast set of rules you can apply to this situation, so stop bickering about something you clearly don't know much about in the first place other than your own personal belief systems.

In the interview I saw, Santorum got immediately, extremely defensive when the interviewer said he'd had a "stillborn" child, and corrected him strongly that it was not stillborn, that it lived 2 hours before dying.

I'm pretty sure this was the same child being discussed here. I imagine they induced labor, knowing the baby almost certainly wouldn't survive, but the fact that it lived two hours and then died (presumably after a quick baptizing as well) means they get to have a clear conscience.

If it lives for two hours, is it a miscarriage? Like, I'mi not try'n'a be funny, is the term miscarriage usable if the child survives however briefly outside the body?
Again, my understanding of this situation is that Santorum has used the term "medically induced miscarriage" - which, though classic is loudly denying it without explaining the difference, I understand as functionally being abortive. If the situation is as Clod posits, there isn't much hypocrisy here. If the situation is what Klein seems to imply - that there was a decision NOT to abort, and then she miscarried later - there isn't much hypocrisy here.

If the Santorums decided to save Karen's life at the expense of her unborn child, there is hypocrisy here.

Not it's not a miscarriage if it lives for even a minute. It's considered a live birth.

On a non-Santorum-specific tangent:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_labor



It also lists fetal death (and I know I've heard of people inducing labor for dead fetuses), so there are at least two possible reasons to induce labor on a non-viable fetus.

That's what I thought - if my article is referencing the same pregnancy as Clod, then using the term miscarriage - medically induced or otherwise - is wrong, and the debate is prettymuch over on that count.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...y_timeline.png

Not exactly sure what you mean. The religious right is certainly making an issue concerning the separation of Church and State which IS important to our country right now, and, as has been noted elsewhere, it is exactly these whack jobs who will come out and vote in numbers just as they did in 2008. I can easily see fundamentalists voting strongly for Santorum, especially in the South.

The people residing in states below the Mason Dixon line still fiercely believe in State's Rights and hope for the South to "rise again". In addition, they are just as fanatical about Christian fundamentalism as the Muslims who flew the planes into the WTC were fanatical about Mohammedism. They are incapable of seeing that their stance on birth control, gays, etc is a bias based on the teachings of their evangelical churches. And they can't wait to impose their beliefs on the entire nation.

Yeah, I get that, although I think it's very rare for parents to elect to go through a labour in the case of a dead fetus, and I doubt doctors would generally recommend labour as an option for a fetus with no chance of survival. I would think it would only be for theological reasons in general, and those cases would be rare.

So I guess I admit to being wrong about it not being a fact, but I don't think it's a highly common procedure.

I just don't think the term is applicable to the santorum situation either, simply for the fact that he's misusing the term.

Who's misusing which term? At the moment I'm, at least, not sure that Santorum's 2-hour-old baby is the same pregnancy that was EITHER naturally miscarried OR was given an induced miscarriage.

So right now we have three explanations for what happened:

1.) as per the article I linked, the pregnancy was terminated by an induced miscarriage
2.) as per Klein's article, the Santorums decided not to terminate pregnancy, and later, Karen miscarried
3.) the baby was EITHER induced or naturally-born, lived for two hours, and then died - and was thus not a miscarriage at all.

This is the problem with charts.

According to this one, if a fetus is born alive at 23 weeks, but then dies afterwards, it's considered a miscarriage.

Because there's no time limit shown, does that mean if the fetus lives to the ripe old age of 96 it's still considered a miscarriage? ;)

It is my understanding that for a birth to be considered medically induced, the mother has to be induced with drugs which specifically encourage the onset of labour.

A baby can be induced and still be classed as a natural birth. It is my understanding that the term natural birth simply means born through the birth canal.

You'll need to check up on what's considered a live birth. I don't believe HM's chart is definitive. My understanding is that a live birth means the fetus or baby has a heart beat when it's born.

eta: I think Santorum is misusing the term which is why there is such debate about it.

eta also: No one but the doctors and the Santorum family are ever going to know exactly what happened.

My feeling is they made a choice which goes against what their voters expect of them, and they're trying to cover their arses by using weird terms to confuse the voters and make it seem ok. I doubt anyone will ever know the real truth, and in my opinion, it's no one else's business anyway, even if they are hypocrites.

yeah, sorry, i meant natural as opposed to induced, not natural as in "a natural birth". My sloppy language, there. replace "natural" with "non-induced" where I said it back there.

But see, I think that when a candidate wants to use the office of the President of the United States to enforce their theocratic principles, but doesn't even live by the principles they intend to use the power of the Government to make other people live by - that disqualifies you, right there. You can't make me live by the moral codes of your religion, especially if you don't even live by them yourself.

I think the people who would vote for him in the first place would probably believe whatever lies he told anyway, so I don't think it matters. That's just what I think. I don't have to worry about voting for him, and thankfully these sorts of issues don't really come into it over here much. Peripherally maybe, but certainly not much.

I bluntly explained the difference. Don't like the answer, fine, but please don't blame me.
Karen is not running and it was CLEARLY her decision in each article. There is NO hypocrisy here. Just partisan bullshit from those who want to make a big deal out of it.
You need to read more than the partisan stuff. I know you like dailykos and MM because they tell you what you want to hear, but they slant most everything, just like AM thinker, fox, breitbart and so on.

Rhianne is correct.

If you explained it, classic, I either didn't understand your explanation or missed your explanation. What is the difference between a medically induced miscarriage and an abortion?

HM, nothing personal, but that wiki article is beyond terrible.
I listed more reasons for inducing labor than they had.
I went through this twice and did enough research to know.

The eventual outcome is the same in that there is a dead child.
Nothing else matters and I'll not post any more on it. It brings up terrible memories for me. I'm out.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
IMO, Santorum is not a viable candidate for many many reasons.
This is NOT one of them.

One makes you feel warm and fuzzy and the other makes you feel like a murderer?

It's all a vigorous discussion, and supports my political point,
in that Rick Santorum espouses a religious position that no woman should have any pregnancy terminated
... no how, no way ... no matter if she be pregnant via rape, incest or a loving husband.

I suspect there is rarely, if ever, a definitive, objective, medical basis for choosing
the "life of the mother versus life of the fetus".
It's my understanding the teachings of Santorum's church is to always try to save the life of both.

But Santorum's actions with regards to Terri Shiavo demonstrate that he is quite willing
to use the power of governmental office to impose his own religious beliefs on others.
.

Does Rick think (if the procedure was option 1 that I listed) that his wife's doctor should be arrested? Does Rick think that the choice was up to his wife and his wife alone? Does Rick think that his wife should have been allowed to decide to have that procedure to save her life, with or without his consent?
When Rick Santorum staked out the position that a fertilized egg is a Person - and should be legally considered a person, and this that the government should be in the business of regulating the reproductive systems of women, having a double standard when it's his own family is important.
If he was making his opposition to drugs an important campaign issue, but his daughter had a medical Mary Jane prescription, I would have a huge problem with the idea that it's okay for him and his but unacceptable to the general public.
It's not the decision on the pregnancy I question. It's his double-standard, that the government should ban something that he believes is acceptable when his loved ones do it.