By: Donald V. Watkins
Copyrighted and Published on July 10, 2022
An Editorial Opinion
If you are a woman who has been raped in one of the wrong states in America and you became pregnant from this act of violence, the Taliban faction of the Republican Party has mandated in 26 states that you must give birth to your rapist's child. You have no choice. Even if there is a risk that you might die while bringing your rapist's baby into the world, it does not matter. You are a dispensable vessel for forced childbirth.
If your rapist is caught, he might be criminally charged with one of the many categories and degrees of sexual assaults, tried in a court proceeding, convicted, and sentenced from 5 to 7 years in prison for raping you. Your rapist might get probation if he is a privileged white male college student or a "pillar" of white society.
If your rapist is your estranged husband, or a member of a super-wealthy family, or a popular athlete, entertainer, and/or actor, or a well-known political figure, he likely will escape criminal charges. Instead, you will become the victim of a well-coordinated campaign of "victim shaming."
If you abort your rapist's fetus in one of the Taliban controlled "Red states," you may be charged with murder, tried in court, convicted, and sentenced to at least 10 years in prison for having this medically induced or surgical procedure, even if it is necessary to save your life. Your doctor will likely be charged with murder, as well.
This is NOT a bad dream, or a horror movie. This is the sad reality of life in Taliban-controlled "Red states." The Taliban faction of the Republican Party owns and controls your body, as a woman.
Republican Taliban leaders find inspiration for their harsh treatment of women (and people of color) in the Holy Bible. After all, most of them are white Southern Baptists, Catholics, and Evangelical Christians.
These Christian zealots often cite Ephesians 5:22-24 for spiritual guidance. This Biblical passage commands: "For wives ... submit to your husbands as to the Lord. For a husband is the head of his wife as Christ is the head of the church. He is the Savior of his body, the church. As the church submits to Christ, so you wives should submit to your husbands in everything."
For more than two hundred years in America, this Judeo-Christian Biblical passage, which was written by the apostle Paul (a Roman citizen), provided the underpinnings for state laws that authorized white married men in America to beat and rape their wives. This is a tradition the colonists brought from Europe where women shared the same status as animals.
Taliban leaders in Afghanistan find their inspiration in the Holy Koran for subjugating women in all aspects of their society. They, too, have the legal right to rape and beat their wives. They, too, force the birth of children whose mothers are rape victims. Sometimes, they even kill the woman for supposedly bringing dishonor on the family's name.
Neither the Bible, nor the Koran, have passages that espouse the birth of a child who was conceived during an act of rape or incest. Jesus certainly did not opine on this subject.
The five U.S. Supreme Court Justices who voted in June to overturn Roe v. Wade are proud members of the Taliban faction of the Republican Party. All of them profess to be Christians. Three of them -- Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh --use Christianity as a cloak for white male privilege.
These three men have never shown any respect for the rights of women under federal statutes or constitutional provisions. None of them has ever advocated for equal rights for women. All three men were elevated to the Supreme Court solely because the Taliban faction of the National Republican Party was assured that these minions would carry out their instructions to blow up Roe v. Wade, which they did.
Justice Amy Coney Barrett, a devout Catholic, is deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition. This explains why Catholic theology, and not legal precedence, dictated her vote to overturn Roe v. Wade. Immediately after the Supreme Court's decision in the case, the Vatican expressed great pleasure with Barrett's vote.
Like Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, and Brett Kavanaugh, the Vatican has historically subjugated women in the Catholic church around the world. This religious organization, which is best known today for unrelenting clergy sex abuse of young children, has been male-dominated for nearly two thousand years.
Like the ruling Ayatollahs in Iran, Mullahs and Clerics in Iraq, and Taliban in Afghanistan, Justice Barrett's vote in Roe v. Wade was theocracy at work. As opposed to wearing an explosive device under a burka, Barrett pushes anti-women Taliban ideas in a black robe. When Barrett works to advance Republican Taliban ideas in America, the detonation from her ideological votes on the bench are just as harmful to women as the detonated suicide vests worn by her female counterparts in Afghanistan. We do not know how many thousands of desperate American women will die from suicides, illegal abortions, and forced childbirths as a result of Barrett's vote to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Justice Clarence Thomas is hopelessly trapped in the Biblical passage in Ephesians 6:5-6: "Slaves, obey your earthly masters with deep respect and fear. Serve them sincerely as you would serve Christ. Try to please them all the time, not just when they are watching you."
Thomas lives and thrives in a permanent state of mental and psychological slavery. He is constantly seeking new and creative ways to please his white slave masters.
The constitution to which Thomas accords great deference was written by 55 white men who viewed his enslaved ancestors and him as "chattel property." Thomas would have been tortured, maimed, and dismembered for trying to have an intimate sexual relationship with the white woman who eventually became his wife. In fact, the interracial marriage between Thomas and his wife Virginia was banned by state laws until a forward-looking U.S. Supreme Court struck them down in 1967 in the case of Loving v. Virginia.
The emerging Taliban brand of "Christianity" practiced by Alito, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, Barrett, and Thomas is dangerous for all Americans. This is a modern-day version of the "Christianity" that propped up the millions of architects and proponents of racial segregation and "massive resistance" to racial desegregation in the Deep South from 1879 to 1980. In the 1980s, they also killed the Equal Rights Amendment for women.
These "Christians" are back, and they are dangerous!
