Warning! This started out as an e-mail to my brother. The thoughts aren’t fully formed but it was a nice exercise to write and think about politics and religion again after a long absence talking only about myself.

Dear Tommy,

This may or may not turn out to be a blog post. I think you asked me at dinner on Sunday if I read Maureen O’Dowd’s column. I hadn’t read anything yet and since my weekdays are spent without Internet access and I’m far too tired to think in the evenings I’ve missed a lot. Thanks to 2 Tylenol PMs and no need to be anywhere today I got 10 hours of sleep last night and so my brain feels less mushy.

I just read Maureen’s column from Sunday and I was struck by her rebutting the Archbishop’s assertion that our government is no behaving as those in China and North Korea where they dictate the size of families, etc. Her remark, “Yeah. Not like the Vatican” really made me think. I hadn’t really given it much thought before. I was born in a different era than our parents and I suppose that in my lifetime the pope and the Vatican just didn’t seem like the seat of power perhaps they once were. It never really occurred to me that Pope really does decide how many children are born to families if they are in fact observant Catholics. It also never occurred to me that The Church also decides if you watch a loved one die a long slow painful death or if you get to decide how long your loved one should linger.

Speaking of life and who decides the beginning and the end of it … I just read the most stomach turning thing. Earlier this week someone Tweeted a link about Rick Santorum’s appearance on Meet the Press. In it he confirms that he does not believe abortion should be legal under any circumstances including rape or incest. In the link the writers go on to tell you that his wife had a late term abortion when she became ill during a pregnancy. *sits blinking at screen in disbelief* Now I went to the Meet the Press website and it was not an edited clip in that Tweet but David Gregory never asks Santorum if he’s okay with abortions to save the life of the mother so I can’t honestly remark about his absolute hypocrisy. But, Dear God! Shouldn’t this man of all people understand that life sends awful unforeseen circumstances your way? How can this man whose wife had to choose her life or the possible* life of the baby inside of her not have compassion for those who find themselves raped or molested and pregnant from the man who assaulted them? How can he say that it is okay for his family to have had the right to decide what is best for them but then turn around and say that other families in other circumstances should not have the peace of mind to know they too have the right to decide what is best for them?

* Who is to say that the unborn child would not die along with the mother?

I operate under the idea that there but for the grace of God go I and I’m often astonished by the Republican Party, which has somehow become the party of the Religious Right. How can these people who want to save the unborn babies in God’s name turn around and decide to deny their parents fair wages, union protection and healthcare? If the same baby they “saved” by making abortion illegal were born to a crack whore they’d celebrate their victory by either (depending on how good Child Protective Services is in the area) taking the baby away from the mother and putting it in a system that very often subjects children to neglect, violence and sexual abuse or if CPS is the mess it often is and the child falls through the cracks it’s subjected to the life of a child of a drug addict, which also often leads to neglect, violence and sexual abuse. I just don’t understand how the same folks who believe that life begins at conception (in the interest of honesty I do too) can turn around and decide that the very same lives are not their problem. *looks confused*

I suppose, in the end it comes down to what I see you write about a lot, “Whatsoever you do to the least of my people (brethren) you do to me.” Whatever happened to that? Or “Love one another as I have loved you”? How can these people who continue to assert that they are the party of the Godly be filled with so much hate and disdain for not just the crack whores of the world but also the struggling to get by everyday folks? How can they allow parents of children with life-threatening cancers and other ailments lose their homes because they cannot afford health insurance? How could this possibly be living God’s word? It baffles me how these people not only lay their heads down on the pillow at night but how they can sit in church on Sunday morning and not be racked with guilt while listening to the scriptures or reading their bibles?

I’m not a preacher or a politician but I wish I could shake these right wing politicians and pundits and remind them that God loves us all and he wants for us to love one another.