Is this a Republican thing ?
If so, they seem intent on taking more and more freedoms away.
Except for guns
- VitaMan
- 02-22-2024, 09:37 PM
- winn dixie
- 02-22-2024, 10:11 PM
- Yssup Rider
- 02-22-2024, 10:43 PM
The Alabama Supreme Court justice who rendered the decision is a full fledged religious fundamentalist.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ins-rcna139969
Alabama justice who ruled embryos are people says American law should be rooted in the Bible
Tom Parker, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, expressed his support for the Seven Mountains Mandate, a once-fringe philosophy that calls on evangelical Christians to reshape American law and society based on their beliefs.
Feb. 22, 2024, 6:50 PM CST
On the same day that Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker handed down an opinion declaring that fertilized frozen embryos are people, imperiling women’s access to in vitro fertilization treatments, he espoused support for a once-fringe philosophy that calls on evangelical Christians to reshape society based on their interpretation of the Bible.
During an online broadcast hosted by Tennessee evangelist Johnny Enlow on Friday, Parker suggested America was founded explicitly as a Christian nation and discussed his embrace of the Seven Mountains Mandate — the belief that conservative Christians are meant to rule over seven key areas of American life, including media, business, education and government.
“God created government, and the fact that we have let it go into the possession of others, it’s heartbreaking,” Parker said in the interview, first reported this week by Media Matters for America, a liberal nonprofit media watchdog. “That’s why he is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains right now.”
Hours before the interview was published, Parker issued a concurring opinion in a case in which he and his fellow justices ruled that frozen embryos have the same rights as living children under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
Parker wrote that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life” and that “life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.” To support his legal opinion, Parker repeatedly cited the book of Genesis, including a passage asserting that all people are created in God’s image.
“Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God,” Parker wrote, “and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”
Parker did not respond to messages requesting comment. In a written statement, Enlow said, in his view, the Seven Mountains Mandate encourages Christians to fight for their values in government and elsewhere to aid “in the healing of society.”
“It is not sinister to desire a voice and relevance in political matters,” said Enlow, who in 2020 suggested that then-President Donald Trump could impose martial law to remain in office following his electoral defeat. “I am pretty sure that is why every citizen takes the time to vote.”
Parker’s statements — in his remarks to Enlow and in his written opinion — are the latest examples of Republican politicians and elected officials embracing the Christian nationalist view that America’s laws should be rooted in a fundamentalist reading of the Bible.
The Alabama chief justice’s embrace of the Seven Mountains Mandate, in particular, signaled the growing influence of a once-fringe political and religious theology that’s been spreading in recent years among certain segments of evangelical Christians, said Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Maryland.
“The Seven Mountains is not about democracy,” said Taylor, who has studied the role Christian extremism played in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “In fact, I would argue that the Seven Mountains itself is a vision that is antidemocratic.”
Adherents of the ideology have grown in prominence and power in the years since the 2016 election, when Trump became an unlikely hero of the Christian right and cultivated relationships with celebrity pastors who preach the Seven Mountains Mandate. Parker is the latest in a line of prominent Republicans to openly embrace the concept, Taylor said.
Charlie Kirk, the MAGA influencer and founder of Turning Point USA, celebrated the GOP’s shift under Trump when he told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2020, “Finally we have a president that understands the seven mountains of cultural influence.”
In 2022, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado called on attendees at a political conference hosted by a group with a mission to “reform the nation via the Seven Mountains” to “rise up” and place “God back at the center of our country.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, the nation’s highest-ranking Republican, also has ties to pastors and activists who preach the Seven Mountains. Johnson, like Parker, has aligned himself with the evangelical activist and self-styled historian David Barton, a leading promoter of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation whose laws should reflect biblical principles.
Barton and other Seven Mountains proponents argue that the idea of separation of church and state, regarded by many as a bedrock of American democracy, is a myth invented by progressives based on a misreading of Thomas Jefferson’s famous 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. And any laws or court rulings limiting the influence of religion in schools and government — such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1962 and 1963 decisions banning mandatory public school prayer and Bible readings — are an affront to America’s true founding.
These ideas aren’t only gaining influence among preachers and politicians, experts say. In a survey last year, Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison University, found that about 20% of American adults — and 30% of Christians — agreed with the statement that “God wants Christians to stand atop the ‘7 mountains of society,’ including the government, education, media, and others.”
Prior to conducting the survey, Djupe expected to discover only marginal support for the Seven Mountains concept.
“It turns out,” he said, “a substantial number of Americans believe these things.”
Parker echoed Barton’s views about America’s founding during his interview with Enlow, after Enlow asked the chief justice to comment on the growing use of the phrase “Christian nationalism” among those who support the separation of church and state.
“This is an undefined term that’s being thrown around now to label people, and I have no idea what they mean by or what should be meant by it,” said Parker, who then defended his view that America’s “original form of government” was based on the Bible.
“It’s constitutional,” Parker said. “It’s our foundation.”
The Alabama ruling dealing with in vitro fertilization, or IVF, offers a picture of what that worldview might look like in practice and how it might affect the lives of regular citizens, Taylor said.
After Parker and his colleagues issued their ruling, the state’s largest hospital paused IVF treatments while it considered the legal repercussions of the decision.
Taylor said it was “jaw-dropping” to hear a state supreme court chief justice espousing a theology that he views as antidemocratic “while making very extreme decisions.”
But, he added, “this is the new reality of our politics.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...ins-rcna139969
Alabama justice who ruled embryos are people says American law should be rooted in the Bible
Tom Parker, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, expressed his support for the Seven Mountains Mandate, a once-fringe philosophy that calls on evangelical Christians to reshape American law and society based on their beliefs.
Feb. 22, 2024, 6:50 PM CST
On the same day that Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker handed down an opinion declaring that fertilized frozen embryos are people, imperiling women’s access to in vitro fertilization treatments, he espoused support for a once-fringe philosophy that calls on evangelical Christians to reshape society based on their interpretation of the Bible.
During an online broadcast hosted by Tennessee evangelist Johnny Enlow on Friday, Parker suggested America was founded explicitly as a Christian nation and discussed his embrace of the Seven Mountains Mandate — the belief that conservative Christians are meant to rule over seven key areas of American life, including media, business, education and government.
“God created government, and the fact that we have let it go into the possession of others, it’s heartbreaking,” Parker said in the interview, first reported this week by Media Matters for America, a liberal nonprofit media watchdog. “That’s why he is calling and equipping people to step back into these mountains right now.”
Hours before the interview was published, Parker issued a concurring opinion in a case in which he and his fellow justices ruled that frozen embryos have the same rights as living children under Alabama’s Wrongful Death of a Minor Act.
Parker wrote that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life” and that “life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.” To support his legal opinion, Parker repeatedly cited the book of Genesis, including a passage asserting that all people are created in God’s image.
“Even before birth, all human beings bear the image of God,” Parker wrote, “and their lives cannot be destroyed without effacing his glory.”
Parker did not respond to messages requesting comment. In a written statement, Enlow said, in his view, the Seven Mountains Mandate encourages Christians to fight for their values in government and elsewhere to aid “in the healing of society.”
“It is not sinister to desire a voice and relevance in political matters,” said Enlow, who in 2020 suggested that then-President Donald Trump could impose martial law to remain in office following his electoral defeat. “I am pretty sure that is why every citizen takes the time to vote.”
Parker’s statements — in his remarks to Enlow and in his written opinion — are the latest examples of Republican politicians and elected officials embracing the Christian nationalist view that America’s laws should be rooted in a fundamentalist reading of the Bible.
The Alabama chief justice’s embrace of the Seven Mountains Mandate, in particular, signaled the growing influence of a once-fringe political and religious theology that’s been spreading in recent years among certain segments of evangelical Christians, said Matthew D. Taylor, a senior scholar at the Institute for Islamic, Christian, and Jewish Studies in Maryland.
“The Seven Mountains is not about democracy,” said Taylor, who has studied the role Christian extremism played in efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. “In fact, I would argue that the Seven Mountains itself is a vision that is antidemocratic.”
Adherents of the ideology have grown in prominence and power in the years since the 2016 election, when Trump became an unlikely hero of the Christian right and cultivated relationships with celebrity pastors who preach the Seven Mountains Mandate. Parker is the latest in a line of prominent Republicans to openly embrace the concept, Taylor said.
Charlie Kirk, the MAGA influencer and founder of Turning Point USA, celebrated the GOP’s shift under Trump when he told attendees at the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2020, “Finally we have a president that understands the seven mountains of cultural influence.”
In 2022, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado called on attendees at a political conference hosted by a group with a mission to “reform the nation via the Seven Mountains” to “rise up” and place “God back at the center of our country.”
House Speaker Mike Johnson, the nation’s highest-ranking Republican, also has ties to pastors and activists who preach the Seven Mountains. Johnson, like Parker, has aligned himself with the evangelical activist and self-styled historian David Barton, a leading promoter of the idea that America was founded as a Christian nation whose laws should reflect biblical principles.
Barton and other Seven Mountains proponents argue that the idea of separation of church and state, regarded by many as a bedrock of American democracy, is a myth invented by progressives based on a misreading of Thomas Jefferson’s famous 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists. And any laws or court rulings limiting the influence of religion in schools and government — such as the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1962 and 1963 decisions banning mandatory public school prayer and Bible readings — are an affront to America’s true founding.
These ideas aren’t only gaining influence among preachers and politicians, experts say. In a survey last year, Paul Djupe, a political scientist at Denison University, found that about 20% of American adults — and 30% of Christians — agreed with the statement that “God wants Christians to stand atop the ‘7 mountains of society,’ including the government, education, media, and others.”
Prior to conducting the survey, Djupe expected to discover only marginal support for the Seven Mountains concept.
“It turns out,” he said, “a substantial number of Americans believe these things.”
Parker echoed Barton’s views about America’s founding during his interview with Enlow, after Enlow asked the chief justice to comment on the growing use of the phrase “Christian nationalism” among those who support the separation of church and state.
“This is an undefined term that’s being thrown around now to label people, and I have no idea what they mean by or what should be meant by it,” said Parker, who then defended his view that America’s “original form of government” was based on the Bible.
“It’s constitutional,” Parker said. “It’s our foundation.”
The Alabama ruling dealing with in vitro fertilization, or IVF, offers a picture of what that worldview might look like in practice and how it might affect the lives of regular citizens, Taylor said.
After Parker and his colleagues issued their ruling, the state’s largest hospital paused IVF treatments while it considered the legal repercussions of the decision.
Taylor said it was “jaw-dropping” to hear a state supreme court chief justice espousing a theology that he views as antidemocratic “while making very extreme decisions.”
But, he added, “this is the new reality of our politics.”
- Yssup Rider
- 02-22-2024, 10:48 PM
First, they said corporations were people.
Then they said fetuses were people.
Now it’s frozen embryos.
What’s next? Jizz is people?
That would bring jerking off to a sudden halt.
Maybe our country would be in a better place.
Hmmm … DNA is people…
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
Then they said fetuses were people.
Now it’s frozen embryos.
What’s next? Jizz is people?
That would bring jerking off to a sudden halt.
Maybe our country would be in a better place.
Hmmm … DNA is people…
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
- ICU 812
- 02-23-2024, 05:06 AM
You can't get more traditional than the two thousand year history of the Catholic Church. That is not a right-wing fundamentalist, odd-ball organization.
Their position has always been that life begins at conception too.
Their position has always been that life begins at conception too.
- Yssup Rider
- 02-23-2024, 08:20 AM
The Catholic Church didn’t make that ruling. I’d expect as much from them. They’re not in charge of the government. But they didn’t make that ruling, the Supreme Court of Alabama did.
Led by a religious fanatic who wants the USA to be a theocracy like Iran.
Catholic clergy didn't overturn Roe. Republican judges did.
Surely you can tell the difference.
Led by a religious fanatic who wants the USA to be a theocracy like Iran.
Catholic clergy didn't overturn Roe. Republican judges did.
Surely you can tell the difference.
- DNinja69
- 02-23-2024, 08:32 AM
The zealot heading Bama's top court is a proponent of the Seven Mountains Mandate so we can expect more of this from him.
- Levianon17
- 02-23-2024, 10:32 AM
- eyecu2
- 02-23-2024, 11:30 AM
Fucking courts and religion are supposed to separated.
The founding fathers knew that. Religious freedom and persecution by a belief system is simply a throwback to biblical ideology and should be immediately struck down.
Your body and it's byproducts are not to be part of a zeolots theological wet dream.
What's next,
Your blood,
Your organs,
Your skin.
Arrest ppl for implanting embryos or getting a sunburn. Or you got a wicked case of the shits from eating at White Castle...cast stones upon thee!
Republicans/ conservatives/ evangelicals need to stop with all the body controls.
What's next... You can only take a shit every other dayas long as it's sunny, or if it's after 6pm, but never on a Sunday morning cuz you got to be in church?
Fanaticism is killing this country more than immigrants jumping the border.
Alabama ain't the sweet home it used to be. It's become another redneck wasteland where you can fuck a cousin, but don't you dare fuck with that embryo buried in her sacred uterus.
We treat dogs better than humans
The founding fathers knew that. Religious freedom and persecution by a belief system is simply a throwback to biblical ideology and should be immediately struck down.
Your body and it's byproducts are not to be part of a zeolots theological wet dream.
What's next,
Your blood,
Your organs,
Your skin.
Arrest ppl for implanting embryos or getting a sunburn. Or you got a wicked case of the shits from eating at White Castle...cast stones upon thee!
Republicans/ conservatives/ evangelicals need to stop with all the body controls.
What's next... You can only take a shit every other dayas long as it's sunny, or if it's after 6pm, but never on a Sunday morning cuz you got to be in church?
Fanaticism is killing this country more than immigrants jumping the border.
Alabama ain't the sweet home it used to be. It's become another redneck wasteland where you can fuck a cousin, but don't you dare fuck with that embryo buried in her sacred uterus.
We treat dogs better than humans
- Jackie S
- 02-23-2024, 12:59 PM
We are supposed to be a SecularCountry governed by a Secular Elected Government.
Abortion should not even be a Religious issue. It should be a Human issue.
Humans have the intelligence, and the knowledge, to recognize that what is growing inside a woman’s womb is more than “a clump of cells”.
Education is the key. I would like to see the statistics on how many women, after viewing an ultra sound of a two month old “fetus”, are still willing to abort it.
Abortion should not even be a Religious issue. It should be a Human issue.
Humans have the intelligence, and the knowledge, to recognize that what is growing inside a woman’s womb is more than “a clump of cells”.
Education is the key. I would like to see the statistics on how many women, after viewing an ultra sound of a two month old “fetus”, are still willing to abort it.
- eyecu2
- 02-24-2024, 06:02 AM
Education you say?
Abortion should not even be a Religious issue. It should be a Human issue.
Humans have the intelligence, and the knowledge, to recognize that what is growing inside a woman’s womb is more than “a clump of cells”.
Education is the key. Originally Posted by Jackie S
Human issue you say?
We consider life begins at birth. Until birth, most babies would not be self sustainable and are by their general biological nature, using the uterus of a female just as a host /parasite environment. Without that environment, most will die, and certainly that time duration can be found for viability outside the womb.
Women who have been raped or were forced to conceive by any method still own their bodies. What's so difficult to understand about their rights as a host?
Imagine if somebody came over to stay at your house, but lingered there for 9 months. Your intention was never for them to stay, but today conservatives , evangelicals and the extremists on the GOP would like you to believe that as long as the door was open, you get to keep them for all 9 months regardless.
That just doesn't make sense I think you should be able to exercise your personal rights and request them to leave just as a woman is able to request that her body not act as a host. When we talk about education, what would you teach to a woman or man, to say, your rights of your body are given up because you're now a host to another organism.
What if your neighbor told you he was dying and needed a liver transplant, you happen to be a match- would you be forced to act as a host to either him, or provide a transplant to sustain them?
If you have blood to a person who needs a pint every week, should you be forced to do that too just because you're rare type and theirs is a match?
This is long been the understanding of the rights of women since Roe, and If a government can tell you what to do with your body, your friends, neighbors or as a host, what can't they tell you to do?
This is a giant step back for women, but also personal rights and freedoms in general. It will literally be the singular issue that will cause the GOP to lose an election in November
- Yssup Rider
- 02-24-2024, 09:02 AM
- Jacuzzme
- 02-24-2024, 09:18 AM
It’s Alabama, the politicians represent the people. This ruling is a reflection of that, and how the system is supposed to work.
- Jacuzzme
- 02-24-2024, 09:21 AM
Imagine if somebody came over to stay at your house, but lingered there for 9 months. Your intention was never for them to stay, but today conservatives , evangelicals and the extremists on the GOP would like you to believe that as long as the door was open, you get to keep them for all 9 months regardless.Pretty sure you couldn’t legally kill them.
- Yssup Rider
- 02-24-2024, 09:25 AM