Patriarchy and moral issues

Even though a lot of my thoughts on our issues with patriarchy come from attempts to police the sexuality and gender of others, I think I can best make my points for this week by talking about abortion.

It is easy for someone who believes in chastity and values family to believe abortion is wrong, and never a good choice. It is similarly easy to feel justified in condemning those who believe differently, and even trying to make your way the law.

It is easy to feel virtuous about protecting the unborn.

All of that ease makes for some appalling, abhorrent behavior, made more disgusting by the smug self-righteousness.

Otherwise, explain to me how an attempt to protect life results in more death without saving a life. 

Savita Halappanavar's child had no chance of living, but Savita could have lived.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Savita_Halappanavar

Agnieska T.'s children died in the womb, but that they were already dead was not enough to allow her life to be saved.

https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/jan/26/poland-death-of-woman-refused-abortion

Women in Nicaragua have died or been left waiting for death because of anti-abortion laws.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1647381/

Since Roe v Wade was overturned in the United States, we mainly have stories of near death, especially in Texas:

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/16/health/abortion-texas-sepsis/index.html

Those are anecdotes. There is a general consensus that maternal mortality has increased, along with racism, which has a strong connection with maternal mortality in our country:

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/majority-obgyns-overturning-roe-led-maternal-deaths-survey/story?id=100241112 

But the fight against abortion doesn't just kill and almost kill women. It harasses them. It makes it harder for them to get the health care they need because it intimidates doctors. 

It adds danger and criminalization to miscarriages that may already be heartbreaking: 

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/11/15/1135882310/miscarriage-hemorrhage-abortion-law-ohio

It tracks women who might be pregnant to make sure they can't travel to get an abortion, and it requests tracking the periods of high school students just in case they might get pregnant:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/florida-schools-ask-student-athletes-menstrual-history-parents-worry-p-rcna50794

And even though those pregnancies should all involve a man, the tracking and the harassment and the prosecution all focuses on women.

It even allows abusive men to sue the women trying to escape them and their friends:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/05/04/texas-abortion-wrongful-death-countersuit/

https://www.axios.com/2023/03/11/abortion-texas-lawsuit-wrongful-death 

If you were judging whether the people involved truly valued life versus valuing the ability to control others, the evidence has a strong slant toward control.

These stories are selected for that purpose, of course, but what if we were looking at it from the other side? What if we were looking for a way to truly demonstrate that we value life? 

I hope to spend more time on that next week.

The patriarchy behind one of my favorite scriptures

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. ~ James 1:27

Let me say right out that I love James, and the first chapter is great. 

Verse 5 is not only a key part of the restoration of the gospel but also an important promise. 

For verse 27, it struck me as profound in that it highlights two aspects to gospel living -- chastity and charity -- that people often fail to balance. If we can combine those two things, like Jesus (the writer's brother) did, then we are approaching what we are supposed to be.

It can be easy to stay pure in many ways but empty of the pure love of Christ, ending up prudish and frigid. 

There are also people who have kind and loving hearts, but who miss out on the importance of moderation and self-control, which has its own problems.

Now, there is room for a lot of discussion on the chastity part, because as a society we have failed miserably at being even able to talk realistically about sex or what is good about it, apparently only leaving room for judging others. I do not think I am the best person to lead that discussion, but I am quite passionate and have a lot of thoughts on the other side.

Notice how the charity section focuses on widows and... not just orphans, but specifically those without fathers. Why? Because of the male supremacy of that time meant that a woman being strong and capable wasn't enough, for herself or for her children. If there were not someone who owned them as family, then they were at the mercy of the world.

(While "own" can be used to mean acknowledgement, the more common meaning is more applicable than you would hope.)

I do not blame James for that; this verse is a response to the world as it was.

I want to point out that in the entire epistle, there is a lot more condemnation of the rich than focusing on different lusts. I suspect that the people of his time were a lot like the people of our time... at least the ones who would be reading the epistles.

Yes, I see a lot of people around me whom I have no reason to doubt are morally pure, but I do doubt how much love they have for those around them.

Yes, we focus a lot more on shoplifting than on wage theft (which James 5:4 specifically mentions), even though wage theft involves much larger amounts, and robs people who can afford it less.

I think that comes from a tendency to side with power that is part of dominator culture. As long as there are people below you, that you can look down on, some people find that adequate consolation for the abuse and scorn of those above.

It is worth remembering that a framework that supports abuse downward will flow back upward as well. 

On an individual level, some people who don't have enough status will use violence to lash out.  

On a structural level, the people above will always want more, pushing those below them further down.

Consider, for example, that it used to be quite common that a white man with a steady job could support a wife and multiple children on that single income. 

Families of other races generally needed more household members working. Indeed, it was often legally prohibited for a Black woman to be a housewife. (That sounds ridiculous, but it is true.)

Today a family with two regular incomes may still struggle. While the racial wealth gap still exists, the economic status of white families has fallen. 

That all is possible because of a historic devaluation of the labor of women, and of people of color, and of women of color, until all that devaluation became a pattern that devalued those white men too.

Despite that, many white people will tell you that Native Americans don't pay taxes (false), or that Black people get their college paid for without having good grades or paying tuition (false), and aggrieved white men will say that they are the only ones who can't catch a break, and that there are programs to help women (I wish I could find them).

Those things are relevant, but perhaps it is most important to remember that this is not what we are supposed to be doing at all.

We are supposed to be loving each other and valuing each other and wishing each other well. We should be serving each other. The loss of family members has ramifications that are not financial, and sometimes we could all use a break.

Perhaps a good thing to remember is that when Jesus was using his divine powers, he was using them for blessing, healing, feeding, reaching out and providing safety.

When he demonstrated his power to destroy, he did it on a barren tree.

The one who had the power to dominate did not.

Go and do thou likewise.

Being people fit for these times

And I am not sure what else to do, so I blog.

That was my concluding line two weeks ago. It is discouraging how little the blogging does to help.

To the extent that my writing helps me have my own head on straight, I believe in the value of that because I believe that individuals matter and that includes me.

If it occasionally helps someone else too, that person is worth helping.

Setting that against the backdrop of genocide and hate... that does not change the value of any individual, but there is a lot of room for discouragement.

I believe what is coming up for future posts is additional repudiation of dominator culture and affirmation of my faith.

For now, there are two things that discourage me the most. Any subsiding on those fronts would be good.

One is a lack of honesty. 

That includes both people calling a pro-Palestine rally a pro-Hamas rally and people saying that their chant is not calling for the destruction of Israel.

It may be worth noting that those people would not say that they are lying; they mean it, they are sincere, and they have lots of proof to justify what they are saying.

They are not being honest with themselves, and therefore they cannot be completely honest regardless of the audience.

One thing that we need to commit to is absolute honesty.

That means facing things that are complicated and uncomfortable head-on. It means looking for additional information when we don't have enough. 

The press is largely failing, which makes that part harder, but that should not affect our commitment to truth.

The other thing we need is growing charity.

That's harder than the honesty, I know, but it is part of it too.

If you can just decide that Israel is bad, then you can just condemn them, and maybe you could be pro-Hamas.

You definitely get to hate the president and various senators and celebrities. Maybe none of them deserved that much praise, but is the hate fair? Is it helpful?

If you can just decide that Palestine is evil and has no right to exist and neither do Palestinians, well that makes things really easy too, but is wrong, and that one will actually require hardening your heart much more quickly.

We need to wish each other well, have sympathy for the fears and angers that get in the way of that, and yet still always choose protection and harm reduction and healing first.

It is a position that will hurt a lot -- the opposite of a hard heart is often a broken one -- but it is what is needed, now and eternally.

So easy to slip

One point I kind of hit on last week is that criticism of Israel is not automatically anti-Semitic, though defenders of Israel may be quick to claim that any criticism is.

It is important to note that there is still a lot of anti-Semitism out there. Even during times when it is less prominent, it is always just under the surface, quick to rise back up.

Because of that, it is not surprising that some people are being openly anti-Semitic. Some others are getting really close. I am not going to judge anyone's motives, but some of it is pretty disturbing.

One is the rapid adoption of the chant, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free." Freedom for Palestinians is definitely important, and having freedom over a large unfettered area could be nice, but that phrase does sound an awful lot like the early PLO segment about driving the Jews into the sea.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/2/from-the-river-to-the-sea-what-does-the-palestinian-slogan-really-mean

Granted, it does not have to automatically mean that. There are also many Israelis calling for a total destruction of Palestine and backing it up with deadly attacks.

I get it, but it's wrong. It may be easier to reclaim that phrase than to reclaim the swastika or Confederate flag, but maybe reclaiming is not the answer. Maybe moving forward to something new and kinder is a better option.

For the people saying they don't mean it like that... maybe you don't, but it is quite possible you are marching next to people who do; are you comfortable with that? Should you be?

I also see people who criticize any attempt at diplomacy that is not a call on Israel for a complete ceasefire.

I get that too, but Hamas is openly saying that they will replicate the attacks, and do it again and again until Israel is gone as it "has no place on our land."

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/we-must-teach-israel-a-lesson-hamas-official-warns-october-7-attack-will-be-repeated-again-and-again-101698898245182.html

I know Israel has bigger weapons and they attack more effectively, what they are doing is sickening, but it doesn't justify that.

It is not helpful to take sides. 

Hamas and Netanyahu both have a lot to answer for, including Netanyahu's funding of Hamas over the years. Neither of those things warrants the destruction of an entire people.

None of that provides a solution, but I mention it because it is a reminder of how easy it is to slip into hate. We are called to love.

A lot of people talking right now don't seem to be able to offer anything but spite. 

There are reasons for the spite, but it won't help.

Complicating factors

Let me first specify that these factors may complicate what we feel, or make it harder to do the right thing, but that does not mean they change what is right or what our responsibilities are.

Not that it makes figuring out individual responsibilities easy either.

While there has been an increase in support for Palestinians, and that is important, most of the Western world (for lack of a better term) has strongly supported Israel and still mostly does. The reasons for that may not be great, but we have to face them.

First of all, there is the horror of the Holocaust. It is not unreasonable that we are horrified by that.

I am not even sure that finding land that could be their own was wrong. Given the time frame colonizing solutions were more likely than not.

Beyond that horror -- and a righteous "Never again!" -- I think there are also issues of guilt that play into it.

There is that guilt for the role the rest of the world played, not just in turning away refugees but in letting it happen. That includes appeasement and letting other countries get run over, and probably even the vindictiveness at the end of World War I, which contributed to what was happening in Germany before World War II. 

All of those steps got many people of many nationalities killed. Some of those steps involved trying to avoid war which makes sense, but if you are trying to avoid war because it causes death, and then that causes different death... 

Remember, none of this is going to be easy.

Beyond that, the United States played their own role in our treatment of Native Americans, which was part of Hitler's inspiration for how he did things. Yes, he had some ghastly innovations, but we need to own that role because it leads very much to today's situation.

So many Native Americans have visited Palestine and come away saying it reminds them of reservations.

That may lead us to a different guilt, but still one that we have a hard time facing.

We need to deal with that, for Palestine and for ourselves.

I believe an additional factor is that tendency to just want one side or the other to be right; forget nuance. I will get back to that next time, but there is one other thing I want to get into this week.

We may feel more conflicted because the Jews are Christ's chosen people. 

Besides, there are fundamentalists "Christians" cheering it on because they think it will bring on Christ's return.

There are two points with this. I would like to think that they are both fairly obvious, but so much that should be obvious isn't that I'm just going to go for it.

First of all, the purpose of the Revelation of St. John is to let believers know that even though they will see a great deal of evil and trouble they can be comforted that salvation will come and all wrongs will be righted. Feeling that comfort would be very different from celebrating evil. 

We should not root for evil. We should not accelerate it.

(Besides which, since the revelations describe a siege against Israel, that indicates that their offenses will fail at some point, though how many they will have slaughtered by then, and how many have already died... again, this is all horror.)

But also, remember that the Jews were the chosen people when they crucified Him too.

Now I realize that's bordering anti-Semitic, because that's a tack that they use, but my point is that being a covenant people does not exempt you as a group from criticism and it does not make each individual culpable of the group actions.

I believe God loves the Jewish people and I believe He loves the Palestinian people. I believe He has a plan for all of them.

The overall plan involves people having agency and the ability to make decisions, including destructive, terrible ones, but there is a limit to how much any one person can do without some cooperation. 

I believe Hitler was uniquely evil, but he would not have been able to succeed without others going along with it.

Governments often feel bound by treaties and financial concerns and what the opposition party has going on, and there is a limit to any one individual's control. 

I believe the protestors are having an influence now. There are people being arrested calling for a ceasefire, and they may not get the ceasefire, but it still makes a difference.

President Biden spoke words that Israelis found very comforting. Given the generational trauma they have had, I don't begrudge them that.

They also should not persecute others because of the persecution their ancestors faced, and that is a fair criticism.

It is also fair to note that they are doing some things not so different from our ancestors. There's a statue of one of my ninth-great-grandfathers because he was such a good Indian-fighter. I am sure that his children and grandchildren were proud, and for some generations after that. I wish things had been different, but all we have is now.

And I am not sure what else to do, so I blog.

Palestine

I sometimes refer to a tendency to choose sides and then put all one's loyalty on that side, refusing to even listen to criticism of your team.

The genocide in Palestine might be helpful for discussing that.

First off, notice that I called it a genocide. That would seem to indicate that I am on team Palestine, though that is not really accurate.

Since there is frequently a tendency to side with power, and since Israel has the definite advantage in power, I worry about Palestinians more. 

I would say that I do not worry about Hamas, wanting to make an important distinction between the terrorist organization and innocent people around them, but there are two problems with that.

"Innocent" is such a loaded word anyway. Certainly there are people who do not support Hamas and should not be judged by them. 

There may also be people who got into Hamas because they did not have many options. There may be people who would not support the slaughter of innocents, but after so much suffering at the hands of Israel, they feel some vindication when there is a strike. Prolonged suffering can be very demoralizing.

The other problem is that no one deserves that level of suffering. It wouldn't matter if they were all evil, and if over time they all became evil, there would be culpability on the part of their jailers.

If the targeting of civilians is evil when Hamas does it, then it is evil when Israel does it. 

And they have both done it; we need to be able to face that.

The first part may be remembering that not every Palestinian is a terrorist. It would be understandable if you were confused; Instagram was automatically adding "terrorist" to bios that mentioned Palestine, but that's wrong, and we should know better:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-67169228

I think there might also be something to say for remembering that Netanyahu made accusations of election fraud when people were voting against him and that he was facing indictment for corruption charges.

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-netanyahu-alleges-election-fraud-accuses-rival-duplicity-2021-06-06/ 

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/netanyahu-may-form-government-while-under-indictment-israeli-supreme-court-rules 

It is reasonable to question his actions, and also to know that not every Israeli stands with him.

I mean, he sounds a lot like their Trump, when you put it that way, and Hamas kind of like our militant Christian nationalists.

Yes, there are Jewish people -- in Israel and in the United States -- calling for the utter destruction of the Palestinian people, for their genocide. But there are others pleading for Palestine -- in Israel and in Chicago and Washington D.C., and even being arrested for that.

Let's not be led so much by the worst people. 

That could be a good starting place.

All coming back

The direction we have been going with these last few posts is getting at a balance between loving and thinking.

It should be obvious to anyone reading a religious blog that we should love each other and want to help each other. 

It may not be as obvious that we can have good intentions and miss pressing needs, and even unintentionally cause harm.

I'm going to tell two more stories centered around celebrities in the hopes that they will be illustrative, even if there are more pressing matters.

Actor Danny Masterson was recently convicted of drugging and raping two women. 

I believe I had heard of a third woman, but it is a pretty safe bet in cases of rape and sexual assault and similar things that whether we are talking about convictions or accusations, that number is low.

Several fellow actors wrote letters of support to the judge in Masterson's case, trying to argue for a more lenient sentence. Among them were Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis:

https://theconversation.com/hollywood-letters-of-support-for-danny-masterson-demonstrate-the-pervasiveness-of-myths-about-rape-culture-213508

The photo that accompanies the article is from their apology letter as they gave into the backlash. 

There were several gross things about their support. For example, they called Masterson an anti-drug role model, ignoring the irony of Masterson drugging his victims. 

In this case, the bigger issues were probably their vocal support of #MeToo and Kutcher's chairman role in Thorn, a purportedly anti-child sex abuse company. He has since stepped down.

Their mistake is really one that's as old as the hills: this person is nice to me, and my friend, and so I will defend them.Obviously their treatment of me makes them a good person!

Except that's not how it works.

I had thought this would be about the tendency to side with those more powerful, but this particular story does seem to be more about personal relationships. Famous people get to know other famous people, but their world may not be especially relevant for our world.

There was a different aspect that struck me, partly because of the other story.

Despite their past association, there had not been much buzz about the Kutchers through the original allegations against Masterson all the way through the conviction. Then, once it came out that they had supported lenience, that started a lot of conversation.

Things that were pointed out:

• Masterson exerted a powerful influence on the set of That 70s Show, largely focused on excluding Topher Grace (who left the cast early, despite being the star, and whose wife posted a statement apparently in favor of the victims).
• Thorn has apparently done more to endanger sex workers than make children safer.
• Kutcher first kissed Kunis when she was 14 and he was 19, on that set. He has also made inappropriate statements about other younger actresses, like a 15 year old at the time Hilary Duff.

It may not have been a set where you would even expect to find safety and respect.

Sometimes we talk about all watching everyone's lives on a big screen at Judgement Day, which sounds remarkably boring. However, I do believe that in addition to our own inescapable awareness of our own lives, good and bad choices both, I also believe we will certainly understand what affected us, in good and bad ways.

The things that were brought up about Ashton Kutcher reminded me of that. I don't know that he intended harm, but he did not try hard enough or care enough to do good. That is a pretty important failure.

That reminds me of the other story:

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/tv/a45080988/martin-short-comedians-reactions-social-media/ 

A writer wrote a scathing piece about Martin Short, calling is desperately unfunny and annoying. Fans, comedians and Canadians rushed to Short's defense, lauding not only how funny he was (and posting clips to prove it) but also how kind and wonderful he was. Apparently, only one person had anything bad to say about Martin Short, which made it foolish of them to publish it.

Of course, if they were writing about something correct -- even if the rest of the world were wrong -- it would be important to tell that truth, but just being petty can cost you.

Justice is not instant. It's not even particularly fast most of the time. 

However, the deeds that we do and the words that we say have effects. If that seems like I am leaving out thoughts, well, those thoughts are going to create the words and deeds.

So let us work to be informed. Let us work to be kind. 

Let us be valiant.

Then when all deception is gone -- including self-deception -- we will be able to feel good.