Religious Nuts Are Ruining Our Country

We all know that Republicans like to take credit for being the caretakers of 'American, Judeo-Christian-style morality in our country. Yet case after case shows that the only morality they act out of is their own fear.

Imagine being a young woman walking to your car and a man jumps out at you, drags you off the street and rapes you behind an intersection. It is one of the most traumatic things one person can do to assert power over another human being. Only in the case of a particular woman in Tampa on Saturday night this was only the beginning of her nightmare.

The hospital had done a standard exam and prescribed her a morning-after pill, followed by the police coming in to do their standard investigation. When they pulled up her record a paperwork-snafu from four years ago showed she had an arrest warrant for not providing resitution in a case as a juvenile.

So what did the cops do? Vigoriously work to find the rapist and bring him to justice? No, instead they hauled her off to jail:

...the woman was put in handcuffs and taken to jail. She was not allowed bond, and the medical staff at the jail refused to give her the Morning After Pill even though it had been prescribed at the hospital.

"The medical supervisor would not allow her to take the pill because she said it was against her, the supervisor's, religion. So, here we have a medical supervisor imposing her beliefs on a rape victim," claimed the victim's attorney Virlyn Moore. "As a human being, how someone could be so violated by this monster and then the system comes along and rapes her again psychologically and emotionally - it's outrageous and unconscionable."

So a rapist now runs free while the raw trauma of a rape is compounded by the 'morality' of the prison' medical staff. Who are they to deny her the rights of an American citizen? How is it that religious beliefs can be imposed on another in a public institution, especially that of a rape victim? This is a phenomenon that needs to be stopped cold in it's tracks. If an individual does not believe in secondary contraception, then don't take it for yourself. But in America, that is where it should stop. We are a land that was founded with liberty in mind, not religious persecution of others.

Protesters Attacked In Memphis: Police Look Away!

Memphis hosted the National Conference for Media Reform last week with many well-known media personalities such as McJoan from DailyKos, Bill Moyers, Amy Goodman and others. Supposedly the conference went very well but late last Friday night things got ugly on the famous Beale St. in Memphis.

The 'Chain Gang' sponsored by the Backbone Campaign marched down the street in their costumes while reading off Bush's list of war crimes. Apparently some drunk patrons inside the bars didn't approve and came out to attack the Chain Gang. Meanwhile a police car stationed down the street looked at the melee and decided to turn away and leave!



From Rawstory:

"I saw arms and legs everywhere. Some guy came out of a bar and had blindsided us. He hit two members in the back of the head." One of the protesters took off his mask and struck back at his assailant, she noted.

"Then some bouncers came out of a bar and there was a melee." Finally pulling off her mask, she said she saw "legs and arms flying everywhere."

According to Cummings and another demonstrator interviewed by RAW STORY, a Memphis Police car was parked at the end of the street, from which officers should have been able to observe the frantic scene. But, Cummings claimed, "the Memphis Police officers took one look and drove away."

What was a peaceful protest disintegrated into chaos while the cops looked away indifferently. As far as I know aggrevated assault is still a crime in Memphis and should be handled by local authorities. Thankfully though the situation handled itself. After being assaulted, the protesters talked to their attacker, who turned out to be a very drunk Iraq veteran.

"Why are you doing this to our President?" the veteran asked. "You don’t understand what we’ve been through and what we’ve done."

He then reportedly told the protesters that he harbored doubts about the President’s role in the 9-11 terror attacks.

"What if he did it?" the vet asked rhetorically, according to Cummings, a long-time peace activist who volunteers at military hospitals to assist wounded soldiers. "But he’s still the Commander in Chief. We thought we were killing Iraqis to protect you.’"

Cummings added, "He was crying and incoherent. We said 'We love you and support the troops. We’ve had many young Iraq veterans who are our friends.'"

"I’m still active duty and I don’t know what to do," the young men reportedly told the activists.

Cummings added, "We tried to hug him, but he pushed us away.'"

After all of that things were quieting down when protester Barbara Cummings was hit in the back of the head. The assailant recoiled and said 'I didn’t know you were a lady'.

Currently there are no charges filed against the attackers or the policemen/women that didn't do their job. The Public Information Officer Sgt. Vince Higgins of the Memphis Police Dept. said that the officers were responsible for 'derelIction' of duty at the least.