Last updated on February 8th, 2013 at 12:57 pm
Mitt Romney and Richard Mourdock in Indiana on Aug 4( Scott Olson, Getty Images )
This fall, Mitt Romney supports Richard Mourdock for senate.
You can learn more at RichardMourdock.com, where you will see what Romney said about Richard Mourdock:
“This is a man that I want to see in Washington – to make sure that we cannot just talk about changing things, but actually have the votes to get things changed.”
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Richard Mourdock is the Tea Partier who beat out Dick Lugar in the Indiana Republican primary. They said Lugar was too moderate.
Boy, did they fix that.
Mourdock, who had previously compared the Chrysler bailout to slavery, a tortured comparison making him Abraham Lincoln to Obama’s Stephen Douglas, said Tuesday that when a woman becomes pregnant because of rape, it is something God intended:
“I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God. And, I think, even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.”
And Romney wants this guy in Washington.
It makes you wonder if Mourdock and Todd Akin are brothers of another mother. Mourdock’s comment seems based on Akin’s pseudo-scientific theory that women have magic vaginas that protect them from a rapist’s sperm.
In August, Todd Akin opened his mouth and “legitimate rape” came out, echoing Paul Ryan’s earlier appeal to ideas of “forcible rape” as though some rapes were not really rapes. Ryan now, of course, is saying “rape is rape”.
And Republican Wisconsin State Assemblyman Roger Rivard is on the record as saying that “some girls rape easy“.
Ryan withdrew his endorsement of Rivard but how does Ryan explain his earlier comments, or, those he made more recently, that rape is “just another form of conception”?
If, at this point, you are asking yourself, “WTF?” you are not alone. The Republican Party has become the party of choice for rapists. Rapists have their own political party where they can mix it up with rich white folks and religious fruitcakes.
Mitt Romney, a bit of a religious fruitcake himself, has pulled a Pontius Pilate and washed his hands of Mourdock. Sorta.
“Gov. Romney disagrees with Richard Mourdock’s comments, and they do not reflect his views,” That’s what Romney spokeswoman Andrea Saul said in an email to The Associated Press.
What Romney did not do was withdraw his endorsement of Richard Mourdock. What Romney did not do is pull his ad. Nor did he say he would pull his ad. He just said he doesn’t agree that rape pregnancies are a gift from God.
Romney still wants this guy in Washiungton.
But by declining to withdraw his support, Romney, whatever words he may have uttered, tacitly supports Mourdock’s extreme position on rape. By endorsing Mourdock for Senate, he is endorsing Mourdock’s violently anti-woman position and putting this Indiana extremist in the position of legislating his hateful beliefs into law. As Ryan himself has previously attempted to do by redefining rape as “forcible rape”.
Mourdock, for his part, attempted to mollify critics by clarifying his position: only God creates life, he said:
“What I said was, in answering the question form my position of faith, I said I believe that God creates life. I believe that as wholly and as fully as I can believe it. That God creates life. Are you trying to suggest that somehow I think that God pre-ordained rape? No, I don’t think that. That’s sick. Twisted. That’s not even close to what I said. What I said is that God creates life.”
Oh, ok, that’s alright then. Not.
Rick Santorum would not be shocked by Mourdock’s comments, since he has said something very similar. In January, he told CNN’s Piers Morgan,
“I think the right approach is to accept this horribly created — in the sense of rape — but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you. We have to make the best of a bad situation.”
This is a lot like Sharron Angle’s rape lemonade. And Idaho’s Rep. Brent Crane, R-Nampa, who claims to be fighting for your family, freedoms, and finances. Crane told legislators this spring that the “hand of the Almighty” was at work. “His ways are higher than our ways.” Echoing Angle, the equally crazed Crane said. “He has the ability to take difficult, tragic, horrific circumstances and then turn them into wonderful examples.
In other words, yes, rape is part of God’s plan. Mourdock’s position is sick and twisted. Mourdock’s god is sick and twisted. The Republican Party is sick and twisted. And Mitt Romney, by continuing to support Richard Mourdock, is sick and twisted.
Besides being sick and twisted, Mourdock’s position is also not scientific. Only God creates life? What is it about biology – in particular, women’s biology – that Republicans do not understand? They think a man sticks his penis in a woman’s vagina and some sort of divine magic takes place, completely bystepping biology?
Well, go figure that in Florida’s Republican-controlled legislature you can’t even say vagina or uterus.
And as far as God and rape goes, Mourdock and his fellow rape enthusiasts needs to read his Bible, where God condones rape and far more than rape. Sick? Yes.
It is a shame Republicans don’t actually read their Bible before trying to push it on the rest of us.
Mourdock’s Democratic opponent, Rep. Joe Donnelly, replied that he did not believe “my God, or any God, would intend that to happen.”
Well thank goodness somebody has a sane God. Republicans sure don’t. Nor any sane candidates either.
According to the Associated Press, Mourdock has quite a few big name supporters besides Romney:
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell came to Indianapolis for a fundraiser Monday, and Arizona Sen. John McCain and South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham campaigned for Mourdock last week. New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte is due in the state Wednesday.
That does not include the $1 million Karl Rove’s Crossroads just pumped into the Indiana race on Mourdock’s behalf.
Image from LATimes
Hrafnkell Haraldsson, a social liberal with leanings toward centrist politics has degrees in history and philosophy. His interests include, besides history and philosophy, human rights issues, freedom of choice, religion, and the precarious dichotomy of freedom of speech and intolerance. He brings a slightly different perspective to his writing, being that he is neither a follower of an Abrahamic faith nor an atheist but a polytheist, a modern-day Heathen who follows the customs and traditions of his Norse ancestors. He maintains his own blog, A Heathen’s Day, which deals with Heathen and Pagan matters, and Mos Maiorum Foundation www.mosmaiorum.org, dedicated to ethnic religion. He has also contributed to NewsJunkiePost, GodsOwnParty and Pagan+Politics.
