Mourdock Loses Ground in Senate Race But GOP Party of Rape Not Even Close to Getting It

Sources: Betfair, Intrade, HuffPost Pollster, RealClearPolitics

The message of the Republican Party seems to be that rape really isn’t so bad, and anyway, it’s God’s will, so what are you whining about? They’re telling women, “men want to put their penises in you and fill you with their sperm and by God, you’ll not only not complain, you’ll be honored that you were thought sperm-worthy.”

Here’s the mantra:

It’s not like you’re going to get pregnant, because you got magic vaginas, and even if you do, it’s not like your pregnancy has any chance at all in resulting in a threat to your health, let alone your death, so just chill and lay back and enjoy  our ownership of your vaginas.

Yeah, that’s the way to get the female vote, GOP. Stay classy.

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The worst of it is, this isn’t hyperbole. This is crap these yokels really say.

I find it terrifying that anybody is still taking the Republican Party seriously.

This is Patriarchy Dammit. I worked with a guy once who liked to say, “I’m gonna tear that p@ssy apart.”

That could be the motto of the Republican Party: “We’re gonna tear your p@ssy apart.”

Because, and here’s that mantra again, “really, it’s not your p@ssy anyway. It’s ours. You’re not even in the conversation. Well, except as an object to be used by us when and how we choose. If we want your opinion, we’ll give it to you.”

As Jon Stewart said last night, in the Republican scheme, “If a woman wants to have a baby via IVF she can not. Rape? She has to.’\”

It’s like the corporate memo from hell.

But the mainstream media, while mentioning it, no more wanted to drag Romney into it than they did Paul Ryan, who has called rape “just another form of conception.”

Haven’t we had enough? Some have. Look at what Morning Joe said yesterday about Richard Mourdock and his ilk:

SCARBOROUGH: But they are driving away so many swing voters. This Mourdock statement in Indiana, just beyond the pale, dragging God into it. And, I mean, he’s not alone. You’ve got other Republicans out there just saying the craziest, most offensive — just think-what goes through their mind? Do they go, you know what I want to be when I grow up? The next Todd Akin. They’re morons.

But FOX News basically ignored it. Sally Quinn, writing for the Washington Post, doesn’t attack Mourdock but his critics as “sick and twisted.” And Mitt Romney, though he said initially he did not agree with Mourdock, now refuses to talk about it. How can we have a national conversation about the issue of rape and women’s health, if the Republican candidate for president won’t even talk about it?

Tina Fey had a word or two to say in that regard on Wednesday:

“I wish we could have an honest and respectful dialogue about these complicated issues,” the comedienne told the Center for Reproductive Rights Inaugural Gala. “But it seems like we can’t right now. And if I have to listen to one more gray-faced man with a two-dollar haircut explain to me what rape is, I’m gonna lose my mind!”

Fey went on:

“I watch these guys and I’m like, what is happening? Am I secretary on Mad Men? What is happening?”

“Todd Akin. Oof. This guy,” she continued. “Todd Akin claims that women can’t really get pregnant from a legitimate rape because the body secretes hormones. Now I can’t even finish this sentence without getting dumber; it’s making me dumber when I say it—but it’s something about the body not being able to get pregnant when it’s under physical stress.”

“Mr. Akin, I think you are confusing the phrase ‘legitimate rape’ with the phrase ‘competitive gymnastics.'”

On Thursday, with two days of silence from the Romney campaign behind us, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, called out Romney for his silence.

It’s Friday, and I think it’s a safe bet Romney is going to hope this one just goes away. He’s willing to do or say anything to get elected and he knows he needs GOP congressmen to power his agenda, whatever that turns out to be.

So again, why is the GOP even in the conversation? Why hasn’t this attitude sparked so much outrage that they have to start next year from scratch?

Are there really that many woman-hating Americans out there?

Sure, Yahoo News is reporting that Mourdock’s support is withering and that his opponent, Joe Donnelly is climbing in the polls, but that’s hardly enough is it? We get rid of one and another pops up and the GOP, Party of Rape, is still going strong like some nation-spanning, nightmarish fraternity.

It seems beyond comprehension. We are going to talk about your vagina, but you’re not welcome to participate in this conversation because it’s a religious matter.

What?

And somehow, Sandra Fluke, the woman who was excluded from a discussion of her vagina by a bunch of dirty old men, became the villainous slut.

The problem is, literally, of biblical proportions. Women seem to be seen by today’s GOP as succubi, intent on corruption and societal destruction every bit as much as those “fags.”

Women have no right to object to who sticks their penises into their vaginas. White Evangelicals have every right to say who sticks what where.

Why?

Because the Bible says so. Moses even gave the captured women to his men to use (rape) and did God condemn him? No, God rewarded Moses (Numbers 31: 25-27). Rape has historically been the fate of female captives in war, but c’mon, for divine sanction you have to go the Bible.

And this, what, makes us Mitt Romney’s shining city on the hill? Rape capital of the world, more like.

“God says so” is a really shitty reason, when you stop to think about it. The books of the Bible were written 2,000+ years ago. The stories in the Old Testament derive from as far back as the Bronze Age. The Old Testament was written for a minority ethnic group that even by the Christian era accounted for only 10 percent or so of the population of the Roman Empire.

The New Testament was written for an even smaller minority. And their god is not everyone’s god. Why should the rest of us even care what their god thinks?

But today, in the land of the free, we’re all supposed to adhere to its outdated doctrines and superstitious assertions. Look at Florida’s Amendment 8 if you’re not taking any of this seriously. We are supposed to pretend twenty centuries of history never happened. As if the Constitution never happened. What is the idea behind this?

Rape them, and He will come?

Here’s the thing: the Republicans think your religions (or lack of religion) are shit. Sure, I think their religion is shit too, but there’s a difference: I am not trying to legislate mine into law.

Just the other morning, I had a religious tract on my doorknob telling me to “walk the road that leads to salvation.”  It shows a sad man who can’t go to heaven because he is a sinner. It says sin is the “bad things we do.” It says my punishment for sin is “death in Hell.”

And here I thought it was having to put up with Republican religious bigots.

Actually, “sin” is “missing the mark” in its original meaning. And if there is any group in America right now that has missed the mark, it is the Republican Party, which has missed the mark as human beings.

If you think God wants women to be raped, vote Republican. If you think God wants rapists to impregnate their victims, vote Republican. If you think women who are forced to have their rapist’s baby should also be forced to endure visitation rights for the rapist, to have their rapist in their lives for the next twenty years, by all means, vote Republican.

I plan to cast my vote for women this year: I am voting for Barack Obama. Because I trust women.

And yeah, I hate Republican rape enthusiasts.

Graph from Yahoo News

Hrafnkell Haraldsson

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.