<p>One thing I discovered in reading The Nation article that I didn’t realise before. Unlike Catholics, fundamentalist Protestants weren’t against Roe v. Wade initially. The head of the Southern Baptist Convention actually made a positive statement about the ruling.</p>
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<p>The fundamentalists only became interested in using abortion to divide the country after the Supreme Court ruled in Green v. Connally to revoke the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory private schools in 1971, and Bob Jones University got it’s tax exempt status revoked over the ban on inter-racial dating.</p>
<p>This does paralell what I remember about the early 70s, that there wasn’t much interest in the abortion issue outside of the Catholic Church. </p>
<p>This is what an early opponent of abortion had to say about trying to interest Falwell, etal in the cause:</p>
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<p>After that, the deluge. </p>
<p>Puts the whole “culture war” in a completely different perspective.</p>
<p>What does it mean when Jesse Jackson says of J. Falwell: “He had a mind of his own, but a heart of gold”(?). That one surprised me, I must say. But then again, Jesse has never ranked very high in my esteem. But…“heart of gold?” What the???</p>
<p>Hummm…interesting, Conyat. But what does the abortion issue have to do with southern fundamentalists loosing their tax exempt status over segregationist policies? How are they connnected?</p>
<p>Read the article. The loss of the tax exemption was the impetus for the religious right getting involved in politics. But they couldn’t campaign on something as unpopular as segregation and not wanting to pay taxes, so they seized on the abortion issue as a way to take out their hostility on the rest of the country for the loss of the subsidy for institutionalized racism.</p>
<p>So now Sharpton’s opinion is respectable, simply because it coincides with your own? </p>
<p>After all the posturing in the Imus thread about how Sharpton is so awful and how Sharpton and not Imus was really responsible for the consequences of Imus’ characterization of the Rutgers women as prostitutes?</p>
<p>Kind of reminds me of the turnabout Falwell did on Dr. King.</p>
<p>I agree with Hereshoping. The comments of both Jackson and Sharpton ARE indeed currious/interesting in light of all the racist rhetoric that Falwell has uttered in the past. You sure did stuff A LOT words into HH’s mouth,
conyat. As I’ve already said before on these forums, I don’t respect either Jackson or Sharpton, and do not feel that they “represent me” as a AFam woman, anymore than I feel that Falwell represented me as a Christian. Falwell has never been a figure of enough importance in my life for his death to warrant much of any sort of reaction from me. I do, however, see enough rather curious similarities between these three as to cause one to scratch one’s head in amusement/wonder. Talk about strange bed fellows:eek:</p>
<p>“I do, however, see enough rather curious similarities between these three”</p>
<p>You took the words out of my mouth. I would also add Dobson and others in that company as well. They have reached their status by injecting fear.</p>
<p>Dobson in worse than Falwell in many respects. At least with Falwell, his followers knew he didn’t have anything but ideology and partisan spite to back up his positions.</p>
<p>thank you for that information conyat.
I have never found much credibility in Dobson, I read more of Driekers, Montague and Bettleheim when beginning parenting, although both my siblings find Dobson more to their taste, especially my sister who refers to him often.
Possibly this influence ( along with her religion) had led her to forbid our kids from continuing their contact. She may have worried that my oldest who is a lesbian, but the same age as her oldest, would taint her.</p>
<p>Of course mine lives with friends in Portland and hers moved back home to live after college graduation. IMO a little influence from mine, might have been a good thing. :)</p>