Well, they did it. The Christian Right is successfully unraveling years of democracy. With the ramshackling of Row vs Wade, they are now pushing for bible studies in public schools. Conservative America is on a bender to re-Christianize the nation.

The impulse is to fight. In a way we are still fighting the civil war. It hasn’t really been resolved. We must be insightful to really heal the rift. Unless we really understand what motivates people, we can’t respond to them in a way that is meaningful.

What motivates pro-life people is of course the life of the unborn baby. That is the soft spot- babies. According to the bible, women’s only duty is to have babies. Also, babies have no sin; they are innocent. And what is the crux of Christianity? -sin and redemption of sin; that is their primary motivator. So, by reversing Row vs. Wade two things are accomplished- saving innocent babies (even if they kill the mother, grow up to be poor, uneducated, abused, or have a sh*ty life.), and punishing the sinful mother (women are not supposed to have sexual needs. They are only supposed to have sex to procreate. Any woman f*cking is automatically a sinner). Saving the innocent and punishing the sinners is shear elation for Christians, especially if the sinners are women and the innocent are babies. Christians are waving flags and dancing in the streets- oh wait, dancing may be a sin, ummm, no dancing maybe just clapping.

The bible- it holds many of the cultural assumptions that are motivating the right. If we look at the way women are portrayed in the bible, they are always a dichotomy. We have the innocent temptress (Eve), the virgin mother (Mary), and a prostitute apostle, (Mary Magdalene). All of these are not really giving women a lot of elbow room and are very confusing to follow as roll models. But most Christians focus on Mother Mary which translates to- if you are not a virgin or a super mom, you are a piece of sh*t.

Here is one of the problems.

If the story of Mother Mary was more flushed out with how she really got pregnant, either incest or rape, there might be a bit more compassion for the plight of women, but just magically getting impregnated by God is a hard act to follow.

Mary Magdalene is a special character and is mentioned more times in the bible than Mother Mary.  Only after the King James version of the bible did people start to refer to her as a prostitute. There is no mention of her being so in the bible. It was pious men who edited the bible in 1604 who did not want Jesus to have any earthly connections. They started to defile the story of Mary in this way. According to some theologians the way Mary M. is portrayed many times at Jesus’s side, she was probably his wife. There are references to groups of women traveling and cooking for the apostles. They were probably the wives of these traveling men.

It is funny how a shift in a story can give our ideals a whole new outlook. When we change what we revere, we can change how we react to the people around us.

But even with these wholistic changes of perspective there is no way people who value women’s lives over unborn babies are going to convince the Christian Right to do the same.  It is stated that God said to go forth and multiply, but did he really mean exponentially to the point of global collapse?

We will be in a clash of perspectives forever - that’s diversity for ya. This is okay as long as one perspective doesn’t take over a neutral government, and people are allowed to do what is right for themselves.

Here is the other problem – The busybody complex - when a person is not able to find happiness because they are too worried about what someone else is doing.

So, between the Mother Mary fixation and the busybody complex, we have the overturning of Row vs Wade.

The solution? Hell, if I know. How about required reading of critical thinking books? A Massive influx of hippies into deep-south suburban communities? I am visualizing all these new babies and the babies of the Christians growing up and rebelling to become hippies – that would befuddle them and indeed that is where many hippies come from - conservative upbringings.  Irony is the Great Creator’s sense of humor. Let’s celebrate that! Maybe the legalization of smoking pot might help. Add a few magic mushrooms and maybe the religious right might broaden their perspective. Meanwhile, many will suffer at the hand of righteousness.