Yes, rape is rape, and I believe in a woman’s divine and
civil right to choose what she will do when she is raped or when her life is
threatened. Representative Todd
Adkin’s recent remarks about women who experience “legitimate rape” and the
utter nonsense about the rarity of pregnancy in those cases [tell it to the
33,000+ women who have been impregnated by rape] have sparked an old debate and
spotlighted perennial attempts to control women’s bodies. It is no secret now that the Republican
Party’s platform includes on its political agenda a prohibition against all
abortions regardless of how the woman was impregnated (e.g., rape, incest…);
against a woman’s right to choose.
Recently Rev. Eva Melton Billingsley asked for a response on
a Facebook post that read: “If we use Todd Akin's logic
then the thought of Bathsheba being raped is impossible because she got
pregnant. What's funny is some won't even entertain the thought that David
raped her. Biblical scholars what say ye?”
My response was/is: Bathsheba was raped by a man that exponentially outweighed
her in power and authority, by a man who felt he deserved any woman he desired
and had the power and authority to take what he wanted and cover it up. Many
men who don't have David's power think this way. David even went the step
further of murdering her husband and because of his power went unpunished by
any civil or judicial system. And maybe we need to question that author's
labeling of him and our reinscribing of him as a "man after God's own
heart," which somewhat implies the crime was not so bad; that a man should
serve no time for raping a woman and killing her husband, if he has enough
power and authority and is God's anointed. He faced no time in jail for his
crime but was allowed to live out his life. Yes, he lived with other
consequences, but none that might not happen to others by just living and
having children that make choices of their own or by being a bad example to
their children.”
Rape is rape, whether the victim is female or male, child,
run-away-teen, or a grown-up in or out of a relationship, drugged or sober,
naked or fully garbed – rape is rape and it should not be tolerated in a civil
society or among God-fearing people of any religion. I am “pro-choice” and I am
for life. I am for the life of an
unborn child; I am for the life of the child born and living on the streets of
America, or any country, homeless and dying; I am for the life of children who
have easier access to drugs and guns than to a quality education, decent
housing, and three meals a day; I am for the life of a child or adult whose
spirit for living is murdered by other people who practice racism, sexism,
classism, homophobia, hatred and/or with words meant to diminish and tear down.
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