Politics
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February 23, 2024
The previous president’s alliance with spiritual enthusiasts is a far larger issue than his absence of piety.
Last Friday, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos have the very same legal status as human kids– an extreme choice, with extensive ramifications for reproductive liberty and fertility treatment. Critics of the choice see both short-term and long-lasting issues. In the instant future, it might end fertility treatment in Alabama, because centers will justifiably fret that lots of basic medical treatments will now be categorized as murder (in vitro fertilization always includes the overproduction of embryos, not all of which are utilized). In the longer possibility, the choice is plainly a part of a conservative push to preserve the teaching of fetal personhood, which, if required to its rational conclusion, would require an across the country overall restriction on abortion.
As stressing as the choice was, the theocratic reasoning utilized by the justices to validate their conclusions was even scarier. The judges in this case provided themselves as instruments of divine will instead of expositors of nonreligious law. In his concurrent choice, Chief Justice Tom Parker composed“Even before birth, all humans have the image of God, and their lives can not be damaged without effacing his splendor.”
This doctrinal language was no mishap. Media Matters on Wednesday reported“During a current interview on the program of self-proclaimed ‘prophet’ and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker showed that he is an advocate of the ‘Seven Mountain Mandate,’ a doctrinal technique that contacts Christians to enforce fundamentalist worths on all elements of American life.” According to a faction of evangelical Protestant enthusiasts, Christians have the right and responsibility to enforce their supremacy on the so-called “7 mountains” of American life: federal government, media, education, company, religious beliefs, household, and home entertainment. Throughout the interview, Parker stated God “is calling and gearing up individuals to go back into these mountains today.” The judge included that God “is equipping me with something for the extremely particular circumstance that I’m dealing with,”
Judge Parker is not alone in his avowal of theocracy as an objective. He’s symptomatic of the bigger increase of Christian nationalism on the right, a propensity that returns years however has actually quickly sped up in the