terri schiavo, rabbi lapin, birth control, and the horrors of tattoos

Listening to the longwinded Rabbi Daniel Lapin (KTTH Sun 7-10p) last night was informative about the actual agenda of the religious right and the  Republican Party.

(Wandering off the main road to explore the grubby by-ways of talk radio is frightening, yet intensely boring. Treading these dank interstices is what blatherWatch is willing to do for you, dear reader).

According to Lapin, the rabid Mercer Island rabbi, you can forget the legal blather about Terri Schiavo having to continue to take breaths in her hellish limbo because she didn’t make a Living Will.

(That’s a document that, if she’d had the forethought to draw up, would have spelled out what measures could or could not have been taken if she ended up in the state she’s in. Of course, being a vibrant  20 something at the time of her tragedy, she, like most of us, never made one).

No matter. To the hyper-orthodox Lapin and his orthodox Christian cohorts, Living Wills are for sinners. They say they're the same as suicide and should be just as illegal; as they wish abortions were. Assisted suicide, of course, is murder.

To them, your body is on loan from God and you must return it in the same condition as you got it. Terri Schiavo (or you, or me) have no right whatsoever messing with our own bodies other than to keep ‘em tuned up and lookin’ good-- presumably to attract a mate of the opposite sex. 

Making a Living Will, to the legalistic Lapin, is playing God--and even more amazing--so is birth control and tattoos!

He crowed last night about the new political power of the religious right and threatened extinction for Democrats for opposing Sunday’s grandstanding Congressional actions in the Schiavo case.

(It WAS impressive--we haven’t seen Congress move that fast since the last pay raise.)

Lapin isn’t just some kook crawling out of the polished woodwork of the moneyed Eastside suburbs.  He addressed the 1996 Republican Convention, and is a conservative of national standing who runs with conservative elites in the highest positions of power. He has a low profile locally, has done off-night and fill-in talk radio in Seattle on KVI, KKOL and now KTTH for years.

Veteran Seattle Weekly investigative reporter Rick Anderson wrote a revealing piece (“The Preston Gates Mates “ Seattle Weekly Feb.23 - Mar.1, 2005) about shady lobbyist Jack Abramoff, formerly of Seattle’s prestigious Preston Gates, who’s in over his Guccis in the shit of the Tom Delay Indian Casino/corporate “political giving and taking” scandal that’s fetching indictments in Texas and elsewhere.

What’s this got to do with Rabbi Lapin? Anderson says Lapin introduced Abramoff to Delay ten years ago.
   
“Abramoff also was a founder and chair of Toward Tradition, the nonprofit Mercer Island faith-based, right-wing political coalition run by Lapin...a GOP fund-raiser, and a native South African. Toward Tradition started in 1991 after Lapin moved here from California, where his then-followers included such Hollywood heavyweights as devout liberal Barbra Streisand. Paid $165,000 a year, according to a 2003 IRS filing, Lapin calls his Mercer Island organization a coalition of Jews and Christians formed to counter antireligious bigotry and preserve the social fabric. He is also co-chair of American Alliance of Jews and Christians, created with former GOP presidential also-ran Gary Bauer. Its board of advisers includes Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, Watergate conspirator Charles Colson, Abramoff, and Lapin's longtime friend and fellow radio talker Michael Medved. Lapin did not respond to repeated phone calls and e-mails to him and his staff the past two weeks.”

The extreme positions taken by this jocular, gaseous, Sunday evening didact are not the rantings of someone that far out of the right wing mainstream.

While there’s nothing to indicate that Lapin and Toward Tradition have anything to do with the scandalous troubles of Abramoff and the pitbull House Majority Leader, Lapin’s associations are revealing--and he should be judged by the company he keeps.

We’ve witnessed a mighty flex of governmental power by Lapin’s friends. Last night, Tom Delay and his Congressional posse brought the extreme sectarian dogmas of Lapin, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Ken Hutcherson, Joe Fuiton et al, down from the ether of zealous rightwing wetdreams to the full-powered reality of Congressional boots on the ground.

The Southern-dominated Republican Party gets more arrogant everyday. They believe their populist success is not only because of their righteousness in God’s eyes, but also because of their on-going efforts to please the bottom feeders of the Bible Belt.

We used to discount right-wing religious activists because they were so far from getting a hold on power and they always overreached when they got a taste of it. We no longer have this luxury.

Please join me in a prayer for secular government, then get the hell out there and register a liberal! 

Comments

[Rutherford]

"hellish limbo"? I thought she wasn't able to feel pain, or much of anything... which is why you guys want to kill her. How can not feeling anything be "hellish," which connotes burning torment? Are you saying there is a chance she is experiencing emotion and is suffering?

So how is starving her slowly a better choice than giving her a chance with rehabilitation, which Schiavo has denied her for ten years??

[Scott]

Terri wouldn't have to starve to death if she lived in a Democratic state like Oregon where she would be granted the right to die with dignity. Instead you right wingers want to keep her from a peaceful death. That's on you.

[Brian]

Best post I have read on Lapin. Great work, and thanks!

[Darla Singer]

Finding this was like a slap in the face for this religious Jew. The teaching and moralleadership brought by Rabbi Lapin to us is a remarkable blessing.

Your remarks and disdain can only be judged as blatant anti-semitism and revealing your agenda of death.

[Juan Schoch]

http://gnn.tv/headlines/2121/A_Culture_of_Death_Not_Life

Mae Magouirk safe for now. See Tekgnosis for further details.

Tell the Media to report the REAL Schiavo polls!

http://capwiz.com/sicminc/issues/alert/?alertid=7351686&type=ME

http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2005/4/emw226586.htm

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/prweb/20050408/bs_prweb/prweb226586_3

My account, etc. of Terri Schindler's Funeral Mass:

http://tekgnosis.typepad.com/tekgnosis/2005/04/terris_funeral_.html

Main page:

http://tekgnosis.typepad.com

[michael at blatherWatch]

dude, she died...

[Mark]

Lapin is really a sleaze, he could actually be Abramoff's teacher. he FLED to Seattle to get away from a mortgage scandel he perpetrated upon his congregation in LA. indicted, and tried in Federal Court, he was acquited. he recreated himself as an extreme right wing political mayvin. he is a CAPTIVE, wholly owned by Robertson and Falwell

[Nick]

You referenced Lapin and his orthodox chritian cohorts. Um, he's Jewish....not orthodox christian. That's a big oops, just wanted to point it out.

[Fremont]

A person can definitely be an Orthodox Christian or an orthodox pagan for that matter.

[blathering michael]

Not really an oops, but thanks for caring. Lapin has many evangelical Christian cohorts. Pat Roberston, Jerry Falwell, Ralph Reed, and Rev. Ken Hutcherson are all his friends and political homeys with whom he's worked for years. His organization promotes the cohesion of fundamental Christians and orthodox Jews.

[Fremont]

Bla'M, you aren't blaspheming by correcting me, ARE YOU?!