Mourdock's religious inspiration is his own private affair. Here's the problem: He's imposing it on the rest of us.
He is suggesting that male politicians, who are biologically incapable of walking in a woman's shoes, can decide what God's plan is. And then use the machinery of the state to force women into compliance.
In my post, Gay Marriage and Individual Rights, I wrote:
When one declares his allegiance or opposition to an abstract principle, he offers a yardstick by which others can judge his stand on a virtually unlimited number of concrete issues.
The NJ Star-Ledger loves to demonize principled critics as "ideologues." One must always be "flexible" and ready to "compromise," they like to lecture. But in their Mourdock editorial, they slipped up. They advanced a principle--that no one should be able to "use the machinery of the state" to force their will on others.
In a recent comment on their editorial Sandy is Our Wake-up Call on Climate Change, which I blogged about in early November, I turned their own words on them:
In a recent editorial, the editors condemned Richard Mourdock for attempting to "use the machinery of the state to force women into compliance" with his religious views. Yet what are the editors doing, if not using "the machinery of the state to force" their quasi-religious climate views on those of us who disagree with their statist "solution" to the natural phenomenon of climate change?
You can bet that the SLEB's own words will be the gift that keeps on giving.
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