A lot of people are cheering the defeat of the Mississippi Personhood amendment yesterday. Its defeat marked the 3rd time since 2008 that this type of amendment has gone down in flames (the other two were in Colorado).
But as Nick Baumann writes in Mother Jones, this is a grand plan by the GOP to continue fighting the culture wars.
Like the Mississippi measure, these [Congressional] bills, which are not constitutional amendments, would extend the rights of legal personhood—including equal protection under the law—to a zygote, the single cell formed when a human sperm fuses with an egg. The national measures are “designed to achieve the same end” as the Mississippi effort, says Sara Rosenbaum, a health law expert and professor at George Washington University who frequently testifies before Congress on reproductive rights issues. “The aim of the bills is to reclassify or to overturn…the fundamental constitutional fact on which Roe v. Wade rests,” she adds. Opponents of abortion rights agree with Rosenbaum’s analysis: The National Pro-Life Alliance, a group that backs all three bills, calls them “a frontal assault on Roe v. Wade” and sees them as a way of “legislatively overturning” the Supreme Court decision.
Also in Mother Jones, Kate Sheppard writes about how initiatives are being prepared for battleground states in 2012. The states being eyed are California, Oregon, Nevada, Montana, Ohio, and Florida. Obama carried all of those except for Montana in 2008. This effort is similar to the anti-equal marriage amendments that flooded the ballots in 2004 and was probably the reason Kerry lost Ohio.
I was a Kerry traveler in 2004 and spent the last week of the campaign in Columbus, OH, working the phones, going door-to-door, and working the polls on Election Day. The right-wing had geared up for battle and had people everywhere pushing Issue 1. Many of the people I spoke to on Election Day said they were coming out to vote in favor of Issue 1, which passed overwhelmingly. Voting for W was an afterthought. It had the backing of the GOP establishment (in fact, Ken Blackwell rode the success of Issue 1 to the GOP nomination for Governor in 2006).
And this is the problem with the initiative process. So-called local groups, whose funding is almost totally from outside the state, push to get these issues on the ballot, paying people to circulate petitions. I doubt that this is what those who originally championed the initiative process had in mind. You have groups like the Mormon Church bankrolling Proposition 8 in California and Personhood USA, based in Arvada, CO (Arvada is a shit hole of a suburb in the Denver area) which backed Amendment 26 in Mississippi and is pushing the initiatives for 2012. And if you had any doubt about this group’s beliefs, here’s an excerpt from their website:
What is Personhood?
Personhood is a movement working to respect the G-d-given right to life by recognizing all human beings as persons who are “created in the image of G-d” from the beginning of their biological development, without exceptions.
What is Personhood USA?
Personhood USA desires to glorify Jesus Christ in a way that creates a culture of life so that all innocent human lives are protected by love and by law.
Personhood USA serves the pro-life community by assisting local groups to initiate citizen, legislative, and political action focusing on the ultimate goal of the pro-life movement: personhood rights for all innocent humans.
We intend to build the support of at least two thirds of the states in an effort to reaffirm personhood within the U.S. Constitution.
Personhood USA opposes vigilante violence.
Personhood USA is a 501(c)(4) Christian ministry that welcomes those who believe in the G-d-given right to life.
Well, the last time we mixed politics and religion, people were burnt at the stake. We cannot allow this wedge issue to make the ballots next year. We must do whatever we can to help those in the 6 target states to fight Personhood USA in keeping these off next year’s ballot.
