Author Archives: Obie Holmen

Welcome to my new blog

Some of you may be followers of my other blog, Spirit of a Liberal, a blog of progressive, religious themes.  That blog will continue, and this new blog will not relate to the often political discussions that take place over there; instead, this blog will focus on A Wretched Man novel, writing and publishing issues, and other literary themes.  To those regular followers, welcome.  To new folks here for the first time, welcome to you also.  All prior posts appearing here appeared first on Spirit of a Liberal.

Last week, I did some “shoe leather” marketing for the novel.  That is, I hit the streets, visiting a couple of the private liberal arts colleges of Minnesota.  I visited with a few professors of New Testament, and I am encouraged that my novel may become part of their assigned reading list for their fall term classes.  The novel is also stocked and available through their campus bookstores.

I also spent nearly an hour on the phone with my publicist.  Even though the novel was released early in March, the publicist is just gearing up for intensive marketing efforts.  One of the items discussed was our frustration that Amazon.com can’t keep the book in stock because of their policy of ordering limited quantities at the outset.  In the first month, Amazon’s website has said “out of stock, more on the way” most of the time.  I think they have ordered and reordered nearly half a dozen times.  While it’s nice to know there’s a demand out there, it would be better if Amazon would start ordering the book in greater quantities. 

By the way, for those of you who have already purchased the book, I would greatly appreciate a few kind words and a rating on Amazon.com and/or Barnes and Noble.  Tagging the book is also very helpful, especially when your tags are the same as others such as “christianity”, “apostle paul”, “biblical fiction”, “christian biographies-memoirs”, “christian fiction”, “historical biography”, “historical fiction”, “paul the apostle”,  and “religion”.  Sorry for the blatant self-promotion.

I’ve started a new blog

Spirit of a Liberal will continue; however, I have started a new blog that pertains solely to my novel, writing and publishing issues, and other literary matters.  Last week, I moved a lot of my prior posts about the novel and reviews of other books from Spirit of a Liberal to the new blog.  Apologies to those who received a “tweet” every time I moved a post.

The new blog is entitled The Author’s Blog … from the author of A Wretched Man novel, and may be seen here.  Please continue to follow Spirit of a Liberal and add The Author’s Blog to the blogs you follow.

A look back at Holy Week

As a blog that wrestles with denominational politics, it was pretty quiet here last week, and that’s a good thing.  I’m sure the temperature will rise again on ELCA, Lutheran CORE, NALC, and LCMC controversies, but Holy Week was an appropriately peaceful interlude.  The one item to note from last week was the positive news from the ELCA that 2010 has seen forty-one new mission “starts” according to an ELCA press release.

These new starts represent what America is becoming, as 23 (of the 41 new starts) are among immigrant populations … Of the 41 new starts 12 are “worshiping communities” authorized by the ELCA’s 65 synods. These are communities with ministry potential.

Several of these are residuals of ELCA congregations that voted to leave but with a remnant of ELCA supporters pursuing an ELCA mission start.  Lilly, one of the frequent commenters on this blog, reports on such a group in her Wisconsin community.

Before moving on to the inevitable skirmishes, allow me one look back at Holy Week at my
ELCA congregation (Bethel) and the rest of the Northfield ELCA community.  Thursday morning, the normal “Blue Monday” gathering of six or eight ELCA clergy was rescheduled as a “power lunch” to coordinate weekend events.  The Maunday Thursday service at Bethel was a dramatic skit themed around Da Vinci’s “Last Supper” masterpiece.  While the thirteen actors portraying Jesus and the disciples held their Da Vinci pose, each in turn stepped to a microphone and offered a monologue.  I portrayed Andrew.  The skit ended with Jesus sharing the bread and wine with his disciples who then stepped in front of the table and shared the meal with the congregation.  Good Friday evening at Bethel featured a Stations of the Cross presentation.  Saturday, most of the local ELCA clergy gathered for a traditional Easter Vigil in Boe Chapel on the campus of St. Olaf.  Bethel’s new associate pastor–Charlie Ruud (a St Olaf graduate)–was honored to preside over the eucharistic liturgy.  Dramatic readings were accompanied by the pipe organ riffs of St Olaf music professor John Ferguson and rising incense followed by candle lighting and bell ringing.  A combined choir concluded with Handel’s Hallelujah chorus.  The Hallelujah chorus also highlighted each of the three Easter Sunday services at Bethel.

After a week of familiar Lutheran liturgies, I borrow a Youtube video from Lutheran Pastor and blogger John Petty which is a delightful sampling of Eastern Orthodox Easter music, Christos Anesti, Christ is risen.

Another RIC synod of the ELCA

When my wife and I moved from Upsala to Northfield in November, 2008, we left many church friends behind, not merely in our ELCA congregation in Upsala, but across the Northeast Synod of Minnesota where we had been active in many ways.  We had frequently attended synod assemblies, which alternated between Duluth and Cragun’s resort near Brainerd, and Lynn served as WELCA synod president, board member, and parliamentarian for annual assemblies.

In Northfield, as members of Bethel Lutheran, we are now part of the Southeastern Minnesota synod of the ELCA, and we are learning our way around.  I have attended several conference and synod gatherings, and Lynn and I will be voting members at this spring’s 2010 synod assembly.

JusticeImage So, it was with great interest and pleasant surprise when a news release crossed my desk from Lutherans Concerned North America (LCNA) which praised our new synod for its recently adopted statement of affirmation and inclusion.  Turns out that the 2009 synod assembly voted to become a Reconciling in Christ (RIC) synod and to appoint a task force to craft an LGBT friendly welcoming statement.  Our synod becomes the 24th synod of the ELCA to officially become RIC (out of a total of 65 synods nationwide).  In a nutshell, the RIC movement is for synods, congregations, and individuals to become overtly gay friendly and welcoming.

The single element that is central to the program is the Affirmation of Welcome. It is simple, yet powerful in its witness … Making the Affirmation promotes a publicly inclusive ministry and helps heal the pain of doubt.

Here is the full statement of the SE Mn synod:

Affirmation of Welcome

Baptized into the waters of Christ and raised to new life by the strong word of God, fed and nourished by the body and blood of Christ, the people of God in the Southeastern Minnesota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America decided in the 2009 assembly to be a Reconciling in Christ Synod. This synod, called by the Holy Spirit, is kept in unity with Jesus Christ in the one true faith. We are freely forgiven in Christ and we are in full service to one another. Whenever we meet in worship, prayer, deliberation and decision, as a large and diverse body of Christians, we recognize various ministries to ensure all people are welcomed into a transforming relationship with Jesus Christ. As baptized believers created in the image of God – including, but not limited to, people of every race, nationality, age, political affiliation, marital status, gender identity, economic or social status, sexual orientation, mental and physical abilities – our synod welcomes all people of all backgrounds to become Christ’s devoted disciples.

A Roman Catholic emergency synod of Bishops?

Benedict as Cardinal Ratzinger The media and the blogosphere exploded last week with news that the cancerous clergy sexual abuse crisis and its coverup may have reached deep into the bowels of the Vatican.  Was the pope himself, in his prior leadership role as Archbishop, complicit in the coverup of abuse of a German pedophile priest?  Later, as Cardinal Ratzinger and head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, did he ignore or coverup memos of abuse complaints?

In response, the Vatican churns out press releases suggesting all the problems are ancient history and that the Roman Catholic hierarchy is currently achieving renewed levels of trust.  The following comes from a press release from the Director of the Vatican press office dated March 27th and reprinted from the National Catholic Reporter blog:

The truth is that the cases that have come to public attention generally took place some time ago, even decades ago, although recognising them and making amends with the victims is the best way to restore justice and to achieve that ‘purification of memory’ which enables us to look to the future with renewed commitment, with humility and trust.

A contribution to this trust comes from the many positive signals emerging from various episcopal conferences, bishops and Catholic institutions in different countries on the various continents: directives for the correct handling and prevention of abuses, which have been reiterated, updated and renewed in Germany , Austria , Australia , Canada etc.

Other spokesmen for the Roman Catholic patriarchy offer a conspiracy theory that blames the liberal media, as reported by the Guardian of London:

At last, one of Pope Benedict’s closest aides uses the word “conspiracy” in relation to the systematic global cover-up of child abuse by paedophile Catholic priests. Unfortunately, Cardinal José Saraiva Martins believes the conspiracy is against the Catholic church, which is its victim.

But there may be a stirring in the lower levels of the patriarchy as a rumbling is rising amongst the episcopate for a special synod, a gathering of bishops from around the world to deal with a problem that seems increasingly beyond the power of the Vatican to control.  As reported by John Phillips and reprinted in the progressive Catholic blog, Englightened Catholicism:

Many bishops have let it be known they want Benedict to convene a special synod or worldwide conference of bishops to examine the problem because of a growing feeling that the Vatican cannot handle this.

Yet to be seen is whether the Vatican hierarchy or a more democratic episcopacy will deal honestly with systemic problems such as a patriarchal, males-only priesthood, mandatory celibacy, secrecy, or the institutional, top-down, manipulative hierarchy itself.  Or, as many fear, will this crisis be seen as merely one of public relations?

All quiet on the Lutheran front

As Garrison Keillor frequently notes, “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon.”

Can’t report on the latest gossip from LCMC because the 91 members of the “Friends of LCMC” Google group apparently grew tired of my comments about their comments since they have now made their little group private, preventing outsiders like me from checking in from time to time to see what’s going on.  Don’t think they’d accept me for membership. 

Nothing out of the Lutheran Core camp since their March 17th release of their March newsletter.  I already commented about the overall negative tone of that missive that was their list of things they dislike about the ELCA.

From the ELCA comes fairly routine news; the most recent press releases pertain to a) ecumenical advocacy days, b) HIV religious summit, c) Jerusalem Lutheran hospital, d) other middle east matters, and e) flooding of the Red River along the Minnesota – North Dakota border.

I don’t think I’ll be so bold as to suggest a return to normalcy and away from contentiousness within the ELCA, but that’s been the case this week.

Starring John Boehner

With violent and threatening placards bobbing amidst the tea party protesters, the “N” word shouted at civil rights icon Congressman John Lewis, the “F” word shouted at Congressman Barney Frank, news that the FBI is investigating vandalism against the families of Democratic members of Congress–and the list goes on—the question must be asked: is the Republican leadership part of the problem or part of the solution?

Is Sarah Palin’s website graphic that puts gunsights on the districts of certain Democratic Congressfolk evidence of clear-headed, responsible leadership?  Is Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann’s recently repeated rant that our President is un-American the rational voice of the loyal opposition?  And what about that angry, defiant speech of House Minority leader, John Boehner, just before the passage of health reform legislation?

Here is a Youtube video that is going viral starring the esteemed minority leader, the voice of the party of No, cheering Americans to a higher calling.

Crumbling Roman Catholic patriarchy

The patriarchy of Roman Catholicism, even the papacy itself, is under siege. 

The sex abuse revelations that shook the foundations of American Catholicism in the last decade have reached Europe, first in Ireland, then Germany (implicating the brother of the pope), and today the headlines in newspapers around the world proclaim complicity of the pope himself in covering up the sordid history of abuse on the part of a Wisconsin priest.

In the US, the Council of Bishops stood against the health care legislation that has become the law of the land even as American nuns championed the cause of reform.  A small  group of Catholic women are inviting excommunication by challenging male only ordination with their own bishops ordaining females in highly public and visible ceremonies.  An influential Cardinal has publicly questioned the institution of a celibate priesthood.

Progressive Catholic voices rise.  Progressive Catholic organizations such as Voice of the Faithful and Call to Action dare to challenge orthodoxy.

Against this backdrop comes an open letter from Father John J McNeill, not merely a voice for gay rights in the church, but perhaps the voice.  I have previously blogged about the lengthy history of Father’s McNeill’s advocacy and the important role he and his writings have played in LGBT equality issues of the last generation.  Now, in his open letter to the pope and the entire patriarchal hierarchy, his prophetic voice once again rings clear as he speaks truth to power.  His letter, reprinted below in its entirety (with a hat tip to Open Tabernacle blog), is nothing less than a warning that what is presently at stake is the very moral authority of the papacy.

Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI

In my three areas of expertise; spirituality, psychotherapy and theology, I am aware of a desperate need for spiritual transformation in the culture, the nation, and the Church. I will do my best to make a contribution to that need from my perspective as an older man with many years of involved experience.

Saturday, March 20, 2010

An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Levada, Cardinal George and all Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the World on the Issue of Homosexuality:

My initial open letter of November 2000 was addressed to the American Bishops at their annual conference. In the past ten-plus years, the contents of the letter have taken on greater relevance and force in the light of new scientific discoveries concerning the nature of homosexual orientation and the psychological and spiritual needs of GLBT people, as well as recent statements from the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching authority out of touch with those discoveries.

As a result, I would like to readdress the letter to the following: Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF); Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and his fellow American bishops and, finally, to all the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the world.

Catholic gay and lesbian people demand that, if the Church wants to be seen as their loving mother, mediating to us God’s unconditional love, the Church has no choice except to enter into dialogue with its gay members. In 1974, the delegates of DignityUSA’s first national convention requested in a letter that a dialogue be opened between the American bishops and the members of the Catholic gay and lesbian community. With very few exceptions that letter was ignored.

Now, 38 years later, once again in the name of my Catholic lesbian siters and gay brothers I call for open dialogue. For over 38 years, I have ministered as priest and psychotherapist to lesbians and gays. I helped found Dignity/New York to provide a safe and loving community within the Catholic Church for gay people. For over 33 years, I have given retreats for lesbians and gays at Kirkridge, an ecumenical retreat center. I have written four books on gay spirituality: The Church and the Homosexual, Taking a Chance on God, Freedom, Glorious Freedom and Sex: As God Intended: A Study of Human Sexuality As Play. I also published an autobiography on my own spiritual journey as a gay priest.

As a result of my experience, I have come to the conclusion that what is at stake at this point in time is not only the spiritual and psychological health of many gay and lesbian Catholics and other lesbian and gay Christians. What is at stake is your moral authority to teach on the issue of homosexuality. In the past, when you undertook a listening process to hear what the Holy Spirit was saying through the People of God, you won our respect. We respected you when you made your statements on the economy, on nuclear warfare and, especially, your aborted effort to draw up a letter on the role of women in the Church. You listened carefully to what women had to say, and drew up your statements responding to what you heard from women. These actions gave us gay and lesbians reason to hope that the Holy Spirit would lead you into a spirit of willingness to listen to us gay and lesbian Catholics.
What is at stake now is your own moral authority! Unless we gay and lesbian Catholics receive the message that you take us seriously and are willing to listen carefully to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you through our lives and our experience, your judgments on homosexuality will be ignored, for the most part, and you will lose what authority you have left to deserve to be listened to with respect on this issue.

I have never heard the same level of courage from the American bishops in dealing with the Vatican as that shown by the Major Superiors of Religious Men in response to the egregious document issued by The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, entitled, “Some Considerations Concerning Homosexual Persons” as follows:

“We view (this document) as a hindrance to the Church leaders of the United States in this most difficult and sensitive area of human living. —We are shocked that the statement calls for discrimination against gay men and lesbian women. We find the reasoning for supporting such discrimination to be strained, unconvincing and counterproductive to our statements and actions to support the pastoral needs and personal dignity of such persons. Far from a help to the Bishops and other religious leaders in the United States Catholic Church, the statement complicates our already complex ministry to all people.
“Moreover we find the arguments used to justify discrimination based on stereotypes and falsehoods that are out of touch with modern psychological and sociological understandings of human sexuality. We regret such actions by the CDF and we reaffirm our support for the human rights of all our brothers and sisters.”

As a gay Catholic theologian and psychotherapist, I am fully aware of the enormous destruction recent Vatican and USCCB documents, and news items, as well as actions taken by the USCCB and several state Catholic Conferences in the U.S. leading up to the November 2008 elections, have caused in the psychic life of young Catholic gays, and of the violence they will provoke against all gay people. This is compounded further by the initial Vatican reaction and opposition to the United Nations proposal sponsored by France and backed by 27 European Union nations which seeks to end the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation—their very human nature and spiritual being. I find myself in a dilemma; what kind of faith and trust can I place in a teaching authority that I see clearly acts in an unloving, hateful and destructive way toward my gay family and is more interested in defending its institutional interest than it is in truth and justice? In the name of the thousands of gay and lesbian Catholics and other Christians to whom it has been my God-given privilege to minister, I make this statement:

At this point, the ignorance and distortion of homosexuality, and the use of stereotypes and falsehoods in official Church documents, forces us who are gay Catholics to issue the institutional Church a serious warning. Your ignorance of homosexuality can no longer be excused as inculpable; it has become of necessity a deliberate and malicious ignorance. In the name of Catholic gays and lesbians everywhere, we cry out “Enough!”

Enough! Enough of your distortions of Scripture. You continue to claim that a loving homosexual act in a committed relationship is condemned in Scripture, when competent scholars are nearly unanimous in acknowledging that nowhere in Scripture is the problem of sexual acts between two gay men or lesbian women who love each other, ever dealt with, never mind condemned. You must listen to biblical scholars to find out what Scripture truly has to say about homosexual relationships.

Enough! Enough of your efforts to reduce all homosexual acts to expressions of lust, and your refusal to see them as possible expressions of a deep and genuine human love. The second group you must listen to are competent professional psychiatrists and psychotherapists from whom you can learn about the healthy and positive nature of mature gay and lesbian relationships. They will assure you that homosexual orientation is both not chosen and unchangeable and that any ministry promising to change that orientation is a fraud.

Enough! Enough of your efforts through groups like Courage and other ex-gay ministries to lead young gays to internalize self-hatred with the result that they are able to relate to God only as a God of fear, shame and guilt and lose all hope in a God of mercy and love. What is bad psychology has to be bad theology!

Enough! Enough again, of your efforts to foster hatred, violence, discrimination and rejection of us in the human community, as well as disenfranchising our human and civil rights. We gay and lesbian Catholics pray daily that the Holy Spirit will lead you into a spirit of repentance. You must publicly accept your share of the blame for gay murders and bashing and so many suicides of young gays and ask forgiveness from God and from the gay community.

Enough, also, of driving us from the home of our mother, the Church, and attempting to deny us the fullness of human intimacy and sexual love. You frequently base that denial by an appeal to the dead letter of the “natural law.” Another group to whom you must listen are the moral theologians who, as a majority, argue that natural law is no longer an adequate basis for dealing with sexual questions. They must be dealt with within the context of interpersonal human relationships.

Above all else, you must enter into dialogue with the gay and lesbian members of the Catholic community. We are the ones living out the human experience of a gay orientation, so we alone can discern directly in our experience what God’s spirit is saying to us. And for the first time in history, you have gay and lesbian Catholic communities of worship and prayer who are seeking individually and collectively to hear what the Spirit is saying to them in their gay experience—what experiences lead to the peace and joy of oneness with the Spirit of God and what experiences lead away from that peace and joy! God gave you the commission of discerning the truth. But there is no mandate from Jesus Christ to “create” the truth. We pray daily that the Holy Spirit will lead you to search humbly for the truth concerning homosexuality through dialogue with your lesbian sisters and gay brothers.

The only consolation I can offer gay and lesbian Catholics in the meantime is the profound hope that the very absurdity and hateful spirit of recent Vatican and USCCB documents, news items and political actions will lead gay Catholics to refuse them and recognize the contradiction of their message, and that of Jesus, who never once spoke a negative word concerning homosexuals.

I work, hope and pray that lesbian and gay Catholics and other gay Christians will exercise their legitimate freedom of conscience, discerning what God is saying to them directly through their gay experience. I hope, too, that they will be able to de-fang the poisons of pathologically homophobic religion, accepting the good news that God loves them and accepts them as gays and lesbians and refusing to be caught in the vortex of self-hatred vis-à-vis a God of fear.

I believe that we are at the moment of a special “kairos” in this matter. The Holy Spirit is “doing something new.” I was the guest at a gay ecumenical community that established homes for adult retarded people in the city of Basel in Switzerland. The extraordinary spirit of love and compassion that permeated that community was a foretaste of what lies in the future. I believe there is a vast reservoir of human and divine love that has remained until now untapped because of prejudice and homophobia. The Spirit is calling on you to help release that vast potential of human and divine love through your actions.

The worldwide prayerful vigils in December 2008 were to raise our concerned voices over the stance taken by the Vatican to perpetuate the criminalization, incarceration and death sentences towards people of a homosexual orientation. It is not only counter – productive, it violates your own teaching that all persons are due dignity and respect and that homosexual persons should not suffer violence, injustice and discrimination. Furthermore, that they should be welcomed as full and equal members of the Church and society. We pray and hope that the same Holy Spirit who has graciously liberated us who are gay to self-respect and self-love will liberate in you, our Catholic leaders, a profound love for your gay brothers and lesbian sisters and melt away all prejudice and judgmentalism in your hearts.

May you make us welcome as full members in your family in Christ.

May God bless your efforts!

Sincerely in Christ
John J. McNeill

Comments from the Editor of Dignity’s Quarterly News Journal:
The open letter to the USCCB of November 2000 is currently popping up on several Internet user groups and blogsites, and appears in the Appendix in John’s latest book, Sex as God Intended:A Reflection on Human Sexuality as Play.

Since the release of John’s open letter, there have been numerous documents and communications promulgated by the Pope, Vatican offices and USCCB on matters related to homosexuality. Even more so during 2008. Except for minor nuances, they contain the same repetitive rhetoric. Repetition of falsehoods, erroneous interpretations and bad logic doesn’t make for “the truth” and mitigates our trust and respect of “the teaching authority.”

I was in communication with John from the last week of December 2008 through early January 2009 . I learned he had but one response from a bishop of the United States in response to his initial open letter. John has issued this update and said that while announced as an open letter to the Pope, Cardinals Levada and George and the bishops of the world, it was also directed to ordinary gay Catholics for their discernment and investigation of personal and collective lived experience.
John suggests that the more out of touch the hierarchy of the Catholic Church get, “…the more we learn in a painful way to let go and grow up spiritually”.  He calls it “…the blessing of fallibility. We are witnessing the birth pangs of the Church of the Holy Spirit.”

Health Care Reform: conservative contrarians

Of the myriad news reports and blog posts about the passage of Health Care Reform, here are a pair of my favorites because they each swim against the tide of their own natural constituencies.  One comes from David Frum, an avowed conservative and former speech writer for George Bush the latter, and the second is from Vox Nova, a Catholic blog generally pro-life.

Frum writes a scathing attack against those responsible for the health care bill in its current form—the Republican leadership.

A huge part of the blame for today’s disaster attaches to conservatives and Republicans ourselves.

At the beginning of this process we made a strategic decision: … we would make no deal with the administration. No negotiations, no compromise, nothing. We were going for all the marbles. This would be Obama’s Waterloo – just as healthcare was Clinton’s in 1994.

Only, the hardliners overlooked a few key facts: Obama was elected with 53% of the vote, not Clinton’s 42%. The liberal block within the Democratic congressional caucus is bigger and stronger than it was in 1993-94. And of course the Democrats also remember their history, and also remember the consequences of their 1994 failure.

This time, when we went for all the marbles, we ended with none.

But Frum reserves his harshest criticism for the Rush Limbaugh types, the “conservative entertainment industry”, that lathers up the froth-jawed tea partiers for their own ratings.  When Rush’s listeners “are less angry, they listen to the radio less, and hear fewer ads for Sleepnumber beds.”

Frum also dissents from the after-the-loss talking points of the Republican leadership that all will be well for Republicans after the next election cycle.

No illusions please: This bill will not be repealed. Even if Republicans scored a 1994 style landslide in November, how many votes could we muster to re-open the “doughnut hole” and charge seniors more for prescription drugs? How many votes to re-allow insurers to rescind policies when they discover a pre-existing condition? How many votes to banish 25 year olds from their parents’ insurance coverage? And even if the votes were there – would President Obama sign such a repeal?

We followed the most radical voices in the party and the movement, and they led us to abject and irreversible defeat.

Much as I disagree with Frum’s policies, I think his political intuition is right on.  “It’s Waterloo all right: ours,” Frum concludes.

The Vox Nova article, Stop the Pro-Life Pity Party, chides the pro-life movement for being all whine and pretense.  Here is a list of critical comments:

the pro-life movement turned its back on health care reform.

With leadership like this, the unborn don’t need enemies.

their initial demand is still largely met, and the caterwauling commences that they aren’t being respected.  Grow up for crying aloud.

Your agenda never included supporting health care reform.  Remember, Scott Brown, a pro-choice Republican, was your savior when he was elected in Massachusetts because he was going to stop the health care bill.  You opposed health care reform and didn’t really care about abortion, and you know it.  (emphasis mine)  Stop blaming others for your faults.  Stupak was handy when you didn’t just want to sound like another shrill partisan.  Stupak managed to give you legitimacy.  You didn’t give Stupak anything. Who was using who here?  That’s right, Stupak was used by the pro-life movement.

Again, I think the political intuition of the blog writer is right on.  He correctly understands that much of the pro-life rhetoric was mere cover for deeper political motives—whether Republicanism or conservative fiscal policies–or even darker visceral eruptions such as anti-Obama racism.  The blog post concludes:

Of course, health care reform is a great thing too, unless you are a pro-life activist in which case it was a bad thing due almost wholly to things having nothing to do with the unborn.

Sometimes, conservatives can shine with brilliant insight.