Now that the brouhaha over a proposed bill in the South Dakota legislature that would have redefined the murder of abortion providers as "justifiable homicide" is largely over, and the bill has been tabled, it is worth considering the origins of the idea.

I did not expect to write about this stuff again anytime soon.

But here we are.

Last week I pointed out (in response to a recent column by Frank Rich) about how progress on one flash-point of the culture war does not necessarily mean much more than that. Which is to say that these increments are not necessarily evidence that the Religious Right or any of its constituent parts are dead or that the culture wars are over. But since neither assertion is even remotely true and there is a massive body of evidence to the contrary, when a gusher of such evidence reaches the surface of public life, it is impossible to ignore.

The New York Times recently published a major story demonstrating how one important dimension of the so-called culture war is infact widening. The Religious Right is escalating its attacks on access to abortion in the states -- and it is winning many recent battles.

Dr. George Tiller was serving as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kansas when Scott Roeder walked up to him and shot him in the head.

The media at the time quickly adopted the lone nut or "lone wolf" theory of the murder. Having studied a number of similar anti-abortion crimes over the years, I said that while the murder may or may not have been a criminal conspiracy, there were very likely at the very least what I call "concentric circles of support". Even when such crimes are carried out alone, they tend to be well-planned and often draw on networks of social, ideological and even logistical support, sometimes unwitting. The murder of Dr. Tiller is best understood, after all, as an assassination -- arguably one of the most high-profile political murders in recent years.  Such support can be hard to prove, especially by the standards of criminal law. But that does not mean it does not exist.

Now, a joint investigation by The Nation and Ms. magazine details what the circles of support around Roeder looked like. This ground-breaking work reveals much about the way that the revolutionary, antiabortion Army of God operates.

[ed: we're re-posting this brilliant analysis by atheist & libertarian James Veverka because it roundly rebuts Glenn Beck's new documentary "The Revolutionary Holocaust" which paints Nazism as a left-wing phenomenon and claims societal groups Hitler and the Nazis actually targeted were perpetrators of the Holocaust - ignoring the fact that along with Jews, according to the US Holocaust Museum, the Nazi regime threw many communists into concentration camps too.]

PART I: Homosexuality under the governments of religious fundamentalism, fascism, and Stalinism

Uncomfortable as it makes people to compare religion with dictatorships, the most dangerous dictatorships of the 20th century were also radically socially conservative in regards to family values and sexuality. Whether it was the Motherland, the Fatherland or the Christian Nation, the same rigid moral message of intolerance runs through them.

Like religious conservatives throughout history and indeed, in the present, they used the state as a coercive tool to force their version of a conscience upon the rest of people. While only one-third of people generally tend to be socially conservative, this does not make a difference to those possessed with the compulsion to force their morality upon all others for their own good. This is not to say fundamentalists and other religious extremists are Nazis or Stalinists, but that they hold very similar views on these 'family values' and sexuality subjects and employ similar language in their positions and propaganda. They represent similar dangers to free societies as they always have throughout all of western history.

Media Matters has a rebuttal of columnist Michael Gerson's distortions of what the Senate version of the health care bill does and doesn't do with regard to abortion coverage. But I want to highlight a further point from Gerson's text that will be of ongoing importance long after the current Battle of the Bills -- and that's Gerson's use of an important code word of Religious Right anti-abortionism.

But first let's note that Gerson is a former speech writer for George W. Bush, steeped in the Religious Right who has used his nationally syndicated Washington Post column to shill for the notoriously schismatic and antigay Nigerian Anglican Archbishop Peter Akinola.  

I was more than a little suprised. Although I have been around politics and reported on the adventures of the Religious Right and society's difficulties in understanding and coping with this powerful movement for many years, even I was gobsmacked by this one.  

Beltway Insiders including the president had determined that the historic anti-abortion Hyde Amendment (which, renewed annually, proscribes the use of federal funds to pay for abortion, primarily via Medicaid) is the moderate, compromise, "abortion neutral" position when discussing health care reform.  "How," I wondered, "did the most significant anti-abortion legislation in history become a moderate compromise?"  I reported on this at the webzine Religion Dispatches this week (and diaried about it at Daily Kos).

One may agree or disagree with the president and other Washington insiders that this was the only way to get health care reform passed. But whatever the outcome of the health care debate, what has been sacrificed should not go unnoticed and unremarked upon. And indeed, leaders on both sides are recognizing the magnitude of what has occurred.

Whatever the final outcome of the debate about abortion and health care reform, the anti-abortion movement is ginned up for the Democratic era.

I have a new essay Anti-Abortion Movement in the Age of Obama coming out in the next issue of The Public Eye magazine (full disclosure, where I am on the ed board), published by the progressive think tank, Political Research Associates.  

We have seen over the past few years a certain creeping Religious Rightism in the Democratic Party, and yet people were surprised that abortion became a major obstacle to health care reform. This is what happens when we turn a blind eye to the religious right and engage in such wishful notions as "the religious right is dead" and "the culture wars are over."

Excerpts on the flip:

The late Jerry Falwell once claimed in one of his newspapers that Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson and Ted Kennedy all had  earlier held one political position they agreed on.  They were all pro- life.  An L.A. Times author once asked me about W.A. Criswell's early pro-choice position.    Criswell was once president of the Southern Baptist Convention.  At the time he was president he held pro-choice views.  Years later, when pro-life became the trend in his circles; Criswell changed his views and used his influence to bash any politician who advocated tolerance for abortion choices.  The head of the Christian Life Commission during this time, Foy Valentine, was supportive of abortion rights and spoke openly of such.  In historical context, Baptists at the time were in opposition to Vatican claims that saving the life of a mother was not a moral choice. Baptist doctrinal statements often were based on opposing Catholic views.

There is an old parody of a Beach Boys song that goes something like this; "The Presbyterian girls are hip, I really dig those clothes they wear, and the Methodist girls with the way they kiss, they keep their  boy friends warm at night..but I wish they all could be Southern Baptist girls..."

There is an effort underway by Rev. Michael Bray, a convicted terrorist and a leader of the underground Army of God network to free one of their captured members. Shelly Shannon, (aka "Shaggy West") is serving a long sentence for the attempted murder of Dr. George Tiller and for a series of arsons across the West in the 90s. Bray is organzing a petition requesting that president Bush pardon her before his term expires. In his letter to the president, Bray describes Shannon "as a biblical Deborah or Jael or a Joan of Arc."

I have written a great deal about Bray and the Army of God, which has played a central role in the politics of abortion in our time, and has been driving force behind many of the 17 murders and hundreds of bombings and arsons that have ravaged womens reproductive health facilities and staff over the past few decades.  And while I doubt that Bray's effort will succeed in getting Shannon released, the campaign serves as an opportunity to highlight just a few aspects of this particularly dark side of the war of aggression being waged by the religious right against the civil and constitutional rights of others -- that pundits euphemize as "the culture war."

Rev. Carlton Veazey  president of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC), recently sent an e-blast to friends and supporters. It was part of an end-of-the-year fundraising pitch in which he linked to a "vision" for reproductive justice for the Obama era and the new Congress.  

I am honored to say that the vision he posted on his organizational web site is an essay "Reproductive Justice and A Comprehensive Social Justice Ethic" that he and Marjorie Signer contributed to  Dispatches from the Religious Left:  The Future of Faith and Politics in America.  

Their chapter, like others in the book, is written from the stand point not only that it is important to know what we are for as well as what we are against; (that is too easy a slogan) but from the standpoint of a clear-eyed understanding of our moment in history and the politics of our time. It is a politics that necessitates and takes into account the Religious Right and the overlapping  comprehensive worldviews behind their anti-reproductive justice political agenda.

You can read Veazey's e-blast on the flip and follow the link to his chapter from Dispatches from the Religious Left.

Back in February, there was a fire at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Asheville, North Carolina.  Investigators said that there was no sign of arson, but the violent, anti-abortion driven Army of God was celebrating anyway.

Army of God spkesman Rev. Don Spitz also wrote that the "Fire at Planned Parenthood abortion mill is deemed not arson, but not everyone is sure."  He then posted a video on God Tube (not to be confused with You Tube) where he also raises the question as to whether the cause was other than arson; and wondered whether Planned Parenthood itself might have been responsible.

Earlier this year, antiabortion revolutionary theocrats celebrated the tenth anniversary of the crimes of Paul Hill, the ex-Presbyterian Church in America (PCA) minister who, on July 29, 1994 assasinated abortion provider Dr. John Britton and James Barrett one of his escorts, and seriously wounding another, June Barrett, outside a clinic in Pensacola, Florida. Hill was convicted of his crimes and was executed by the State of Florida.

The festivities were called Paul Hill Days. The underground Army of God organization is now promoting a video of the celebration's reenactment of the murders.  The following post on the Army of God web site, is apparently written by AOG spokesman Rev. Donald Spitz.

We are honored welcome Dr. William F. Harrison, a distinguished physician from Fayetteville, Arkansas as a guest front pager. Dr. Harrison saw first-hand the terrible personal and social consquences of illegal abortions during his days as a medical student and resident prior to Roe vs. Wade. He has since then, continued to live his commitment to provide high quality medical care including abortion care: death threats and violence not withstanding. -- FC

This AP headline appeared in at least a few newspapers the morning after Christmas -- and was given a two sentence recognition on CNN.

Albuquerque authorities investigate fires at abortion clinics
Associated Press - December 25, 2007 8:45 PM ET

For many of us, it brought back memories of events in Pensacola, FL on Christmas Eve, 1984 when 2 abortion clinics and one ObGyn office in that city were firebombed by 2 young men and their girlfriends, who called those bombings "a birthday gift for baby Jesus."  I am sure Heysus was grateful for his gift. Just as He must be pleased by GWB's modern day "crusades" against the infidels in Afghanistan and Iraq.  

After all, He isn't called "the Prince of Peace" for nothing.

I did an expanded version of this at Daily Kos and Blue Mass Group, and decided to import it back to Talk to Action. -- FC

The U.S. Catholic Conference of Bishops is too poor, according to The Boston Globe, to send to its local parishes, its traditional instructional mailing on how to approach politics and public policy. The Globe did not explain why the Bishops are broke and buried the point in the last paragraph of the story -- but we can guess that it probably has something to do with the massive payouts the church has made to settle lawsuits related to the priest pedophilia scandal.

Traditionally, the document has been mailed to all parishes in the United States; this year, to save money, the cash-strapped bishops' conference will e-mail the document to parishes and post it on a website.

However, the Globe headlined the story, O'Malley draws line with Democrats:  Backing abortion rights candidates 'borders on scandal'.