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Friday, June 30, 2006

Here is the "faith-based community" to which Barack Obama thinks we need to "reach out"
Posted by Jill | 9:45 AM
Today's dispatch from the Christofascist Zombie Apocalypse:

Warren Buffett's new philanthropic alliance with fellow billionaire Bill Gates won widespread praise this week, but antiabortion activists did not join in, instead assailing the two donors for their longtime support of Planned Parenthood and international birth-control programs.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, to which Buffett has pledged the bulk of his $44 billion fortune, devotes the majority of its funding to combating disease and poverty in developing countries. Less than 1 percent has gone to Planned Parenthood.

"The merger of Gates and Buffett may spell doom for the families of the developing world," said the Rev. Thomas Euteneuer, a Roman Catholic priest who is president of Human Life International.

Referring to Josef Mengele, the infamous Nazi death camp doctor, Euteneuer said Buffett "will be known as the Dr. Mengele of philanthropy unless he repents."

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America issued statements praising Buffett and Gates for their generosity. Gloria Feldt, a former Planned Parenthood president, said she was appalled by the harsh attacks on them.

"What an outrage that these people have the gall to cast aspersions on other citizens for standing up for what they believe," Feldt said Thursday. "They have no right whatsoever to criticize people who put their money where their mouths are."

RU-486 Opposition
The foundation started by Buffett, and now named after his late wife, Susan, came under fire from some antiabortion groups in the 1990s after it gave $2 million to fund clinical trials of mifepristone, more commonly known as the RU-486 abortion pill. The foundation also has supported various abortion-rights and family-planning groups.

Tony Perkins, president of the conservative Family Research Council, wrote a commentary this week holding the Buffetts partially responsible for the approval of RU-486 in 2000.

"Since then, approximately 500,000 American babies have been killed with RU-486," Perkins wrote. "Buffett's billions have the potential to do damage like this on a global scale."

Staff at the Susan T. Buffett Foundation in Omaha, Neb., said its executive director, Allen Greenberg, would not comment on the criticisms.

The Gates Group
The Gates Foundation also is a patron of reproductive-health programs, funding studies on contraceptive technologies and initiatives to improve access to birth control.


Let's look at the Gates Foundation web site for a moment and ponder some the programs that the Foundation supports:


  • "Health issues that cause relatively few problems in developed countries continue to spread sickness and death in poorer regions of the world. The foundation concentrates its support on efforts to prevent and treat these diseases and conditions." [Hmmm....that sounds like it might save some lives, doesn't it?]

  • "For each of the priority diseases and conditions, the foundation supports scientific research to develop new and better tools for preventing and treating disease." [Gee, that also sounds like it's geared towards saving lives.]

  • "To make a difference, new tools and strategies for better health must be available to those who need them most. The foundation supports projects that help finance, test, deliver, and sustain access to health interventions." [Last time I looked, healthier people tended to live longer and better lives.]


What the Christian Pervert Minions have stated they dislike is the Foundation's support for Planned Parenthood. And I suspect that this has something to do with it as well. Because after all, if women are unchaste, don't they deserve to die? In the Christofascist Zombie Apocalypse, the answer is yes. Even if they aren't sex workers or promiscuous. As Melinda French Gates writes:

Despite the array of breakthroughs we've seen for AIDS treatment, prevention efforts still rely on the three practices described by the abbreviation ABC ("Abstain, be faithful, use condoms"). These approaches work, and we must encourage them, but they all depend on a man's cooperation. For millions of married women, abstinence is unrealistic, being faithful is insufficient and the use of condoms is not under their control.


I don't WANT to reach out to these people. I don't think we SHOULD reach out to these people. And I won't vote for anyone who thinks that these people have a right to shove their -- yes, I'll call it what it is -- evil religion down my throat. And when Barack Obama says that we need to reach out to these people, he says he doesn't want people like me -- committed, progressive secularists who don't need the fear of punishment or the promise of heavenly rewards to conduct myself in a moral way. (Chris Bowers has more on how Obama saying we have to speak to only the most conservative, retrograde sectors of society result in what we have now -- a government that responds ONLY to them.

And now that I've just spent a post defending the Gates's, I'm going to go pick the shards of my brain off the wall behind me.
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