women’s rights – Southwest Conference Blog

The Gift of the Vote

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

I know it sounds crazy but I always weep when I vote. It’s not what you’re thinking. It’s not because of the polarization in our country or that my chosen candidate is not likely to win. It’s not because I feel sad or tired or weary, though voting seasons can leave me feeling those emotions.

I weep because I am always mindful of what was required from others for me to have the right to vote. I’ve seen the documentaries, read accounts of the women fighting for the right to vote. I know how they were jailed, force fed during their hunger strikes. I know they faced danger and harassment and suffered great losses for their commitment to pass the 19^th amendment in 1919. I know those stories of courage.

I weep because I remember in 1994 when South Africans stood in line for days to finally be able to cast their votes and elect Nelson Mandela as the nation’s president, finally putting an end to apartheid. I saw the news reports of the miles-long lines of people withstanding hunger, danger, and fatigue, refusing to give up and go home when they were forced to wait. I know those stories of perseverance.

I weep because I think of people like Fannie Mae Hamer who was beaten because of her work for voters rights in the 1960’s, of how many times and how many places people of color were turned away from the polls, how many of them lost their jobs, their livelihoods, their lives, to get to the polls, how so many died trying to register voters or cast their ballots. I know those stories of faith.

I weep because I know there are countless places in our world where religion and politics disallow women to vote, where the voting doesn’t matter because of corruption, and places where voting just simply doesn’t happen for anyone.

Voting is not to be taken lightly.

This election will not bring us closer together. This election will not cure the ills of our nation or usher in some new world order of peace and unity. In many aspects, we have lost our way in knowing how to build bridges, how to work together, how to put aside our hatred and resentment and create a government and society that allows for differences, where leaders from all sides sit down at the table and are willing to listen to one another. I doubt the state of affairs will somehow become better no matter the election outcomes. Still, the right to vote was a costly one for our ancestors. The right to go and stand in line and cast a ballot is a great privilege that has been given to us on the backs of those who fought before us.

So, make sure to vote; and while you wait to be handed the long white sheet of paper; when you enter your private queue, take the pen and color in the circle of your choice; when you hand over your completed ballot and walk out the door, take a minute and remember this privilege that is ours today. Take a breath and be grateful.

You might just shed a tear too.

Will the Minority Rule Again?

by Rev. Dr. Richard Einerson

There is a strong majority in this country that is pro-choice for women. Yet the minority can rule on this issue if we allow it. I have some background in medical ethics and from that background I feel compelled to make some comments. I was co-chair of the Medical Ethics Committee at Meritcare Medical Center in Fargo, ND where I was a chaplain for 18 years. In that role I attended weeklong seminars in medical ethics at the University of Washington as well as the “Managing Mortality” conference at the University of Minnesota. I heard the families of two major medical ethics cases, Karen Ann Quinlan and Nancy Cruzan. The first had to do with disconnecting a ventilator, the latter with discontinuing feeding tubes. Ever since the religious right has fought to have the government enforce quasi-religious values in families and personal life which continues today. (Comas: Karen Quinlan, Nancy Cruzan, and Terry Schiavo, Chapter 2). We are in the middle of that fight over women’s health and pro-choice issues now.

The battle has been going a while. I had an annual lecture in medicine and religions and invited Kristie Cruzan White, Nancy’s sister to tell their story to our physicians and community. Shortly thereafter (around 1991} I invited Dr. Daniel Maguire to lecture. His topic was going to be on grief in families who lose young children to incurable diseases as he and his wife had experienced. Maguire was a Jesuit teaching at Marquette but had become in the top ten on the hit list of his Catholic Church by an article he published in the Christian Century describing a visit he and his wife had made to a Planned Parent Center in Milwaukie. Contrary to the Republican notion that it is primarily “loose women” who get abortions, they found it was often women such as a schizophrenic whose medications would malform the fetus; other women whose pregnancies were not proceeding normally.

As a result of his unorthodox notions on abortion, I received a phone call on a Monday morning from the Chairman of the Bank which funded our lecture and who was more than nervous about our choice of lecture. I inquired who was objecting. It was the Bishop’s office and at least one of our conservative physicians. I said: “Norman, would you give me 24 hours to speak with them.” He reluctantly agreed. But in mid-afternoon I got a call from the President. After several statements I said: “Are you suggesting we pay his honorarium and have him stay home?” Of course, the answer was yes. Fortunately, we had friends in the philosophy department at Moorhead State University across the river who paid his airfare, and we had the largest turnout ever in their huge auditorium. Then Maguire did talk about abortion, quoting a Catholic Bishop in the 16^th century. With his Irish humor he said: “He didn’t lose his job, and his lectures weren’t cancelled!” Let’s be clear: This was an attempt of overruled FREEDOM OF SPEECH.

In another article, A Question of Catholic Honesty, Maguire takes on his church’s absolute stance on abortion: wrong all the time. He says: “As a Catholic theology I find this situation abhorrent and unworthy of the richness of the Roman Catholic traditions that have nourished me. I indict not only the bishops, but also the ‘petulant silence’ (Beverly Harrison’s phrase) or indifference of many Catholic Theologians who recognize the morality of certain abortions, but still will not address the subject publicly. I also indict the male dominated liberal Catholic press which does too little to dissipate the myth of a Catholic monolith on abortion.”

To me this is clearly an issue of women’s healthcare. It is an issue to be dealt with honestly in the privacy of a doctor’s office. I personally, as a man, cannot imagine the agony a woman goes through who may need an abortion. But I know that many of those who have FREEDOM as bumper stickers are all for LIMITING FREEDOM OF CHOICE FOR WOMEN. l It is amazing the me that the Supreme Court may be seriously nullifying Roe v Wade, established precedent. It says more about this court than it does about law. But if it does so, it is up to Congress. Our question as a society is: will be allow the minority to rule? Is the filibuster more important than a woman’s civil liberties? It is time for the majority to work at claiming its power. We should query and pressure our congressional representatives and senators. We should show up in the streets. The minority and their religious dogmatism should not prevail! It is time that the most strident voices be put down. I am not talking about their freedom of speech, but their trying to impose their will on the majority.

An unfortunate concomitant of the extreme right is the downright viciousness of their attacks. I mention the Nancy Cruzan case. The right consistently demonstrated where Nancy was lying in a persistent vegetative state. One of the signs on that Christmas eve read: LOOK WHAT NANCY GOT FOR CHRISTMAS: DEATH! I would hope that kind of viciousness might cease but I doubt that will ever be the case. Religion always has its zealots. They must not win this battle. We need to demonstrate that there are other Christians who are not zealots, who are champions of women’s rights, and who believe in the constitutional rights of all Americans!

Life AND Choice Are United

by Rev. Dr. Barb Doerrer-Peacock

I wasn’t sure whether this writing wanted to be a poem or an essay. So, I just wrote. This is the result: my thoughts/feelings about the current threat to women’s reproductive rights.

They would like us to think it’s about
Sanctity vs. sacrilege
Life vs. death
Federal vs state
Truth vs. lies
Constitution vs. changeable laws
Protection of one vs. another
A woman’s issue, and not a man’s
A womb and not a penis
A fetus and not a whole human life
A private decision and not
a whole human culture.

They would like us to think it’s about
when life begins and when it ends,
and whether it is a God
or a human decision.
whether it is male or female
conservative or liberal
Biblical or profane
pro-choice or pro-life.

They would like us to think…
but not really.
They would like us to react.

The tyranny of the binary
creates knee-jerk reactions,
reactions create polarizing gulfs,
gulfs create intractable division:
Us or Them
Other or Self
Win or Lose.

The authority of the binary
creates warring clans and tribes
Us vs. Them
Loyalty vs Disloyalty
Good vs Evil
Right vs. Wrong
Security vs. Fear.

The power of the binary is
dominance of definition
over ambiguity
privilege of power
over powerlessness,
control of cultural commonality
over difference and diversity.

They would like us to think that
this is what it’s all about.
It is not.
It is only yet another mask of
Either/Or
the binary.

A continuing incarnation of something
rather small and insidious,
like a worm that burrows unnoticed
into an orifice and lays its eggs
waiting, growing in the dark
to ultimately take over its host
with fear and madness.

But Life AND Choice are united.
The two entwining, eternal lovers of
God’s Good Creation.
Holiest Gifts
out of which everything is born.

Without Choice – there is no Life.
All is dead.
Without Life – Choice ceases to exist,
All is inanimate.

I refuse the binary trap.
Instead, I CHOOSE LIFE
Together, both, whole.

I choose to believe
life has no beginning
or end – all is in the presence of God
who was, and is,
and forever will be.

I choose to believe
sanctity can be manifest
In all soul-wrestling,
anguished decisions:
to end a pregnancy, AND
to continue a pregnancy
despite all odds, AND
a myriad of other
LIFE CHOOSE-INGS.
All are in the presence of God.

Sanctity evaporates
and the presence of God dims
when
our capacity to
CHOOSE LIFE
Is stolen.

So today,
I CHOOSE LIFE.
And I denounce
those who would be its
thieves.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice put together this stunning video of Barb’s poem.

Missing Sermons and Lessons: Part I of II “Why Shy and Silent About Domestic Violence?”

(This series is about adult with adult relationships)

by Kay Klinkenborg, Church of the Palms

October is Domestic Violence Awareness Month, a topic we seldom write about in our religious or spiritual articles. I was about 40 years old, married to an ordained minister and the first time in my life I heard a sermon from the pulpit on domestic violence in the home and relationships. It was delivered by my husband. It took another 10 years before I heard a second sermon from the pulpit on domestic violence DV.

The second sermon was preached by Dr. Roger Compton, pastor of Central Baptist Church in Springfield, IL. He preached a clear and definitive message on DV and the church’s Christian appropriate response to the victims, in our homes and culture. The next day, Monday, he was greeted at his office by 3+ deacons. “You have stepped over a line this time pastor. You have gone to meddling. We can’t have this taking place in our church.” I suspect that one or more of those deacons was guilty of emotional/and or physical abuse in their own marriages. Patriarchy controlling one more time what is permissible to preach about from the Bible.

There are numerous topics in the field of DV in which our congregations need education. In Part I, I will focus on what is DV? What are the statistics in the US and Arizona and some specific ethnic and racial data. That brings forth some key questions, what could we be doing in our churches to help end DV?

What does domestic violence look like? Legally, domestic violence is the willful intimidation, physical assault, battery, sexual assault, and/or other abusive behavior as part of a systematic pattern of power and control perpetrated by one intimate partner against another. It includes physical violence, sexual violence, threats, economic, and emotional/psychological abuse. The frequency and severity of domestic violence varies dramatically. ₁It is also called ‘intimate partner violence’ and is not exclusionary to legally defined marriage.

Domestic Violence (DV) cuts equally across all classes, incomes, social economic stratus in our culture. There is a supportive ‘old boy’s network’ that it is to be kept quiet and what happens in the home is of no concern of others. DV cuts across lesbian and gay relationships as well. We don’t preach the do and don’t of how to be in relationship with each other in healthy ways. We use the word ‘fighting’ when the truth is, couples need to learn how to have a healthy argument. The very word ‘fight’ assumes there is permission to get out of control…having power over someone else. Arguments are about hearing each other out. You might need space to think about what has been said. The ingredients of emotional abuse and threats of physical harm are not present in healthy disagreements.

An adult person has no permission nor right to physically harm another person. Legally we call that ‘assault’. So what has perpetrated that permission in the privacy of our homes. There are books, article, testimonies written about how institutionalized patriarchy gives males, or the dominant person in the relationship, permission to do as they please to get their way. Talk about not understanding the Golden Rule!

When working with couples where DV has just begun to be a pattern, I raise this question to the perpetrator: “Would you do that do you boss, your best friend, or in public?” That got some attention as to why would you use behavior in your home that is unlawful, physically hurts the other person, takes away their rights as humans? Truth is, few DV perpetrators come to therapy. A very small percentage do, if they find early in their relationship they have surprisingly crossed a line they thought they never would in hurting someone they claim to love.

In the United States, more than 10 million adults experience domestic violence annually.¹

Nationally: 1 in 4 women and 1 in 10 men experience sexual violence, physical violence and/or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime with ‘IPV-related impact’ such as being concerned for their safety, PTSD symptoms, injury, or needing victim services.² Approximately 1 in 5 female victims and 1 in 20 male victims need medical care.³

These numbers are startling! But Arizona’s statistics will make you gasp.

Arizona: 42.6% of Arizona women and 33.4% of Arizona men experience intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking.₄In any given room in Arizona with 50 people, there will be approximately 21 females who have had or are currently experiencing DV. 16.7 males would be victims of DV.

I share just two people of color DV statistics…for the list could go on and on. American Indian and Alaska Native women experience assault and domestic violence at much higher rates than women of any other ethnicity. Over 84% of Native women experience violence during their lifetimes. ⁵

45.1% of Black women and 40.1% of Black men have experienced intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner sexual violence and/or intimate partner stalking in their lifetimes. ⁶

We are a country with a shameful record of all types of violence. Our churches have been silent too long about DV specifically! If we are to be teaching Jesus’ message of love, justice and extravagant welcome…we need to educate congregations to this pandemic in intimate relationships. It also indicts us that we are not teaching concepts of healthy communications, managing intense emotions and fair arguing to our people. When are the open forums/classes that teach about DV? When is there a speaker’s panel on DV? We have no excuses: literature abounds on speaking theologically about DV.

James E. Wallis Jr. is an American theologian, writer, teacher and political activist. He is best known as the founder and editor of Sojourners magazine and founder of a Washington, DC church by the same name. In 2020, he challenged the ministers who subscribe to his magazine to send a sermon they had preached on DV; he was looking for 100 sermons to print. He received far more than anticipated. But he selected these: 100 Sermons on Violence | Sojourners.

I challenge each of us to click on this site and read at least one sermon about DV. The Bible is loaded with applicable stories to teach about DV.

An early book (1984) was written by Dr. Phyllis Trible, widely renowned feminist Biblical scholar and Hebrew scripture professor: Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (among numerous other publications). One of many books available to those teaching Bible stories or preaching.

There is not a lack of resources to address DV. It is the courage to name it, teach the healthy theology and began to shift the ‘shy silence code’ about DV in our churches.

Domestic violence needs to be spoken about. Addressed. And ended.

Part II of “Missing Sermons and Lessons” will be a 1) primer on what and what no to do when someone discloses DV to you; 2) an explanation of elder abuse, why seniors are at risk and safeguards to watch to prevent that prevalent form of DV.

¹ National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV, www,NADCV.org

² Smith, S.G., Zhang, X., Basile, K.C., Merrick, M.T., Wang, J., Kresnow, M. & Chen, J. (2018). The national intimate partner and sexual violence survey: 2015 data brief – updated release. Atlanta: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/2015data-brief508.pdf.

³ Smith, S.G., Chen, J., Basile, K.C., Gilbert, L.K., Merrick, M.T., Patel, N., Walling, M., & Jain, A. (2017). The national intimate partner and sexual violence survey (NISVS): 2010-2012 state report. Atlanta: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/NISVS-StateReportBook.pdf.

⁴ Arizona Coalition to End Sexual and Domestic Violence (2020). State of Arizona domestic violence related fatalities 2019. Retrieved from https://www.acesdv.org/fatality-reports/.

⁵ Smith, S.G., Chen, J., Basile, K.C., Gilbert, L.K., Merrick, M.T., Patel, N., Walling, M., & Jain, A. (2017). The national intimate partner and sexual violence survey (NISVS): 2010-2012 state report. Atlanta: National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Retrieved from https://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/NISVSStateReportBook.pdf

⁶ United States Department of Justice. (2000). Full Report of the Prevalence, Incidence, and Consequences of Violence Against Women. Retrieved from: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/183781.pdf

©Kay F. Klinkenborg, October, 2021
Spiritual Director
Retired RN, LMFT, Clinical Member AAMFT
Specialties: DV; PTSD; Incest Survivors/Sexual Assault;
& Counseling Women. Consultants to IA, IL, KS, MO, NV, NM’s
Coalitions Against Domestic Violence

About Alabama, and Georgia, and Ohio, and…

by Abigail Conley

I thought maybe I should write about that time I needed emergency contraception and the gift of the website that helped me get something that would work for my body. A woman called soon after I clicked that button to confirm my information and calmly, professionally, compassionately asked questions to make sure the prescription they were overnighting would work.

I thought maybe I should write about my friends who have been raped, and the stories we tell behind closed doors. At 25, we could still talk about trauma more than twenty years old.

I thought maybe I should write about making sure young women in my congregation going off to college know how to not get pregnant, to not take open drinks at parties, and hearing what happened any way.

I thought maybe I should write about the trust that Planned Parenthood would help newlyweds and graduate students access contraception and the task of accompanying friends through lines of people accusing her of murder when she was doing everything she could to not get pregnant at a time that a pregnancy would have been financially devastating.

I thought maybe I should write about buying a pregnancy test for a scared youth sponsor, a woman in her mid-30s who would was still unsure of how to care for her body.

I thought maybe I should write about the people who whisper “abortion” through tears years later in their pastor’s office. I thought maybe I should write about the people who whisper “abortion” with fear of judgment with no regrets about their decision.

I thought maybe I should write about the women who I kicked out of the church office as they so proudly talked about their plan to intimidate women seeking abortion. They weren’t quite as proud of their plan to offer enough incorrect information that it was too late for her to obtain an abortion when she found her way to a provider. I thought maybe I should write about the two very conservative women from my church who witnessed that exchange and the grateful look in their eyes as they pronounced, “That’s not right. You don’t know what happened.”

I thought maybe I should write about the fact that I have never been raped, or sexually assaulted and still, if someone grabs my wrist, a panic arises so deep inside of me I am yelling within seconds; somehow my body knows this movement spells trouble for so many women.

I thought about writing about those things.

I thought about writing about those things but you could read similar stories in a few million places on the Internet.

I thought about writing about those things, but why should I have to tell stories of pain in order to convince someone that all those other women and I are actually autonomous humans, too?

And instead of writing those things, I think I will share Janet Ruth Heller’s poem about Deborah, the prophet and judge of Israel:
It is not recorded of Deborah
That she settled down with Barak,
Raised a tribe of Children,
And left off judging Israel.

We may be mothers. We may be wives. We may be many things. But today, I am longing for women to be able to just be.