Fred Clark has an article entitled The push-back against the push-back begins: ‘Mainstream’ evangelicals criticize critics of the religious right. It discusses how prominent in the evangelical community are the hateful people who suggested that the Newtown shootings were caused by, for example, God being excluded from the public square. Are guys like Mike Huckabee prominent or fringe?

This is a dynamic that probably goes on with any group to one extent or another. But, I notice it most with the socially conservative, politically active wing of Christianity. The question of whether and to what extent a person is speaking for “Christians” becomes important because that’s generally where the person’s influence comes from. If he were just a dude condemning birth control on some street corner, his public reception is a whole lot different than if he is speaking on television due to his association with a Christian group — even if the content of the speech is exactly the same.

Christians, like most other groups, are not monolithic. Everybody is not going to agree with everybody else. But, it’s difficult to determine whether the views of guys like Dobson or Huckabee represent anything like the consensus of the group or if they’re more like street corner ranters who found their way into a radio studio. The test, I suppose, is if they are readily welcomed back into the fold and by whom after they say something as objectionable as Huckabee’s statement about the Newtown shootings.

Ed Brayton brings us news from the front.

Bryan Fischer says he’s not going to refer to the war on Christmas anymore. Is he finding rationality? Of course not. He’s just decided that the non-existent war on Christmas is really a non-existent war on Christ.

I would have let this pass without comment, but I also then heard a discussion of the “War on Christ” on our local American Family Radio affiliate (WQSG). (I’ve always had a habit of listening to right wing radio, but as Axl put it, “I used to do a little but a little wouldn’t do. So the little got more and more.”)

Before I got out of the car, whoever was talking explained how wrong it was that stores like the Gap wanted to profit off of Christmas but didn’t want to call it Christmas. Translation: commercialization of Christmas may be an abomination, but it’s our abomination.

Like so many of these other public square Christianity discussions – like Ten Commandments displays at public facilities or prayers at public functions – I don’t think the conflict is really about keeping or losing faith. Do many people really believe that public displays of piety really improve the moral fiber of the polity? I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. Rather, this is once again about marking territory; an expression of cultural dominance. And, I guess when small things like what a retail clerk says to you at check out suggest that the cultural dominance is slipping, it can be disconcerting.

Sweet Jumpin’ Jehosephat. Rep. Paul Broun (R-GA): Evolution, Big Bang ‘Lies Straight From The Pit Of Hell’. Rep. Broun serves in the House of Representatives on the House Science Committee. Quoth Rep. Broun:

“All that stuff I was taught about evolution and embryology and the Big Bang Theory, all that is lies straight from the pit of Hell,” Broun said.

It’d be like putting me on the House Committee for Confederate Heritage or Class Basketball Advocacy or Legible Penmanship.

Garance Franke-Ruta, writing in the Atlantic, has an article entitled “A Canard that will not die: ‘legitimate rape’ doesn’t cause pregnancy.” Congressman and candidate for Missouri Senator, Todd Akin, asserted to KTVI-TV that it’s really rare for “legitimate rape” to result in pregnancy.

Franke-Ruta makes the case that this assertion didn’t come out of left-field, but instead is something that keeps cropping up among pro-life politicians. Sometimes they call it “forcible rape” or “assault rape”. The abortion debates make more sense when viewed not so much as a “valuing life” issue but rather as an issue of disapproving of women having unsanctioned sex and enjoying it. Pregnancy is her punishment for such behavior; abortion and birth control are a sneaky way of escaping righteous punishment.

By pretending that “legitimate rape” doesn’t cause pregnancy, advocates of such a distinction can assure themselves that there are no difficult decisions to make because the pregnancy itself is evidence that, on some level, she was really enjoying herself and is only calling it rape now because she had second thoughts after the passion of the moment had passed. And since she enjoyed herself, the punishment of pregnancy is just.

Now, as a logical matter, if one accepts the premise that at the moment of conception, there is created a human life entitled to our full moral consideration — in other words, if the sanctity of human life comes from its biological properties rather than its biographical properties – it makes sense to not include an exception for rape or incest or really, anything. If you conclude that the mother’s right to bodily integrity is subordinate to society’s right to dictate that she use her body to preserve the life of the growing child, then it shouldn’t matter too much how the child got there. It’s not as if the fetus could help the manner of its conception.

But, putting it into such stark terms is politically difficult and makes some people uneasy — they are more comfortable if they can focus almost exclusively on the good things they want for the child rather than what they are imposing on the woman by mandating those good things for the child. They want to justify the imposition by assuming that the woman is morally culpable for the state she’s in. The fiction that, “if she’s pregnant, she probably liked it” helps thread that needle in cases of rape. And that is probably why the canard has such staying power.

Kragar at Little Green Footballs brings us the latest in the Wingnut War To Say Dumb Stuff; from “Joe” the “Plumber” (*Caution: Neither Joe nor Plumber).

He says that the Bible beats Science. That’s not the dumb part. Even I, no believer, agree that Jesus and the Bible can give us wisdom in areas where science simply has nothing to offer. No, the dumb part is his explanation: the Bible has no revisions.

Wurzelbacher explained how his pastor, who seems to believe that faith and science are incompatible, noted that while science textbooks have several new editions, the Bible has never been revised. ”Revision Seven.’ He said, ‘now look at the Bible, what does it say’? I said, ‘Holy Bible.’ He said, ‘see any revisions on it Joe’? I said, ‘no.’ He said, ‘the reason why is because this is God’s word…man’s always looking for an answer, that’s why it’s revised.”

Apparently his pastor wasn’t using the New Revised Standard version of the Bible. Or, if he was, maybe Joe was just too embarrassed to admit that he can’t read. And, never mind the 92 complete English language versions of the Bible listed in Wikipedia.

The more important point is that the ability and the inclination to revise science books speaks to its strength, not its weakness. Done properly, science always admits of doubt, permits testing, and demands revision where the testing demonstrates error.

Woke up this morning to see a Twitter statement retweeted by one of our state representatives saying, “the only thing government really ever successfully produces is dependence.”

I will ponder that sentiment today as I drive on the public roads through the adequately drained countryside to my job which involves asking state judges to interpret and enforce contracts.