Theists couldn’t care less about unintended consequences
The law of unintended consequences doesn’t have a shorter, pithier name like Murphy’s. Seems to me the two are closely related.
They are sure to come into play soon in Alabama.
During a recent interview on the program of self-proclaimed “prophet” and QAnon conspiracy theorist Johnny Enlow, Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice Tom Parker indicated that he is a proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a theological approach that calls on Christians to impose fundamentalist values on all aspects of American life.
Enlow is a pro-Trump “prophet” and leading proponent of the “Seven Mountain Mandate,” a “quasi-biblical blueprint for theocracy” that asserts that Christians must impose fundamentalist values on American society by conquering the “seven mountains” of cultural influence in U.S. life: government, education, media, religion, family, business, and entertainment.
Enlow has also repeatedly pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, sometimes even connecting it to the Seven Mountain Mandate. Per Right Wing Watch, Enlow has claimed that world leaders are “satanic” pedophiles who “steal blood” and “do sacrifices” and that “there is presently no real democracy on the planet” because over 90 percent of world leaders are involved in pedophilia and are being blackmailed.
On February 16, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that frozen embryos are people, with the same rights as living children, and that a person can be held liable for destroying them, imperiling in vitro fertilization treatment in the state. In a concurring opinion, Parker quoted the Bible, suggested that Alabama had adopted a “theologically based view of the sanctity of life,” and said that “human life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”
What about the wrath of Murphy?
There are any number of ways Parker’s cockamamie ruling will collapse in on itself. But then again, we are passing through an unstable region of space-time. The laws of Newtonian space may not apply.
Possible consequences of upholding the Alabama ruling are already the butt of jokes online.
If frozen embryos are children with all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto, how does that affect the census, for example?
“Bubba and Bobbie Jean” likely store dozens of their embryos in blue Nashville or Atlanta or Harris Co., Texas (Houston), a friend observed, not in their red, rural county. Whoops?
And what of the tax and government benefits impacts, Jess Piper asks?
Caution is warranted, however, as these jests reinforce the Christian right’s zygotes-are-people arguments. Don’t assume “Seven Mountains” types will back down after mockery over their Tali-bans. (Alabamians chose Tommy Tuberville as their senator, after all.) Their first reflex is to double down. Remember: unstable region of space-time.
Bill Busa (DocDawg at DKos and a biotech entrepreneur) responds to the Alabama ruling from the viewpoint of science and established law: “An IVF embryo is a microscopic clump of 100 cells, with neither any brain nor cardiopulmonary functions. If it’s a child, it is by law a dead child.”
Don’t confuse them with the facts. Makes their heads hurt.
Expect your space-time instability to get worse before getting better.
● ● ● ● ● ● ● ●
For The Win, 5th Edition is ready for download. Request a copy of my free countywide GOTV planning guide at ForTheWin.us.