California NOW

We Can't Let the Foxes Rule the Hen House

By Linda Long, Action VP
California NOW

We have heard a lot about the war on women all over the country but my goal in this blog is to scare the crap out of you and get you to pay attention to how the war on women is being waged right here in California.

Over the last two years, Governor Brown has been making it abundantly clear that he wants to use the Shock and Awe of a massive budget shortfall to distract women by making unbelievably devastating cuts to social welfare programs, schools and universities. Those distractions have been necessary so that he can use his office to fundamentally restructure state government which is exactly what he’s been doing.    He is doing it without input from those most affected, especially women.  And he is doing it right under the nose of our legislators.

He is not alone.  He is being helped by Catholic hospitals and Kaiser, and their company union SEIU Health Workers, Anthem Blue Cross and the California Endowment.

 Governor Brown has been using budget trailer bills to ram his agenda through quickly and without consulting women.  In case you don’t know – trailer bills typically have little oversight.  That’s exactly why he’s using them.

Some of you may ask why.  Why would he do this?  He gave us the reason when he proposed the elimination of the Commission on the Status of Women last year.  In that proposal, Governor Brown said that he didn’t believe gender equity was one of the core functions of government. 

He’s now set his sights on healthcare, proposing to remove the Office of Women’s Health and have it become part of an Office of Health Equity.

Every task force, every department is tasked with ensuring they create access to health and they eliminate disparities in health.  Obviously, that’s a good thing - as long as women are included.  The problem is, if you don’t believe that gender equity is a core function of government, you don’t include women.  And that’s what has happened.

California NOW and a diverse coalition of health and equality advocates were working with the legislature to ensure that women, especially women of color, were represented both in the Office of Health Equity which is where the work of the Office of Women’s Health will be placed and the Health in All Policies Task Force.

And we were making progress.   Through intensive lobbying and a lot of late nights, we were able to craft the language which changed the Office of Health Equity into one where women could not be eliminated….where the Health in All Policies Task Force couldn’t ignore us.

Perhaps we were making too much progress because last week Governor Brown announced a new task force. The “Let’s Get California Healthy Task Force.”  Its first meeting is set for June 15th.

The stake holders the Governor thinks should be in charge of a ten year strategic plan from that task force are (wait for it) Catholic hospitals and Kaiser, their company union SEIU Health Workers, Anthem Blue Cross and the California Endowment.

Did you get that?

The stakeholders in charge of creating a ten year strategic plan under which all of the Health and Human Services will be mandated are Catholic Hospital West, now referred to as Dignity Healthcare (although I refuse to call it that), Mercy Hospital, and Kaiser, their company union SEIU Health Workers, Anthem Blue Cross and the California Endowment.

The foxes will officially be in charge of the hen house. These self-interested corporations will be in charge of the implementation of goals and objectives to close the gaps in access to health care.

So after women and men of color were successful in altering the Office of Health Equity Trailer Bill that the Governor was trying to ram through the Legislature – the California Hospital Association and their unions and the Governor quickly acted to nullify that work.

When government does not believe that women’s equality and empowerment are core functions of government, a consistent pattern in the creation, implementation and maintenance of policies and programs emerges….women simply are not included.

We will not allow this governor to hand over our health care to Catholic Hospitals and those who collude with them to offer substandard care to women.

So my call to you today is this….Get off your chairs and vote. Get us the two-thirds majority in the Legislature. Come to Sacramento and put your body in the chair in the hearing rooms where they vote on these bills that affect the almost 19 million women in our state.  Force the legislators to see you and hear from you.

Together, we must also advocate for single payer health care. It is an individual’s right to be able to access health care and we must get corporations and employers out of the picture for everyone to be able to exercise that right.

Lastly and perhaps most importantly, we need to let women know what’s at stake in this election and what the Governor is doing in Sacramento.  One of the ways we can do that is through electronic town halls which have been proven to be effective in reaching large audiences.  However, those obviously cost us money so we need help securing the funds necessary to reach the millions of women in California who are affected by what’s happening.

California NOW is determined to continue speaking out on this issue and educating voters throughout the state.  But we cannot do it alone.  If you are with us, I’m asking you to contact every woman – and man – you know and tell them what is going on and insist they tell everyone they know.  And insist that they vote!  And if you want to help us reach millions of women with the townhalls, please click here to make an online donation.

Religious Tyranny

By Linda Long, Action VP of California NOW

When did America become tolerant of religious tyranny? Religious tyranny is religious tyranny even if the majority of citizens practice that religion.  It is why we have civil rights separate from religious rights.  It is why my individual rights trump your religious rights in this country. The recent arguments from the Republicans have nothing to do with religious freedom and everything to do with corporate religious dominance.

When I was in grade school I distinctly remember learning that the Pilgrims came to the new world to escape from religious tyranny.  Later in school we learned that as more and more people arrived here with their different religions and cultures, there was a shift to individual freedom and individual human rights.  It was a natural shift, to a code of civil and human rights made in order to accommodate all the different cultures, religions and individuals, many of whom made the perilous journey to escape tyranny of all kinds.

I am a woman, a lesbian and an atheist. I am also a mother, a retired business owner, volunteer and advocate.  But first of all, I am an individual, a free citizen of a society where I am guaranteed to have the same opportunities and freedoms of any other citizen.

But I don’t.   Santorum and Romney and the rest of the Republican field believe that this country should be ruled by religious tyranny. Their agenda is to deny me the right to decide my own reproduction, whether it be using birth control or abortion; even if that denial would kill me.  They want to deny me the right to marry, to defend my country, to adopt children or to have equal access to employment; all based on my individual sexual orientation, even if that denial takes away my fundamental right to equality.  They believe they have a right to impose their religious values on my life in countless ways, beginning with inserting “under God” in the Declaration. They believe that religious corporations have and should have more power and rights than the individuals they serve.

It is a religious tyranny that would impose religious laws on members of a society who do not practice their religion.  I believe very deeply that I was born free, equal in dignity and rights and entitled to the equal protection of the law.  Every time I stand and sing the national anthem, I remember all those who fought and are fighting protecting those rights for me and for people across the world. I think it is time that Americans stop pretending that the Republican Party of today defends individual rights. They are a party of dominance and oppression in the name of religion.

Domination over individuals by any religion cannot be tolerated.  There can only be one test and that is that if you have to dominate me to achieve what you want, then what you want comes at too high a cost for any American.

What year is it?

 Is it really 2012?  Because lately, it feels a lot more like 1912!

There's something surreal about watching a congressional hearing in 2012 that consists of all men publicly discussing birth control, menstrual pain, ovarian cancer, and migraine headaches. But that's exactly what happened yesterday when California Republican Congressman Darrel Issa convened a panel entitled, "Lines Crossed: Separation of Church and State. Has the Obama administration trampled on Freedom of Religion and Freedom of Conscience?"  He refused to hear testimony from women all morning.  Instead, the panel consisted of ten males - all of whom were from conservative religious institutions - testifying on YOUR behalf opposing the Obama administration's birth control rule.

Two days ago, the Republican supermajority from within the Virginia state legislature muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the House, including one that would all but outlaw the procedure in the state by declaring that the rights of persons apply from the moment sperm and egg unite.  The other bill requires women to have a transvaginal ultrasound before undergoing an abortion.  Virginia Republican Legislator Todd Gilbert justified the new bills saying that most abortions come as "matters of lifestyle convenience."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, lawmakers across the nation pursued a record number of reproductive health and rights-related provisions in 2011, enacting 135 measures in 36 states — “an increase from the 89 enacted in 2010 and the 77 enacted in 2009.” Sixty-eight percent of the provisions — 92 in 24 states — restricted access to women's reproductive healthcare.

While women are busy just trying to get by in this troubled economy and take care of their families, conservative legislators are focused not on jobs but, instead, on making sure women are thrown back into the dark ages where they have no individual rights and cannot make their own healthcare choices.

And if you don't think this affects you because you live here in California, you're wrong!

The common thread through all of these restrictions is the tie to religious organizations - churches.  We've all watched as the Catholic Bishops have taken center stage in condemning the Obama administration's birth control rule.

This means that if the Catholic Bishops win this fight, EVERY employee at a hospital (doctors, nurses, technicians, administrators, electricians, food service workers, janitorial staff) will be denied full reproductive healthcare coverage because the hospital is owned by the Catholic Church.  It won't matter that the hospital is the only medical facility in town or the only employer available or that the employees are not Catholic.

We're headed down a dangerous path.  The 2012 election is how we stop this once and for all.  Pay attention!  Leave the comfort of your home and get into the street!  Begin organizing NOW to unseat any legislator who puts a religiously affiliated corporation ahead of women’s healthcare.  This battle is too important to sit back and hope that someone else will save us.  It’s time we –women working together – win this fight ourselves!

To read CA NOW President Patty Bellasalma's full blog piece on how recent Supreme Court decisions will impact this issue, click here.

Perry & Bachman - Pray Away the Lies!

Remember when you were a kid and your dad gave you your allowance and a little later your mom gave you it too and you "conveniently forgot" to tell your mom that you already got your allowance?  When you got found out, you probably got the "lie by omission is still a lie" lecture.  And you probably heard how actually that kind of lie is more disappointing because not only did you lie but the person that you lied to now feels like they also got taken. 

Well someone needs to give that lecture to Perry and Bachman!

This week Perry "conveniently" let his supporters think that he was going to fix social security for the next generation while what he really intends is to do away with social security.  He knows he is lying, but if confronted I'll bet he would put his hands behind his back, give you one of his little innocent smiles and tell you that he didn't "lie" and that he can't control what they think!  Well Perry you are lying. And when your supporters find out, they will feel duped.

And, Bachman, nobody believes that you were "just joking" about how the earthquake and hurricane Irene were messages from god to the politicians in Washington.  The victims of the horrific flooding who have lost their homes, businesses and the ones they love know  the difference between a joke and a lie when they hear it.   I hope it makes them as angry as it makes me.

So you two, get thee to church, pull out those bibles, and get on your knees because both of you need to go back to Sunday School and both of you need a lesson in humility and truthfulness.

I only hope that voters decide to give you that lesson at the polls.

Carrie Prejean's Sex Tape: Hypocrisy Doesn't Justify Sexism

So, apparently Carrie Prejean, the biblically-minded former Miss California who opposes marriage equality, may have a sex tape skeleton in her chastity closet.

Now I have absolutely no problem with calling people out for their hypocrisy (and if the tape actually exists, this seems like a case where that would apply), but some of the language being used against Prejean (primarily by commenters, rather than bloggers) veers into denigrating her for having had sex, or even simply for being female.

I don't care who you are, or how big of a jerk or a bigot, I'm not going to use language that is bigoted, sexist, racist, homophobic, etc., in criticizing you. And if other people are using that kind of language against you, I'm going to defend you against it, no matter who you are, or how horrific I find your beliefs, because that's how feminism works.

What is it going to take for people to realize that we can't end oppression by oppressing others, no matter how hateful they are?