New England Primer, 1690:
"In Adam's Fall, We Sinned All."
We get some insights into politics in the oddest places by keeping our eyes open.
I got this one near my home in Medford at the long traffic signal at the intersection of Crater Lake Highway and Progress Street, near the Best Buy and Fred Meyer stores.
He was at a busy spot:
But the traffic signal is so long I could see both sides of both signs as he flipped them around.
I see two messages. I had thought they were both messages of political convenience. Now I see them as a single message. He makes conception sacred.
The "abortion issue" for Evangelical Protestants was manufactured by the political right. It was a tactic to link Catholics and Evangelical Protestants for the purpose of building a political coalition to resist integrating schools. Back in 1973, when Roe v. Wade was decided by the Supreme Court, the abortion issue was not a partisan one. The Supreme Court vote was 7-2. The decision was written by Justice Harry Blackmun, a Republican appointee. His background had been as legal counsel for the Mayo Clinic, and the premise of the decision was that abortion was a medical procedure permitted under a then-solidifying notion of a right of privacy combined with the due process liberty of the 14th Amendment. American Catholics had a doctrine of "life" and caring for the vulnerable, which included the fetus through to natural death. Catholics tended to vote Democratic in the cities. Protestant Evangelicals were more oriented to liberty and autonomy, and abortion was a liberty issue.
The transition of non-college Whites from Democratic to Republican was underway. Black civil rights had been nurtured in Black churches. There were left-oriented Evangelicals. Jimmy Carter carried the South and the Bible Belt up through West Virginia. Nixon's Southern Strategy was a transition brought to completion by President Reagan, who solidified Christian religion as a Republican issue. Abortion was the glue linking Catholics and Evangelicals. It had tactical motive, but the idea had sticking power.
Beginning about two years ago, the Trans issue emerged as a useful one for Republicans. This issue is a stab at rebuilding the frayed relationship between Republicans and women voters. Republicans had not been particularly offended by drag or gender transition in the past. Respectable Republicans had gay children, yet stayed in good standing as Republicans. Rudolph Giuliani was photographed in drag and people thought it funny or a little NewYork-ish weird, but not offensive or dangerous.
The trans issue was accelerated by Lia Thomas' move from men's to women's swimming competition. It symbolized another iteration of progressive support for “identity privilege.” It piggybacks on White resentment and fear that Blacks get unfair privilege to the disadvantage of plain, regular, normal White people -- the "real" Americans. Democratic defense of Lia Thomas just went to prove Democrats are OK with trans women getting the privilege of having male biology, yet competing against woman. The idea fits the GOP template of resentment that the people who had been victims of prejudice are now becoming the beneficiaries of it.
The man on the street corner with the signs had both issues on display. He linked them back to a single unifying idea: The completion of personhood at the moment of conception. It is a religious statement. A soul that would later face eternal judgement by God was established at conception by God. The die was cast. God made XX or XY. It makes conception sacred on both abortion and gender.
Complete-at-conception is a political line in the sand, linking politics and religion. It is a comforting and validating thought. Critics can call them deplorable and prejudiced, but the idea is that since God made the soul and gave it immutable gender, it is about obedience, not prejudice. Therefore, human choices to change what God hath wrought aren't just wrong. They are "evil."
Hell, why stop at conception? Let's rewind to "creation," and--with Martin Luther--argue for predestination. We don't need no stinkin' agency.