LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY britzkrieg)

I admit that I am very angsty and posty today, and I apologize. I'll try to keep this short and on-point.

All Americans agree that the economy is very, very important. Since 9/11, some Americans have embraced other, more idealistic priorities, but the economy is still what makes the world go around, whether it's flat or spherical. Some people may have lost sight of this, even to the extent of voting against their own economic self-interest, but I don't think this will last.

So... what would happen to the U.S. economy if Dominionists succeeded in establishing a theocracy? Yeah, we've all read about the "liberatarian" market they'd like to put in place, but what would really happen?

IMO, disaster.

But that's not my main point. Even if implemented piecemeal, religiously-motivated public policy could harm the economy in subtle ways. Some sectors would be more hurt than others, of course.

OK, that brings me, at last, to my point: Where are our economic allies in the resistance?

Let's take pharma companies. How do the ones that produce birth control pills feel about their products being described as abortifacients? How do they feel about individual pharmacists limiting patients' access to their products just because of religious belief?

Let's take health insurance companies. If birth control becomes harder to obtain and abortion is severely restricted or outlawed, insurance companies will have to finance more pregnancies. Pregnancies are risky and expensive. Moreover, I'm sure that unplanned pregnancies are more prone to expensive complications, for mother and child. And who is going to pay for patching up all of the women and girls butchered by unsafe, illegal abortions? If not the insurance companies, someone... unless we let them just die, of course. And death impacts the economy in other ways.

How will American biotech companies compete if schools deliberately churn out people who deny evolution by rote? I think they're already suffering because of the abyssmal state of science education in the U.S. Will they just import employees?

Can I get an amen? Anything? There's a lot at stake here on tangible levels. Can we do anything to bring business and industry in on our side?