It's amazing that nobody on this purportedly 'left' e-list has yet to criticize organized religion on the ground that it has and still fosters sexual repression + subordination of women & sexual dissidents (including 'abortion ambivalence' but of course not limited to it).
I guess that liberation from sex/gender oppression is getting kicked off the agenda of the Left as many lbo-talkers conceive of it. (A fetish for immaculate conception?) In their minds, such a liberation is a 'merely cultural' affair and hence to be condemned or dismissed, even though sexual repression and subordination of women & sexual dissidents have quite _material effects_ on our bodies and economic standing (including deaths of women from unsafe abortion in many parts of the world, domestic violence, rape, hate crime against sexual non-conformists, etc.), create and maintain _social conservativism_ that can and has been harnessed to _neoliberalism_ (e.g. 'Let's punish welfare mothers, they are promiscuous and popping out babies just to get welfare checks!') or worse (say a fascist movement that might gain strength should economy collapse), produce _scapegoats_ upon whom many workers can vent their anger and resentment that may have roots in economic hardships and should be targeted upon capitalists, etc.
The only cultural politics they approve of is a religious one, as it turns out! Who says America is postmodern? America has yet to become modern!
Yoshie