Why doesn't God just kill the Devil?

I couldn't tell you exactly, but it probably has something to do with God loving the Devil, despite everything. At any rate, things will all work out in The End.

Nevertheless, Christians -- particularly pro-lifers -- keep acting like they don't have a clue about why God doesn't just kill the Devil, as they keep trying to outlaw sin.

And yet again, it didn't exactly work out, what with the South Dakota abortion-ban referendum going down in Hellfire.

Here's an excerpt from today's article in the Sioux Falls (S.D.) Argus-Leader:

South Dakota voters on Tuesday firmly rejected a law banning nearly all abortions, but supporters of the measure vowed to continue pushing to further restrict abortion in the state.

With 91 percent of the state's precincts reporting, 55 percent opposed the abortion ban while 45 percent supported it.

Tuesday's vote ended a heated campaign that had drawn extensive national attention while dividing the state's medical and religious communities. Campaign spending trying to sway voters totaled nearly $4 million.

The South Dakota Campaign for Healthy Families, the group that forced the measure onto the ballot, called the bill's defeat a victory for reproductive rights.

"I think most importantly it sends a strong message to our Legislature," said Kate Looby, South Dakota state director of Planned Parenthood. "South Dakotans have had enough abortion legislation."

Earlier this year, the Legislature overwhelmingly approved the ban. A court battle would have been inevitable had the ban passed, as it was designed to pose a direct challenge to Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion.

As the votes stacked up against the ban Tuesday, abortion opponents vowed not to stop their battle to end abortions.

Republican state Rep. Roger Hunt said it's too early to predict the next steps for the anti-abortion movement in South Dakota but said more restrictions could be proposed.

"We're going to take it a day at a time," Hunt said. "There are a number of things that can be looked at."Hunt said the state's health department is now considering placing
specific regulations on abortion clinics in South Dakota. The state's only clinic is Planned Parenthood in Sioux Falls.

"I saw a copy of that a few weeks ago," Hunt said of the potential regulations.Campaign manager Leslee Unruh said the Vote Yes for Life on Six campaign succeeded in changing the rhetoric in the anti-abortion movement by emphasizing that "abortion hurts women." She said she expects similar campaigns against abortion to take place in states including West Virginia and Texas.

"They're never going to win, and we're never going to quit," Unruh said. "Women are being heard all over this nation and it started here in South Dakota."

Now, all of you Christian political activists out there, tell me again how America is really pro-life, and how it's just them mean old nasty Democrat judges that's holding back all us sanctified folk from saving every endangered child in the womb?

Listen, y'all. You couldn't even outlaw abortion in SOUTH DAKOTA, for Norma McCorvey's sake. What, pray tell, does that tell you about how "pro-life" the rest of the country is?

Of course, some sin -- like intentionally killing children in the womb, for example -- ought to be against the law. Unfortunately, abortion isn't against the law because, under our small-R republican system, Americans are OK with a woman having the right to decide her child must die.

I know you've had delusions this is not the case. But it is, and I hope South Dakotans have disabused you of that fatuous notion.

So, in selling your souls to the political right -- a bunch whose true passion is Mammon, not maternity -- so "we can get the judges," so "we can outlaw partial-birth abortion," so "we can get that Human Life Amendment passed" . . . well, haven't you just been putting the cart jes' a little in front of the horse?

Or elephant, as the case may be.

See, in a democracy, the majority -- more or less -- rules. And you ain't in it.

The Republicans, who aren't totally stupid, well know you ain't in the majority. Now, they want you as part of their majority, so they've been blowing smoke up your collective wazoo. That, however, does not change the fact that they KNOW -- even if you don't -- that you ain't in the majority.

Ergo, they haven't exactly been going all out to rid these United States of the scourge of in utero child homicide. Fetuses don't vote, and I don't know of any politician who relishes being the target of the absolute s***storm that would arise from taking away "a woman's right to choose . . ."

. . . to kill her baby.

Folks, you were at the dead end of the political road the minute you started down it.

To paraphrase fellow Louisiana native James Carville, "It's the culture, stupid!"

Be salt. Be light. Be teachers. Be servants.

Take all the money you otherwise would be flushing down the political crapper and build more crisis-pregnancy centers. Set up social-welfare societies for poor mothers and poor children.

Infiltrate the Eeeeeeeevil Democrats (TM) and be vocally pro-life in that context. And be nice to those who aren't.

Even if they're not nice to you.

See, you waged political warfare over a dubiously popular proposition, and you've gotten nothing but your asses handed to you. And the more you get your asses handed to you, the more you keep marching -- in perfect formation, I might add -- right into the Culture of Death's line of fire.

It's like the British in 1916. Or like Rumsfeld in Iraq. You know, the whole "Definition of insanity being doing the same thing over and over again but expecting different results this time" thing.

There's a difference between being "fools on Christ's account" and being Christian fools. Learn it.