Thank God, Susan Orr is gone!

The following comes from an article by Amanda Terkel at Think Progress which was reprinted by AlterNet. The photo is of Susan Orr.


Since last October, Susan Orr has worked for the Department of Health and Human Services. She's been in charge of federal family planning programs. The Bush administration said she was highly qualified.

Ms. Terkel writes that she actually had no qualifications. "From the beginning, Orr was controversial, with her strongest credentials seemingly being her support for failed abstinence-only policies."

Prior to coming to the HHS, Orr worked for the ultra-conservative Republican Right organization, the Family Research Council, where she was "senior director for marriage and family care." She was also "an adjunct professor at Pat Robertson's Regent University, a law school diploma mill turning out legal beagles charged with infiltrating the government in order to tack back this nation for God.

Amanda Terkel notes that Ms. Orr's past record was not very splendiforous, but rather what one would expect from a retrograde ultra right fundamentalist Christian partisan:

Seven years ago, Orr supported a proposal by the Bushites to "'stop requiring all health insurance plans for federal employees' to cover a broad range of birth control. [Orr said] We're quite pleased, because fertility is not a disease."

Eight years ago, Susan Orr, in a Weekly Standard article, "railed against requiring health insurance plans to cover contraceptives. 'It's not about choice,' said Orr. 'It's not about health care. It's about making every collaborators with the culture of death.'"

(To use contraceptives, according to this paragon of the Christian Right is to collaborate "with the culture of death.")

Also, in 2000, Orr wrote a paper titled "Real Women Stay Married," in which she said that women should "'think about focusing our eyes, not upon ourselves, but upon the families we form through marriage.'" I wonder if she would advise a woman to stay married to a man who beats her on a regular basis?

Ms. Terkel notes in conclusion that just recently the Family Research Council, looking out for the interests of true Christians everywhere, "has been pressuring the Bush administration to restrict federal funding for family planning centers. Conveniently, Orr oversaw this funding."


Thank whatever god you wish, Orr has resigned. That's one for the good guys!