Canadian diplomat, Robert Fowler, spoke on NPR last month about his "Season in Hell." That's what he titled his book about his capture by Al Qaeda in 2008, one of the few Westerners to survive such an encounter. He remarked: "This is the most focused group of individuals I have ever met." They despised the idea of individual freedom, or of democratic government, and the equality of the sexes, he said, because they believe these ideas wrongly displace God's role in human lives.

"You cannot discuss peace with the al-Qaida guys," he said. "The only thing they're interested in is ending the government of men and substituting it with the government of God." Fowler believes we have "massively failed" in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya: "We have caused one of the most unstable regions in the world to become awash in weapons."

Ringing Bells

The intensity I recognized. The weapons awash, too. The U.S. remains a stable region, but the right's politics grow wackier and our "gun culture" still glamorizes violence. We citizens with a uterus are right to worry.

Harvard Public Health studies of 50 states show a correlation between the numbers of guns and the homicide rates for women. More guns, more dead women. It's simple. (And more dead children and men, too.)

An article from Jezebel, "The Worst 10 Places to Have Lady Parts in America," found a higher incidence of rape in those states with the worst laws restricting access to abortion or birth control, coupled with a high rate of infant mortality and punitive child welfare rules. Add in gun numbers and it's a clusterf**k for women. That's simple, too.

This graphic first appeared Feb.4, 2013, in The Nation and is reprinted here with permission.

Young people may get confused when these attitudes toward women are cloaked in messages about the sanctity of life and motherhood. Mixed messages to women are as old as the patriarchy, which—don't forget—has given us all those male monotheisms with their angry Bachelor Gods. To Him, we're either sluts, or sainted virgin mothers, depending upon His mood.

Any American woman who believes her life is as valuable as a man's, and more valuable than the surprise of his unwanted fetus, cannot help but be reminded by Fowler's remarks of the incredible focus of true believers here in the U.S. Those who talk of "a holocaust" caused by women, more commonly identify as Christian here, not Jewish or Muslim. Yet in a similarly intense way, they claim to know the mind of the one true god.

Their highest mission for everywoman: baby container. There is no democracy for women when this God makes the rules. And to no one are His believers more dangerous than to women— especially when they love guns.

Undermining Language

On Jan. 30th Gayle Trotter, a tax-lawyer from Virginia, testified before the U.S. Senate Judicial Committee, the one headed by Vermont's senior senator Patrick Leahy. Trotter, a mother who claimed to be an "independent," defended women's "right to choose"—an assault weapon. Telling the story of an Oklahoma mother defending her children against home invaders, Trotter called for women's access to what she called, "the equalizer."

When Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) commented that the woman's use of a shotgun demonstrated the efficacy of conventional firepower, Trotter said that he couldn't possibly understand a mother's need for a scarier-looking weapon, or her terrible fear. He was so large, she said. Blink. Blink.

The next day Lawrence O'Donnell confronted Trotter. None of the 14 gun-toting women in her written testimony had used military-type weapons being considered by the Senate. Second Amendment rights were not in question. He asked her then whether a woman's "right to choose" included her right to an abortion.

Trotter refused to answer. News reports later showed Trotter's previous political work spoke her mind clearly enough. She had helped defeat the passage of VAWA, the Violence Against Women Act. Her main argument? Women's false testimony about domestic violence was made too easy by VAWA. Sort of the same way that abortion is made "too convenient" by Roe vs. Wade, according to the Christian right, and the way rape cannot be allowed as an exception because it then becomes "too easy" for women to lie.

Trotter willingly created a smoke cloud diversion, conjuring up a vision of fictional mothers armed like Al Qaeda. Domestic violence deaths of mothers inside their homes didn't count, to her mind, nor did women's stories of gun-bullying men who terrorize families at home. Nor did she represent the opinion of 86 percent of women, recently polled by CNN, who said that guns should be illegal or should have some restrictions.

No, Trotter's positions are rooted in faith, she reports in her blog. It is a particular kind of faith. Her intensity gives her away.

Disarm Kings

Don't yawn, but since we're talking god and constitutional rights here, let's discuss our founding fathers. Washington and Jefferson's class of men had studied the folly of Europe's centuries of wars, and saw it was bad for business.

They were most often deists, their god not the angry one you have a personal relationship with after confessing you are horrible—but rather the mysterious, gracious one who exceeds human understanding.

So-called "men of god" had allied too closely for too long with god-anointed royalty, and our forefathers suspected a rather convenient pyramid scheme. They and their colleagues severed the illegitimate union between state and religion, rejecting the rule of kings and brutal force.

Our founders' wisdom has not brought us world peace; more often, revolution. They never intended to free us women or slaves, but at least women won their rights without bloodshed. Since the Civil War we've managed to contain national conflicts within the language of politics, but it begins to feel like the same old same old.

Undermine meanings of common understandings and half the battle is won. In Jefferson's time that meant showing King George was not all that "divine." In our time, it means stealing words like "freedom" and "women's choice," in the name of "faith" and "independence."

Yet why battle? Most gun-owners use their guns safely, and want safety for school children and at home. Most Americans believe in a far more tolerant god than right-wing Christian's. And most want some gun regulation. Our uniting against gun violence, however we do it, would help heal our wounds.

It was painful to see the contrast between Trotter's intensity and Gabby Gifford's painfully simple plea for action on behalf of our children—to say nothing of our duly elected women representatives. Just as painful was seeing our state senate put off proposed gun legislation after a demonstration by gun-rights activists. No one publicly noted that the flag-draped gun demonstration at the Vermont Statehouse was "conveniently" held on the same day as a protest against Roe vs. Wade—on January 20, Martin Luther King Day.

Rickey Gard Diamond is the Editor of Vermont Woman