As discussed in an earlier post, Kirk Cameron called homosexuality “unnatural” and “detrimental” to civilization during a March 2nd interview on Piers Morgan Tonight. Cameron’s anti-gay comments have created an uproar, earning him condemnation from pro-LGBT voices.
Cameron stands by his statements. ABC News reports that in an e-mail statement, Cameron said that he should be able to talk about his moral views in the public square.
"... especially those that have been the underpinning of Western civilization for 2,000 years — without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach ‘tolerance’ that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I’m in the public square.”
Cameron added that it is his "life's mission to love all people" and that people should be able to debate matters with "greater love and respect."
That’s rich, Kirk. The man who called homosexuality “destructive” to the foundations of civilization is calling for “love and respect.” To boot, he called the understandable anger coming from the LGBT community and its allies as a demand to “bend” his beliefs “to their moral standard.” I’m sorry, but I don’t see how homophobia is compatible with loving all people.
Some public figures have defended Cameron, including actor Stephen Baldwin who tweeted "GREAT JOB Kirk!" at his Twitter account, according to the Advocate. Several right-wing commentators, including the American Family Association's Bryan Fischer, defended Cameron, as documented at Right Wing Watch. For example, during a recent edition of Focal Point, Fischer praised Cameron for standing his ground, ridiculing Piers Morgan as an "anti-Christian, anti-morality bigot."
Think Progress reports that Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann appeared on the March 5th edition of Piers Morgan Tonight, where she said that Cameron is “getting trashed right now.” Not surprisingly, she claimed that people who “stand on sincerely held religious beliefs” have been demonized.
“I would like to see the lack of demonization for those of us who stand on sincerely held religious beliefs. It’s overtime. That’s where you see the demonization of people who stand on their beliefs.”
Other celebrities think otherwise. Tracy Gold, a fellow Growing Pains alumna, posted a message on Twitter celebrating LGBT equality according to the Baltimore Sun. ABC News reports that another Growing Pains co-star, Alan Thicke, tweeted that he would get Cameron some new books because "The Old Testament simply can't be expected to explain everything."
The Advocate reports that two Roseanne actresses publicly condemned Cameron's words. On the March 6th edition of CBS's The Talk, former Roseanne actress Sara Gilbert worried that Cameron's remarks could have a detrimental impact on LGBT youth. Gilbert said that Cameron needs to think about LGBT youth suicide rates and "who you are hurting." Also, former Roseanne star Roseanne Barr went on Twitter and accused Cameron of being "an accomplice to murder with his hate speech. so is Rick Warren. Their peers r killing gays in Uganda."
Many thanks to those who have called out Cameron's anti-gay comments and who continue the struggle for LGBT equality. While people such as Cameron have the right to speak freely in the public square, we also have the right to promote equality.
At an Ohio Tea Party gathering on February 18th, GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum said that President Obama embraces a "phony theology". that is not based on the Bible. Santorum clarified his comments during a February 19th appearance on CBS' Face the Nation, stressing that he was not questioning the president's Christian faith, but rather criticizing his environmentalism. Santorum depicted environmentalism as such.
"...this idea that man is here to serve the Earth, as opposed to husband its resources and be good stewards of the Earth. And I think that is a phony ideal. I don't believe that that's what we're here to do, that man is here to use the resources and use them wisely, to care for the Earth, to be a steward of the Earth. But we're not here to serve the Earth. The Earth is not the objective. Man is the objective, and I think a lot of radical environmentalists have it upside down."
Santorum continued, making sweeping generalizations about environmentalism. He referred to global warming as a "debate" and said that environmentalism was a ploy to consolidate government power.
"When you have a worldview that elevates the earth above man and say that we can't take those resources because we're going to harm the earth by things that frankly are not scientifically proven, for example, the politicization of the global warming debate. I mean, this is just all an attempt to centralize power and give more power to the government."
Santorum advocated for "...the belief that man should be in charge of the Earth and have dominion over it and should be good stewards of it."
Santorum lambasted environmentalism as a "theology" that elevates earth above humans, demonstrating his ignorance on the subject. His overgeneralization did not accurately describe environmentalism as a whole, but really only caricatured biocentric environmental ethics (i.e., deep ecology). Environmentalism encourages prudent treatment of the natural world while encompassing many ethical frameworks for how and why to do so.
Unfortunately, Santorum's straw man attack on environmentalism was all too familiar to me. Greenfaithinitiatives, Christian ecotheology, and other evidence proves that people can be both Christian and environmentally conscious, but this is often lost on right-wing Christians. Several Religious Right voices have cast Christianity and environmentalism as mutually exclusive, with some even mocking environmentalism as a "pagan" religion.* For example, the Cornwall Alliance's anti-environmentalist curriculum, Resisting the Green Dragon, demonizes the environmental movement with ugly caricatures. In 2011, Doug Phillips of the Vision Forum claimed that Earth Day honored the "earth god" and that the environmental movement promotes lies. Several right-wing commentators sneered at the 2010 Cancun climate change summit, particularly when when Christiana Figueres, executive secretary of the UNFCCC, invoked the Mayan goddess Ixchel in her opening statement. The corporate interests in bed with many right-wing movers and shakers plays no small role in this rhetoric, I suspect. The question is, do we want those with such opinions in the White House?
In an era of climate change, devastating oil spills, catastrophic nuclear crises, fracking, and a host of other environmental problems, Santorum's anti-environmentalism is dangerously out of touch. With public health, economic viability, and the natural world at stake, we need leaders who recognize the need for environmentally-informed policies. Overgeneralizing and demonizing environmentalism achieves nothing toward this end. If Santorum looks askance at environmentalism this way, he is not an appropriate candidate for the White House. While I am NOT thrilled with President Obama's position on fracking or clean air standards, I fear that Santorum would be much worse.
* Thereby demonstrating their contempt for both environmentalists and real-life pagans.
For additional commentary, visit the following links.
On the March 2nd edition of CNN's Piers Morgan Tonight, former Growing Pains actor Kirk Cameron talked with Morgan about social issues, including same-sex marriage. Cameron, an evangelical Christian, has partnered with Ray Comfort to promote an evangelization ministry called "The Way of the Master" (see www[dot]wayofthemaster[dot]com). He has also starred in Christian films such as Fireproof and Left Behind. Cameron created controversy in 2009 for his distribution of altered copies of Origin of Species as part of an anti-evolution campaign.
During the interview, Cameron asserted that God defined marriage in the Garden of Eden and that he disapproves of same-sex marriage.
"Marriage was defined by God a long time ago. Marriage is almost as old as dirt and it was defined in the Garden [of Eden] between Adam and Eve. One man and one woman, for life, 'til death do you part, so I would never attempt to try to redefine marriage, and I don't think anyone else should either. So do I support the idea of gaymarriage? No, I don't."
When Morgan asked him if he considered homosexuality a sin, Cameron said that homosexuality was "unnatural" and "detrimental and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization." Morgan then asked him how he would respond if one of his six children came out as gay, to which Cameron gave this convoluted response.
CAMERON: I wouldn't say 'that's great son, as long as you're happy.' I'm going to say, you know, there's all sort of issues that we need to wrestle through in our life, and just because you feel one way doesn't mean you should act on everything that we feel.
MORGAN: And yet, some people would say that telling kids that being gay is a sin, or getting married is a sin or whatever, that in itself is incredibly destructive and damaging, in a country where seven states now have legalized it.
CAMERON: Yes, but you have to also understand that you yourself are using a standard of morality to say that telling people such-and-such of a behavior is sinful. You're using a standard of morality to make that statement and say that that is terribly destructive, so everyone is going to have a standard ... You're speaking to a man who's a Christian and I believe that all of us are sinful. I could stand at the top of the list and say that I need a savior and I need an overhaul of the heart more than anyone, and so that's what I teach my kids."
According to Huffington Post, Morgan admitted that Cameron was "brave" and "honest" for freely sharing his views, but other observers were less forgiving. Cameron's comments drew the ire of the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD), which launched an online petition at Change.org entitled "Tell Kirk Cameron It's Time to Finally Grow Up." In a statement at GLAAD's website, Senior Director of Programs Herndon Graddick claimed that Cameron was "out of step with a growing majority of Americans," including pro-LGBT people of faith. The statement laments that Cameron "joins former TV stars Victoria Jackson and Chuck Norris in desperately trying to remain in the public eye by using anti-LGBT rhetoric."
Homophobes need to stop hiding behind religion to justify their intolerance. In calling homosexuality "unnatural" and "destructive" to civilization, Cameron tried to delegitimize the LGBT community and depict it as a deleterious force in society. He is certainly not the first right-wing Christian to do so, nor will he be the last, but that doesn't mean we should ignore his statements. As more people, including pro-LGBT Christians, reject homophobia and demand accountability from homophobes, Cameron may find himself on the receiving end of much public criticism.
To read additional commentary, visit the following links.
At the 17:26 mark of the hearing video, Fluke explained why the cost of contraceptives makes contraception coverage is so important for university students.
"Without insurance coverage, contraception as you know can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school. For a lot of students who, like me, are on public interest scholarships, that's practically an entire summer's salary. Forty percent of the female students at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy."
Fluke argued that women's health clinics alone cannot meet women's demand for contraceptives, especially in the face of clinic closures and threats to funding. She had this to say at the 18:27 mark.
"Some might respond that contraception is accessible in lots of other ways. Unfortunately, that's just not true. Women's health clinics provide a vital medical service, but as the Guttmacher Institute has definitely documented, these clinics are unable to meet the crushing demand fop these services. Clinics are closing, and women are being forced to go without the medical care they need. How can Congress consider the Fortenbery, Rubio, and Blunt legislation that would allow even more employers and institutions to refuse contraception coverage, and then respond that the non-profit clinics should step up to take care of the resulting medical crisis, particularly when so many legislators are attempting to defund those very same clinics?"
Fluke criticized proposed legislation that would allow institutions to restrict contraception coverage, even those with exemptions for non-contraceptive use of birth control pills. At the 20:06 mark, she argued that such legislation would be a way to police women's bodies and ignore their health concerns.
"When you let university administrators or other employers, rather than women and their doctors, dictate whose medical needs are legitimate and whose are not, a woman's health takes a backseat to a a bureaucracy focused on policing her body."
To illustrate the consequences of contraceptive coverage restrictions in real life, Fluke recounted the story of a friend suffering from polycystic ovarian syndrome. Because her friend's school would not cover birth control pills to treat the condition, her friend paid for the pills out of pocket until she couldn't afford them anymore. Without medication, her friend ended up in the emergency room, wracked with pain after a tennis ball-sized cyst had formed on her ovary. The whole ovary had to be removed, and now the friend is experiencing symptoms of early menopause at 32 years of age. If early menopause takes place, she will be unable to bear children. In short, Fluke argued that when institutions refuse to cover contraception, they send the message that "a woman's reproductive health care isn't a necessity, isn't a priority."
Finally, at the 24:32 mark of her testimony, Fluke rebutted commentators who suggest that women should endure the consequences of enrolling at religious schools. Women should not be forced to choose between their health care and their education, she insisted.
"In the media lately, some conservative Catholic organizations have been asking, what did we expect when we enrolled at a Catholic school? We can only answer that we expected women to be treated equally, to not have our school create untenable burdens that impede our academic success. We expected that our schools would live up to the Jesuit creed of cura personalis, to care for the whole person by meeting all of our medical needs. We expected that when we told our universities of the problems this policy created for us as students, they would help us. We expected that when 94% of students opposed the policy, the university would respect our choices regarding insurance students pay for, completely unsubsidized by the university. We did not expect that women would be told in the national media that we should have gone to school elsewhere, and even if that meant going to a less prestigious university. We refuse to pick between a quality education and our health, and we resent that in the 21st century, anyone thinks it's acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women."
I'm pleased that Sandra Fluke received the opportunity to speak publicly about the importance of contraception coverage, and in doing so speak for millions of people across the country. Her testimony was a much-needed counterbalance to the witnesses who testified on February 16th, who fixated on religious liberty to the exclusion of women's reproductive rights. As Fluke keenly observed, much is at stake in the struggle for reproductive justice, including women's bodily autonomy, health, and quality of life. Praise is due to Reps. Pelosi, Cummings, Maloney, Holmes Norton, and all those who pushed for Fluke to have her say.
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Predictably, right-wing commentators publicly slammed Fluke, seemingly oblivious to her actual message. Eric Bolling, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, and Janet Mefferd ridiculed Fluke, calling her everything from "entitled" to a "plant." Controversy truly erupted, however, when Rush Limbaugh launched a hateful tirade against Fluke.
On the February 29th edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh called Fluke a "prostitute" and a "slut," telling his audience, "she's having so much sex she can't afford the contraception." Limbaugh spewed venom at Fluke for days, branding her an "anti-Catholic plant,"accusing her ofpromiscuity, and telling her to have less sex if she couldn't afford contraception. (In light of his extracurricularactivities in the Dominican Republic, Limbaugh is one to talk.) Limbaugh's denigration of Fluke was juvenile, misogynist, and hateful. It added nothing to the public discourse, nor was it funny or clever.
While some right-wing commentators defended Limbaugh, many thought his attacks on Fluke were unacceptable. According to Media Matters, multiple lawmakers and commentators, including Speaker of the House John Boehner, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Rep. Carolyn Maloney, Sen. Scott Brown, David Frum, Kathleen Parker, and many others condemned Limbaugh for his tasteless comments. The Washington Post reports that on March 2nd, Georgetown University president John J. DeGioia sent an e-mail to everyone on the Georgetown campus, defending Fluke's "right to respectful free expression." and condeming Limbaugh's attacks as "misogynistic" and "vitriolic." The Telegraph reports that President Barack Obama personally called Fluke and offered her encouragement. According to Freak Out Nation, even Anonymous has jumped in, targeting Limbaugh for "doxing."
Fluke herself has handled the attacks with grace. The Huffington Post reports that on the March 1st edition of MSNBC's The Ed Show, Fluke said that "this is historically the kind of language that is used to silence women." I doubt that an activist as devoted as Sandra Fluke will be silenced any time soon.
Public disapproval made an impact. According to ABC News, Limbaugh apologized on March 3rd for his "insulting word choices," insisting that he did not intend "a personal attack" on Fluke. Riiiiiight . . .
I regret that Sandra Fluke's important testimony was overshadowed by Rush Limbaugh's vitriol. His childish antics are a reminder that women who challenge the patriarchy often face misogynist, sexualized attacks. Sexist men who feel threatened by women's reproductive autonomy will often try to reassert patriarchal values by humiliating women. Limbaugh is one man who didn't succeed. Fluke and many others like her will continue the struggle for reproductive justice, and it will take far more than Religious Right rhetoric and childish name-calling to slow them down.
To watch a video of the hearing, visit this C-SPAN link. To read additional commentary, visit the following links.
