On June 18th, the Vatican officially released Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si, which called for heightened environmental consciousness. Before the release of the encyclical, several right-leaning voices in politics and entertainment criticized Pope Francis, accusing him of Marxism and of meddling in matters beyond his authority.
Republican presidential contender and Catholic convert Jeb Bush looked askance at the Pope's environmentalist sympathies at a town hall gathering in New Hampshire. "I hope I’m not going to get castigated for saying this by my priest back home, but I don’t get economic policy from my bishops or my cardinal or my pope,” Bush said, according to the Guardian. “I think religion ought to be about making us better as people and less about things that end up getting in the political realm.”
Presidential candidate Rick Santorum told WPHT-AM 1210 that the Catholic Church is jeopardizing its credibility by talking about science. “The Church has gotten it wrong a few times on science, and I think we’re probably better off leaving science to the scientists and focus on what we’re really good on, which is theology and morality. When we get involved with political and controversial scientific theories, then I think the Church is probably not as forceful and credible," Santorum told WPHT radio host Dom Giordano.
At a recent Heartland Institute conference on climate change, Senator James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) delivered a talk on "the myth of global warming", according to the Guardian. During the conference, he sneered at the Pope's call for environmental consciousness. The pope ought to stay with his job, and we’ll stay with ours," Inhofe said.
Fox News commentator Greg Gutfeld was far harsher. "He is a Malthusian. He is in bed with Malthusians ... He believes that the earth is overpopulated," Gutfeld said during the June 16th edition of The Five. Gutfeld mocked the pope as a hippie seeking respect from liberals. (Hat tip to Media Matters.)
"The most dangerous person on the planet is somebody who's seeking strange new respect from their adversaries, and that is what the Pope is doing. He doesn't want to be your grandfather's pope. He wants to be a modern pope. All he needs is dreadlocks and a dog with a bandanna, and he could be on Occupy Wall Street."
Rush Limbaugh was unkind as well, calling the pontiff a "Marxist". During the June 16th edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, he had this to say. (Hat tip to Media Matters.)
"Early on, he started attacking capitalism using Democrat Party language like "unfettered capitalism." I said this guy sounds like a Marxist, and remember the ruckus that that caused? ... But he doesn't even disguise it, folks, in this encyclical. Doesn't even disguise it. Every other word seems to be about how unfettered capitalism is destroying the world, and how the rich countries have to give more money to the poor countries to make amends."
Right-wing commentators seem to be stunned that Pope Francis, the head of a rigidly conservative religious institution, would adopt a sane position on the environment. Could it be that all this global attention to environmental issues is making them uncomfortable and challenging their assumptions? The realities of climate change have grown too big to ignore, forcing some right-wingers out of their comfort zone.
To read additional commentary, visit the following links.
Sandra Fluke's testimony before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee met with vicious attacks from talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh devoted several days of his program to ridiculing Fluke, calling her a "slut," a "prostitute," and accusing her of promiscuity. Limbaugh has since apologized (sort of), but his offensive comments launched a mass exodus of advertisers from his show. Several right-wing voices continue to defend his attacks on Fluke, including Bryan Fischer and Sarah Palin.
Right Wing Watch has documented Bryan Fischer's defense of Limbaugh, peppered with hateful comments about Fluke. During a recent show, Fischer indulged in brutal slut-shaming of Fluke.
"Rush of course used the S-word, and my point here is from a dictionary standpoint, he was right. That's just the description of a promiscuous woman. She's admitting to God and the United States Congress and the United States of America that's exactly what she is."
Later, Fischer accused Fluke of promiscuity, like Limbaugh.
"The real scandal is that this woman could, without any trace of shame, without any trace of embarrassment, could give open testimony before the entire United States of America about how much promiscuous sex she and her classmates are having. Now a generation ago, even in America, that would have been a humiliating admission, but now, in the twisted world we live in, it's become a badge of honor for her."
In another excerpt from his show posted by Ring Wing Watch, Fischer again claimed that Fluke admitted to being promiscuous in her testimony before the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee.
"To think that you have a leftist like the president of the United States saying that the parents of a woman who goes on national TV, admits that she's sleeping with so many guys she can't keep track, doing it three times a day, running out of money, driving me to the poor house, and to think ... he's saying the parents ought to be proud of that!"
Bryan, did you even bother to listen to Fluke's testimony? She said nothing of the sort. Fischer seemingly ignored Fluke's actual testimony, preferring to take Limbaugh's venom as truth. Hilariously, Fischer claimed that the right respects and honors women during the same monologue!
"The worst misogyny in our culture, the hatred of women, the absolutely inexcusable, reprehensive, vulgar language that's being used about women, is almost exclusively on the left, and this is in part, ladies and gentlemen, because on the right, conservatives believe in respecting and honoring women. The left does not ... I'm struck by the parallels between liberalism and hard-core Islam. Liberal have the same view of conservative women that Muslims do of all women."
I don't think my irony meter was designed for such high levels of hypocrisy. Sadly, there's more.
In an interview with CNN, former Alaska governor Sarah Palin claimed that criticism of Limbaugh was "hypocrisy." (Hat tip to Freak Out Nation.)
"I think the definition of hypocrisy is for Rush Limbaugh to have been called out, forced to apologize, and retract what it is that he said in exercising his first amendment rights, and never is that--the same applied to the leftist radicals who say such horrible things about the handicapped, about women, about the defenseless."
On the March 7th edition of The 700 Club, Pat Robertson said that Limbaugh "got a little bit over the top" but nevertheless echoed Limbaugh's attacks. (Hat tip to Right Wing Watch.)
"There was a woman, the law student at Georgetown University who appeared before a congressional committee, and she said that students needed $3,000 a year for contraception and that they couldn’t afford it, and as I understand, the Catholic school was supposed to pay for it. Now Catholics say that fornication, if you will, sex outside of marriage is a sin, and yet this woman is saying ‘I’m going to be committing sin, but I want you to pay for my sin.’ Now am I overstating that? I mean, Rush Limbaugh got a little bit over the top on that thing but is that what it amounted to?"
According to Talking Points Memo, the right-wing Media Research Center launched a website called "I Stand with Rush" to show support for Limbaugh. However, when I tried to pull up the website, I received an "Error 404 Not Found" screen.
In a March 6th column at the Wall Street Journal, Cathy Ruse, Senior Fellow for Legal Studies at the Family Research Council, wrote that she would not defend Limbaugh's language but "I understand his larger point." She lambasted Fluke's activist as "simply a demand that a Catholic institution pay for drugs that make it possible for her to have sex without getting pregnant." She advised Fluke to give up a few cups of coffee at Starbucks each month to pay for contraceptives.
Fox 2 Now reports that the speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives, Rep. Steve Tilley (R-106th District), will induct Limbaugh into the Missouri capital's Hall of Famous Missourians. Planned Parenthood of Missouri director Paula Gianino called the move a "slap in the face to women."
Not all of Limbaugh's defenders herald from the right. Think Progress reports that in a March 6th tweet, Real Time with Bill Maher host Bill Maher wrote that liberals look bad for not accepting Rush Limbaugh's apology, and that he disapproved of "intimidation by sponsor pullout." Think Progress also notes that Maher has his own history of misogynist comments.
It disappoints me that these voices have defended a childish misogynist, ridiculed a woman who advocated for reproductive justice, and coarsened our public discourse. For all their talk of respecting women and embracing family values, several right-wing voices have showed their true colors by defending Limbaugh's slut-shaming.
For 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.
ABC News reports that President Obama has authorized the deployment of approximately 100 U.S. forces to Uganda, with the purpose of helping regional forces to capture or kill Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) leader Joseph Kony and other LRA senior leaders. According to PBS News, Kony has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. An October 14th press statement by the U.S. State Department said that U.S. military advisers will assist with information-sharing and planning, and will not engage LRA troops unless it is necessary for self-defense.
The LRA has inflicted unspeakable atrocities throughout central Africa, so who could possibly defend such thugs? Who indeed.
On the October 14th edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Limbaugh framed Obama's measure as an attack on a Christian group that is fighting Muslims. According to a transcript of the show, Limbaugh had this to say. (See www[dot]rushlimbaugh[dot]com/daily/2011/10/14/obama_invades_uganda_targets_christians)
"Lord's Resistance Army are Christians. They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them. That's what the lingo means, "to help regional forces remove from the battlefield," meaning capture or kill. So that's a new war, a hundred troops to wipe out Christians in Sudan, Uganda ... Lord's Resistance Army objectives. I have them here. "To remove dictatorship and stop the oppression of our people." Now, again Lord's Resistance Army is who Obama sent troops to help nations wipe out."
Limbaugh later asked a caller "how do you react to the news that Obama has dispatched a hundred soldiers to fight radical Christians in Africa?"
According to Media Matters, some of Limbaugh's fans, perhaps unaware of the LRA's history, expressed outrage that the Obama administration had supposedly sent troops to kill African Christians.
Fortunately, people are challenging Limbaugh's insensitive statements. On October 18th, Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) read a statement on the Senate floor in which he clarified that the U.S. was not going to war with the LRA. Sen. Inhofe also provided a brief history of the LRA and its many atrocities, including torture, maiming, and use of child soldiers.
Evelyn Apoko, a survivor of LRA violence, was so disturbed by Limbaugh's words that she recorded a video entitled "Dear Mr. Limbaugh."
"I am a former abducted child. My heart breaks when I hear your message about the LRA. I experienced first-hand the pain and hatred of humanity in the LRA. I know that there is nowhere in the Bible that says Christians should treat humans like animals. I have witnessed the spirit of Joseph Kony and it is not from God. Abducting young people from their homes and forcing them to become something that is not meant to be, working day and night without food or drink, children dying of hunger, with no one to tell them it's going to be okay, brainwashing children and murdering innocent people."
The LRA's atrocities are not a secret. The news media has been reporting on them for years, and a quick internet search on the LRA will pull up ample information. Rush Limbaugh had no excuse for failing to do research the LRA before speaking on his show. I sincerely hope this incident was rooted in ignorance, rather than an effort to stir controversy.
Limbaugh's comments were out of line. He owes the LRA's victims an apology.
On Friday, Republic of Gilead shared a few examples of right-wing figures scoffing at Occupy Wall Street. Even more right-wing voices have condemned the movement since then, and I can barely keep up!
Along with the usual accusations that the protesters are silly kids who want to take "handouts" instead of work, right-wing voices now accuse the demonstrators of anti-Semitism and submission to a hidden Democrat agenda. Once again, rather than analyze the roots of the Occupy Wall Street protests -- economic injustice -- some figures prefer to lampoon and demonize the demonstrators.
First, on the October 14th edition of The Rush Limbaugh Show, Rush Limbaugh called the protesters "spoiled rotten kids" who are allegedly being manipulated by President Obama and the Democratic party. (Hat tip to Media Matters.)
"I think these protesters do not have a point. They are demanding more government, more regulations, and higher taxes, and they wonder why they're unemployed. It's a waste of time to try to treat these demonstrations as if they're based on anything legitimate. There's not a rational, legitimate aspect of these people's agenda. This is not an intellectual movement, it's a temper tantrum by a bunch of spoiled rotten kids who don't know anything ... Their list of demands has been dictated by the Washington establishment. Every thought in these protesters' heads has been put there by the Democrat party and the news media. They're being used as campaign fodder by Obama and the Democrats. These are the genuine, real, mind-numbed robots."
In an October 14th commentary in the Washington Times, ex-rocker Ted Nugent called the protesters a barrage of nasty names, including "softheaded numbskulls," "useful idiots," "stinky hippies," and "generational slaves to Fedzilla." After a few jabs at Michael Moore, he mocked Occupy Wall Street as "anti-American socialism on parade."
During the October 17th edition of Focal Point, Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association spoke of Occupy Wall Street, President Obama, and other political figures in the same breath as Nazism. (Hat tip to Right Wing Watch.)
"Not only does Barack Obama, not only does Nancy Pelosi, not only does Debbie Wasserman Schultz all endorse the Occupy movement, it turns out that the Community Party in the United States and the Nazi parties in the United States all endorse the Occupy Wall Street movement ... The American Nazi Party now has joined Barack Obama, the American Nazi Party now has joined Nancy Pelosi, the American Nazi Party now has joined Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the Democratic Party, to officially endorse the Occupy Wall Street movement, along with the Socialist Party of the USA. Here is what the Nazi party said about the Occupy Wall Street thing: "I urgently urge all of you to take part and join in when these protests hit your neck of the woods. Produce some flyers explaining the Jew-banker influence. Don’t wear anything marking you as an evil racist, and get out there and spread the word." A lot of anti-Semitism at this Occupy Wall Street movement."
The American Independent reports that former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert unveiled a petition drive called "End the Occupation." The End the Occupation website claims that the Occupy Wall Street demonstrators embrace "flawed values" and have a "false sense of entitlement" to "government handouts." The petition drive seeks signatures which will be submitted to President Obama, urging him to denounce the "angry Occupy mob." To visit the website, click here.
In an October 14th post at the Heritage Foundation's Foundry blog, Lachlan Markay discussed the postponement of a clean-up of Zucotti Park in New York City. The post claimed that Occupy Wall Street has been "characterized by shows of violence, lawlessness, and occasional anti-Semitism."
For additional commentary, visit the following links.
