John Edwards hired Amanda Marcotte of Pandagon and Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister and Big Brass Blog to do netroots outreach for his campaign. Okay, so far so good. He made two very good choices. He chose strong outspoken proponents of women’s rights. He chose the kind of people that you might expect to oppose the Catholic Church’s official policy on abortion and contraception. And he also chose two women known for their salty language. That’s a strong move. That shows John Edwards is committed to reproductive freedom and he isn’t shy about it. That’s a positive.
But wait!! Here is what Bill Donahue, the president of the Catholic League has to say about
Amanda and Melissa:
“John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots.”
Let’s start out slow here. It can’t be true that anyone that favors reproductive freedom and ready access to contraception is anti-Catholic. Love the church, hate the dogma…right? I mean, is John Kerry anti-Catholic?
So Amanda and Melissa must have said something specific that indicated they actualy dislike Catholics…Catholics as a group.
Let’s see what they dug up.
Ms. Marcotte wrote in December that the Roman Catholic Church’s opposition to the use of contraception forced women “to bear more tithing Catholics.” In another posting last year, she used vulgar language to describe the church doctrine of the Immaculate Conception.
Okay. They don’t give me her exact words here. She made two points. First, the Church’s position on contraception might be influenced by their desire to get more members and thus more money. That’s not some kind of bigoted view. It’s just cynical about the sincerity of the Church’s moral position on contraception. I don’t think it is anti-Catholic; maybe it is anti-Vatican, but that’s an old story within the Catholic community.
Second, she used vulgar language to describe the doctine of the Immaculate Conception. Let’s face it folks, that story is a miracle story. It was added on to the later gospels. Jesus had brothers in the bible. Not half-brothers, brothers. If you believe in miracles and can’t do rudimentary scholarship then you can sustain a belief in the virgin birth and the Virgin Mary. But this is the 21st-century and it isn’t anti-Catholic to mock the story of the immaculate conception as a lot of hooey. I thought Hugh Hefner broke through that wall about fearing sex. Sex ain’t so bad. The mother of God probably enjoyed it. I hope so. If that offends some people, so be it. It isn’t anti-Catholic, it is anti-ancient myth getting taken seriously in modern life.
So, that’s the extent of Amanda’s trespasses. What did Melissa do?
Ms. McEwan referred in her blog to President Bush’s “wingnut Christofascist base” and repeatedly used profanity in demanding that religious conservatives stop meddling with women’s reproductive and sexual rights. Multiple postings use explicit and inflammatory language on a variety of issues.
Bravo woman!! Bravo. And the issue here is? The anti-Catholic aspect is where? So, you might expect John Edwards’ campaign to respond to demands that he fire his bloggers with some indignation, right? Wrong.
Mr. Edwards’s spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said Tuesday night that the campaign was weighing the fate of the two bloggers.
That is bullshit, John. I don’t normally use this lauguage, but in this context I think it is appropriate to say that Palmieri gave a pussy response. No balls. John Edwards needs to start wearing his ovaries on the outside. Show us something here John. You already lost by allowing your spokesperson to let that quote get in the New York Times. You better come out swinging in defense of your women. We’ll be watching.
