Crossposted from Town Called Dobson
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Yesterday’s strip was about how John Edwards’ lack of backbone in the whole blogger fiasco brought me back to when Congress was filled with do-nothing Democrats. Feeble and weak these Democrats were and over and over they allowed the Bush Administration to roll over them and then they apologized for being in the way.
The Vatican has been involved in some pretty nasty things, but its recent positions are still horrid. This is a group that is actively seeking to block women from gaining access to birth control, sanctioning Gay bigotry and is against many of the same agenda items that Edwards claims he is for such as stem cell research, reproductive freedom and equality. So why the fuck did he let a slime ball like Bill Donahue get away with the blogger bashing? This is the same guy who wanted to deny John Kerry Communion due to his voting record on pro-choice legislation. It wasn’t like Donahue is analogous to Billy Graham, but more on the side of Oral Roberts.
Yeah, maybe Edwards should have paid closer attention to the bloggers he hired, but it looks like he flat out gave up. Totally caved and left the bloggers to swing.
And I don’t believe the whole resignation story either. The bloggers have been a target of religious right for some time. I get a lot of hate mail due to the strip and what I say in the strip doesn’t come close to the controversial nature of the bloggers’ posts. So this week they have too much heat? Now, all of the sudden they are getting threats? Edwards couldn’t offer protection? Help? Assistance? Other than being shown the door, that was it apparently.
So I just don’t get Edwards. He had a chance to beat down Donahue’s fake rage with four sticks wrapped in barbed wire and he did nothing. Are Democrats still so timid that they can’t bring themselves to criticize a group that wants to outlaw condoms?
I don’t think I will get an apology from Edwards, but the Vatican got theirs.
I’m sorry, I am still sick of do-nothing Democrats. I have had my fill.
This is mainly a straw man argument. Among other things, the Vatican most certainly had nothing to do with the Edwards controversy. William Donohue (not Donahue) is the self-appointed head of a private group called the Catholic League for something or other. He’s like a Catholic version of Ralph Reed. I’ve read that the organization has only 350,000 members (and such totals are nearly always wildly exaggerated; see Daily Kos’s claims). Compare that to the 65 million Catholics in the country.
As one of uncounted shames of today’s infomedia, Donohue gets on TV all the time because he is a provocateur. But he really doesn’t speak for more than a tiny slice of American Catholics, and he absolutely does not speak for the Vatican or for the more than one billion Catholics around the world.
All that being true, the rest of your rant just doesn’t really say much of anything.
Incidentally, while I was highly offended by some of the statements of at least one of those bloggers (Amanda Marcotte), I decided that Edwards should not fire them but should dissociate himself from their earlier writings. And that is just what he did.
I don’t think it’s Edwards’s fault that they quit. It’s just a reality of politics that you can expect to get your nose rubbed in anything you’ve put in the public domain. After considering the situation for a few days, I think they quit out of consideration for Edwards. I think we should believe their statements on that.
The same things can be said of some of the more radical and violent voices in Islam. Every time they speak out or commit violence, the right-wingers demand that all Muslims step forward to denounce the extremists.
The problem is that a) this gets tiresome b) it is dangerous c) they never spoke for them in the first place.
However, while abortion may remain highly controversial, contraception is much less so. And that does flow from the Vatican. A feminist critique of this policy towards contraception is going to inevitably go right to the Vatican. And it is hard to argue that they don’t have a point in seeing it as essentially patriachal, oppressive, controlling… Ascribing a motivation to it beyond the proclaimed moral teaching is inevitable, whether it is to swell the ranks (and therefore tithes) or it is merely hostile to women’s liberation and equality.
How to respect people’s religious beliefs without caving into them when they impinge on your rights and freedoms?
Thanks Arminius and BooMan!
The dKos crowd has been hostile for two days. I deeply appreciate your comments.
William Donohue does not speak for US Roman Catholics.
When Mr. Donohue attacks candidates and politicians who support the death penalty, I might begin to pay some attention to him.
When Mr. Donohue denounces the Iraq war, citing the inspiration of statements by Pope John Paul II, I will pay some attention to him.
I wish a Catholic politician or organization would publicly take Donohue to task. If someone has, I would love to read the statement.
AMEN!
This is honestly the first time I can ever remember the media ever gave a crap about the opinion of a Roman Catholic layman.
I don’t know if you heard about this… but there’s this whole power structure in the Roman Catholic church. Starts at Ordained Priest. Next Bishop. Then Cardinals. Then there is this guy Catholics call the Pope.
Donahue is none of the above. Donahue’s opinion means less in the power structure of the Catholic Church than a defrocked priest.