{"id":3151,"date":"2007-02-07T14:29:44","date_gmt":"2007-02-07T21:29:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2007\/02\/07\/the-attack-on-amanda-marcotte-and-melissa-mcewan\/"},"modified":"2007-02-07T14:29:44","modified_gmt":"2007-02-07T21:29:44","slug":"the-attack-on-amanda-marcotte-and-melissa-mcewan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=3151","title":{"rendered":"The Attack on Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan"},"content":{"rendered":"

The right-wing attacks on Amanda (Pandagon) and Melissa (Shakespeare’s Sister) has busted out of the blogs: Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has called for the Edwards campaign to fire Amanda and Melissa<\/a>. This has led to articles in The New York Times<\/em><\/a> and AP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I’m going to go point-by-point through Bill Donohue’s complaints, but first: Please go to John Edwards’ site and send them a brief message of support for Amanda and Melissa<\/a>. (In addition, you could post a message of support on this open thread at Edwards’ campaign blog<\/a>, although I think you have to register to post). And second, for many more links on this subject, check out this post at CultureKitchen<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Okay, let’s get to what the “Catholic League” – who by no means represents all Catholics — has to say. It’s basically a collection of quotes by Amanda and Melissa.<\/p>\n

Catholic League president Bill Donohue is demanding that presidential hopeful John Edwards fire two recently hired anti-Catholics who have joined his team: Amanda Marcotte as Blogmaster and Melissa McEwan as the Netroots Coordinator. Here\u2019s why:<\/p>\n

\u201cWriting on the Pandagon blogsite, December 26, 2006<\/a>, Amanda Marcotte wrote that ‘the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.’ <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As an argument, the “more tithing Catholics” part of what Amanda wrote may be unfair, because it implies that the Catholic Church’s motive for wanting more Catholics born is greed. It seems plausible to me that the Catholic Church wants as many Catholics as possible for reasons unrelated to greed.<\/p>\n

Other than that, though, everything in Amanda’s quote is true. The Catholic church is perfectly open about encouraging Catholics to have children. ((Many right-wing Christian pundits and bloggers have argued that being pro-life will bring victory for their policy preferences in the long run, since pro-life Christians will have more babies than pro-choicer liberals.)) It’s certainly true that the Catholic church encourages laws which would force pregnant women and girls to give birth against their will; using the state’s powers to force childbirth on pregnant women and girls is what pro-life and anti-emergency-contraception laws literally do. And it’s also true that the Catholic church does not support any exceptions to the anti-abortion, anti-emergency-conception policies they promote based on compassion for pregnant girls.<\/p>\n

So what Amanda said was true; the Catholic church promotes laws that would force pregnant women and girls to give birth, and they don’t support compassionate exceptions for pregnant girls. It’s ludicrous to suggest that Amanda should be fired for telling the truth.<\/p>\n

Moving on….<\/p>\n

On October 9, 2006<\/a>, she said that \u2018the Pope\u2019s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan\u2019s maw.\u2019 On the same day she wrote that \u2018it\u2019s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.\u2019<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I fail to see any issue here at all. Amanda is discussing is what happens to the souls of aborted fetuses under Catholic doctrine; do they go to Limbo? The current Pope is widely expected to at some point declare that Limbo doesn’t exist; this means that the common pro-life argument used by some grassroots Catholic activists, that abortion is wrong because it sends unbaptized souls to Limbo, will be taken off the table. So will the new doctrine be that aborted souls go to heaven, or to hell? Amanda is speculating that his dedication to the pro-life cause will make the Pope declare that aborted souls go to hell:<\/p>\n

I suspect Pope Ratz will give into the urge eventually to come out and say there\u2019s no limbo and unbaptized babies go straight to hell. He can\u2019t help it; he\u2019s just a dictator like that. Hey, fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, the Pope\u2019s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan\u2019s maw. The alternative is to let Catholic women who get abortions feel that it\u2019ll all work out in the end, which is just not doable, due to that Jesus-like compassion the Pope is so fond of. Still, it\u2019s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

To Amanda’s critics, I say: So what? The Pope is a public figure who is actively involved in secular politics. As such, he’s fair game for criticism, even harsh criticism. Amanda isn’t attacking him for being Catholic; she’s attacking him for being a pro-life politician who wants to use the law to dictate what women do with their own bodies.<\/p>\n

Unless one feels that to criticize the Pope for his political views is automatically anti-Catholic — which would be ridiculous — nothing Amanda writes here is outside the bounds of what can legitimately be said about major public figures.<\/p>\n

Next, Bill Donohue writes:<\/p>\n

And on June 14, 2006, she offered the following Q&A: ‘What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit,\u2019 to which she replied, \u2018You\u2019d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The “Q” part of the “Q&A” is (literally speaking) obscene, and it makes fun of Catholic doctrine. But so what? Official Catholic doctrine shouldn’t be immune from being made fun of. Nor is Amanda’s point — which is, as I read it, that those Catholics who support misogynistic policies aren’t forced to do so by Catholicism, but are instead just using Catholicism as a post-hoc rationalization for their own misogyny — in any way anti-Catholic.<\/p>\n

I do agree that anti-Catholic bigotry is wrong and should be fought. If Amanda wrote that we could never trust any Catholic in public office because we don’t know what master they’d serve, that would be disgusting bigotry. If she wrote that all Catholics are smelly fish-eaters, that would be disgusting bigotry.<\/p>\n

But making fun of beliefs and political positions is not <\/em>the same thing as bigotry against people; in a nation of free speech, the beliefs and political positions of huge and powerful organizations has to be fair game for both criticism and making fun. This is especially true of a huge and powerful organization like the Catholic Church, which uses its theological beliefs as part of a worldwide campaign to influence the laws passed by secular governments.<\/p>\n

Bill then moves from Amanda to Melissa:<\/p>\n

“On November 21, 2006<\/a>, Melissa McEwan said on AlterNet that ‘some of Christianity\u2019s most prominent leaders\u2014including the Pope\u2014regularly speak out against gay tolerance.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although Bill doesn’t choose to quote it, in the very next sentence of her alternet article Melissa described what she meant by being “against gay tolorance”:<\/p>\n

In America, many Christian leaders actively pursue discriminatory legislation, seeking to limit the rights of the LGBT community throughout society.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is all true. Does Bill think that the Pope has some right to take anti-gay stands — as he has more than once — and not be criticized for it? Is it somehow anti-Catholic to criticize the Pope for the political stands he’s taken?<\/p>\n

On November 1, 2006, on her blogspot Shakespeare\u2019s Sister, she referred to President Bush\u2019s \u2018wingnut Christofascist base\u2019 when lashing out against religious conservatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The language is rude, but no ruder than language commonly used by right-wing bloggers, such as “baby-killer,” “feminazi” and “idiotarian.” So what? In the end, on either side, these words are attacking people for their political beliefs, and that’s fair game.<\/p>\n

Some right-wingers will object that “Christofascist” — a variant on the right-wing term “Islamofascist” — is attacking people for their religion. My question to those people is, have you ever publicly objected to the term “Islamofascist” on those grounds?<\/p>\n

In any case, “Christofascist” doesn’t refer to Christians in general; it refers specifically to right-wing Christians who support laws forcing non-Christians to follow conservative Christian beliefs (such as sodomy laws and pro-life laws). There’s nothing wrong with criticizing the conservative Christian movement for its politics<\/em>, and that’s exactly what the term “Christofascist” does.<\/p>\n

(And by the way, how is a term that refers to most right-wing Christians — including non<\/em>-Catholic ones — and excludes <\/em>all left-wing Christians — including Catholic ones – “anti-Catholic”?)<\/p>\n

On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, ‘What don\u2019t you lousy motherf—ers understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Wow, is this getting weak. Yes, she got mad at religious conservatives for supporting laws that she disagrees with. So what? That conservative Christians should stay out of people’s britches, beds and families is not an opinion that is outside the bounds of reasonable political debate.<\/p>\n

Currently, the very first entry under ‘Greatest Hits’ on her website [where she brags about being appointed to Edwards\u2019 campaign] is titled, ‘On C—s’. In her article she boasts that she is the ‘Queen C— of F–k Mountain.’<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

So wait — Bill is actually calling for someone to be fired from their job because they used the words “cunt” and “fuck” on their own private website<\/em>? Yikes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The right-wing attacks on Amanda (Pandagon) and Melissa (Shakespeare’s Sister) has busted out of the blogs: Bill Donohue of the Catholic League has called for the Edwards campaign to fire Amanda and Melissa. This has led to articles in The … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3151","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-and-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3151","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3151"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3151\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}