This has been simmering for a while, but since the Men with Bad Haircuts (you know – the guys who want less intrusive government, unless you are a woman) have been ramping up their largely successful efforts to chip away at the gains that women have made in the past few decades (hell, even centuries), the pseudo-Catholicism of Glenn Beck seems appropriate this holiday weekend.
Some months ago Beck, the former Fox News host created his organization, “We are all Catholics now,’ in response to the Obama administration’s rules that employers must provide birth control as part of health care coverage to their female employees.
Roman Catholic institutions went into a tailspin over the news . . . and yes, you know the rest.
So Beck (who has hardly withered on the vine since leaving Fox News) focused his energies on the “persecution of Catholics being carried out by the jack-booted, secular thugs of the Obama White House.
Well, the persecution of the black-robed, male hierarchy who enforce the rules the Church goes by, at any rate. The celibate male hierarchy.
Comrade Beck hasn’t been able to find the time in his busy schedule yet to speak up on behalf of the employees, who might actually use the birth control, or to even talk to them.
Or the women in the Roman Catholic Church who use birth control, or even their husbands – if they are married – who are probably smart enough to not only know that their wives are using birth control, but approve, as well.
No, Glenn Beck – as well as Mike Huckabee – is speaking up for the men in charge, and conveniently forgetting that, according to some polls, the number of women in the Church who use birth control hovers around the 90 percent mark.
But the modern-day conservative movement doesn’t much talk to women, let alone take their views into account, so . . .
But you already know all of this, so there is no use in belaboring the point. But, Vituperative Reader, there is real comedic gold in Becks’s and Huckabee’s slithering up to the bishops.
The obvious question comes to mind, of course, is where are the twosome during legal proceedings against Church officials who covered up the sexual abuse of young children by priests. Which Catholics might you be then?
The Church, parts of which may still be covering up details, or the victims? Oh, the complexity of life, it’s so unfair.
And while the Pope may be against birth control, he is also firmly in the corner of a strong minimum wage, and making labor unions and workers’ rights even stronger.
Where will they be on the rights of immigrants? We know where the Pope is.
Ending the death penalty? We know where the Pope is.
Calling upon nations to combat climate change?
And something that may well cause both Huckabee and Beck to deny kinship with the Church before the cock crows three times:
Universal health care?
Beck and Huckabee are fashioning arguments that will appeal only to those to whom complex political or social argument are something to be avoided at all costs.
I like religious arguments; it can be intellectually thrilling, as well as emotional satisfying. But those who promote nonsense like “We are all Catholics now” are on a My Weekly Reader level of thought.
It is a cynical manipulation of those who actually care about the issues.
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Quote of the Day
A dog believes you are what you think you are. – Jane Swan
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