As reported in the Rolling Stone article about Roger Ailes, Fox & Friends is "the morning happy-talk show that Ailes uses as one of his primary vehicles to inject his venom into the media bloodstream." As such, the show is a vehicle for whatever right wing memes need reinforcing. The hottest right wing meme in town is that the HHS contraception mandate is not a war on women, despite their use of contraceptive, but a war on religion - a position that is being promoted by the US Council of Catholic bishops and is being reinforced by what appears to be the bishops's personal program, Fox & Friends, which has done at least nine segments in total support of the bishops. Today, Ailes' "attack poodle," Steve Doocy (one of many conservative Catholics in Ailes' stable) articluated this meme during his interview with the right wing authors of a book about how the evil liberals are pushing around conservatives which speaks to another popular Fox meme about conservative victimization which, as Jon Stewart notes, is the "true genius" of Fox News.
Doocy interviewed Gary Casselman and Timothy Daughtry who are authors of "Waking the Sleeping Giant," a book about how the liberal minority are, as described by Doocy, "pushing around the majority." (As if!!!!!) Daughtry talked about the left's "tactics" which include attacking rather than debating. (ROFLAMO, He said this on Fox News which is all about attacking - this book being a classic example - oh, the irony!) He claimed that "the left is always on the attack and the mainstream is always on the defenseive." (Guess he doesn't watch Fox!) He used, as an example, "this whole flap with the Catholic Church" which "arose from the right to privacy" and has now been "turned" by the left into the "absurd" question of whether "the mainstream wants to outlaw contraception."
Doocy said "absolutely" and claimed - wait for it - that "the mainstream media has framed it as a war on women, it's not, it's a war on religion." (So Steve thinks that charging women for contraceptives, while Viagra is covered under health policies is fine and requiring Catholic institutions, that get federal money, to not discriminate against women isn't fine?)
Casselman claimed that "mainstream"Americais "live and let live" and all about "personal responsibility." (Guess he's never been outside a Planned Parenthood clinic!) He made the ludicrous comment that left that is more "confrontational" than the mainstream. (Guess he didn't see news footage of angry teabaggers at Town Hall meetings.) Daughtery recommended that the mainstream put the left on the defensive especially in the matter of "choosing your own healthcare." Doocy told the authors that "they really know their stuff.
So the left is "pushing around" the mainstream. Really? Funny, it's not the left that is making a concerted effort to defund Planned Parenthood and make abortion much more onerous with things like transvaginal ultrasounds as a requirement of abortion. It's not the left that is trying to eliminate collective bargaining and further deteriorate the force of unions. It's not the left that has an entire news network devoted to their cause. The left is "pushing around" the mainstream? Maybe in the alternate bizarro world of Fox News. Beyond that, not so much.
(3/6/20 Update: Video is no longe available.)
“Anti-Catholicism” – lol – the first time that accusation was thrown at me was when I told a conservative Catholic friend of mine that RC priests had been abusing children. As it happens, I am married to a Catholic and graduated from a Jesuit college, so get off your high horse.
So protesting the Iraq war was the same thing as protesting the birth control mandate that came into effect in 2000? Who knew?!
Other peoples’ lack of responsibility? Please elaborate. Pending your reply I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you are not as uninformed as that remark certainly makes you appear.
Now, I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but weren’t the requirements changed so that religious employers who object to offering contraceptive coverage can pass that responsibility back to their insurance company?
I have a lot of respect for much of what Pope John Paul II had to say. His Fides et Ratio is a favorite read of mine to which I have returned many times. There are points I might disagree with but overall it is powerful food for thought.
Same with his Theology of the Body series, of which I’ve only read a few lectures. But really — only a celibate male could come up with the idea that the use of contraceptives reduces the physical expression of love to an animal coupling. How would he know? Who is (was) he to say that the expression of love between my husband and me could not have been a deep communion of souls any time we used contraceptives? Only the two people involved, and God, could possibly know that. That is the sort of philosophizing that comes from an ivory tower academic. Nice (!?) theory, but for a celibate priest who spent his life steeped in church dogma that’s all it can ever be. It’s so far removed from the reality of so many loving couples who use contraceptives that it goes beyond being an arrogant and unfounded statement to being a completely bizarre one. It’d be laughable if the church’s teachings on contraceptives hadn’t resulted in tragedy for so many people of both genders.
Summer of Love hippie – lol. 1967 was a long time ago and I’ve used the intervening 40+ years to educate myself pretty well.
AND although I may have said things about your church that you found insulting I’m not the one who stooped to personal insults. Just sayin’.
I find it oddly coincidental that such a mandate is considered a “war on religion” when enacted by a Democratic president – but nary a peep from religious conservatives when a similar federal mandate was enacted in 2000, nor when 26 states – including Arkansas under Mike Huckabee -enacted similar laws. Where were all the Catholic mouthpieces then? Where was the outrage on Fox News then???
Oh, and your Catholic church? A commission called by Pope John XXIII in 1963 and later working under Paul VI, issued a report asking that the churchâs ban on all forms of artificial birth control be lifted. In fact, they were emphatic that there were no theological or other impediments to lifting the birth control ban. However, the ultra-conservative and very powerful head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ottaviani, immediately commissioned another group to issue a contradictory report in order to keep the ban that Paul VI and Ottaviani wanted. These (supposedly) celibate men who know sweet eff all about the real lives of ordinary couples played dirty politics with the lives of women. Fortunately, even the vast majority of Roman Catholics have ignored their conclusions ever since.
In Africa, however, the repercussions of their machinations have included people contracting HIV/AIDS because some RC agencies won’t distribute condoms for the practice of safe sex. Better a dead African than one who sins by using a rubber, eh?
And all this pious b.s. from a church whose chiefs and minions turned their backs on the problems of child sex abuse for years and years. It makes me want to puke. And Fox News and the Republicans are playing you religious conservatives like a fiddle in order to achieve their own ends, which is achieving POWER. They don’t give a shit about your morality or anyone else’s.
/rant
As far as your “gendercide” argument – WTF!? Really? Newsflash: this isn’t China. If you really believe that selective abortion takes place in any significant numbers in this country please provide some credible statistical back-up.
As far as a war on religion, please show me in what part of the Constitution the rights of religious institutions trump the rights of individuals to avail of legally mandated services.
