This week, conservative fire-brand Rush Limbaugh used his popular syndicated radio show to light into Georgetown University Law Student, Sandra Fluke, for testifying at a Nancy Pelosi, Eleanor Holmes Norton and Democratic Congresswomen event on Capitol Hill last week after being denied a chance to speak at the all-male panel on President Obama’s Contraception Mandate.
[You can listen to the rants Here and Here and Here]
In sum, during a series of rants on several shows he called her a “slut”, a “prostitute”, questioned her existence in life, said she was asking for taxpayers to pay for her to have all the sex she wants and said if we must pay, “we should get to watch” her have sex.
It was an ill-informed soliloquy on so many levels.
First, he called Fluke’s testimony about her interest in saving the $30 a month the pill would cost by getting it through Georgetown’s student health insurance, a new form of “welfare” that tax-payers would have to subsidize which is WRONG because only an employer or in Fluke’s case, the university would have to pay and
NOT TAX PAYERS!!!
Second, he incorrectly insinuated that the pill induces abortion which it doesn’t because all it does is suppress ovulation, thus if there is no egg produced, it cannot be fertilized. There can be no ending of life – that is if you are to define life beginning at conception – if there is no fertilized egg.
Third, people who have occasional sex must use the pill everyday for it to work. Rush suggests that more pill usage equals more sex. For a man who has been married three times and not produced one child from any of those marriages, unless he is sterile, I must guess that he and his spouses and sexual partners in between did in fact use some sort of birth control and most likely the pill, at one point.
Fourth, there are some women who use the pill to control acne or for other medical conditions even if they don’t have sex therefore the usage of birth control pills is not just for those who are promiscuous. Some mothers put their older teens on it to help them with thyroid conditions. So those young innocent women too. They are sluts?
Fifth, he rails into her for being a 30-year old co-ed when in fact she is a third year law student. If you check various law school admissions’ websites, you’d note the average age of law students is 25 and an evening law student is 30. Many of them are returning to law school after having another career and have spouses and children so it is not unheard of.
Sixth, reports indicate that 98% of Catholic women have used birth control, and likely the pill as well, as has a good number of conservative Republican women. I think it would be safe to assume that several of the women in this category took the benefit of having their employer-subsidized insurance pay for their pills.
If that is the case, then Rush- in essence – is calling all of those women slut, prostitutes too.
Thus, it baffled me to no end to see so many Republican and conservative women jump on Twitter, Facebook and other forms of social media to not only defend Rush, but to also add their two cents on why they think Sandra Fluke is a slut.
And all of the misinformation spread by Rush is working. Check out these 10 examples:
These are women who have daughters and sons; and are wives and mothers.
Also, the men who are disparaging this woman have wives and girlfriends. Some have daughters that I’m sure they wouldn’t like another man calling a slut. In many parts of the world, you call a man’s daughter names like that you can guarantee getting socked in the upper lip. Decent people just don’t do those sort of things.
It’s also disturbing because these are the same people claiming that “Obamacare” disrupts their religious freedom. Seems a bit hypocritical.
So let me get this right: You are in one breath defending the rights of Christians and other God-Fearing Faithful to not pay for birth control by going on a public medium – which your children, future employers, clients, colleagues and family members can see- and calling this woman all these names?
Before hitting send, I wonder if they ask themselves would Jesus approve of such disparaging, toxic and hate-filled language?
And just because the left didn’t get up in arms enough when left-leaning talk show hosts called Sarah Palin and Ann Coulture names justifies you losing your minds and being nasty either. In Bristol Palin’s book, she talks about she and Sarah being on the pill. If you like Sarah and wouldn’t call her and Bristol those names, why do the same of this young lady?
What happened to taking the high road and showing your Christian value of turning the other cheek?
Everything isn’t political. Using the fact that the President called this woman in response to what Rush said to bring out all the thousands of other people the president hasn’t called is just plain silly. Really. Did George Bush call all the wives of all the soldiers who died in Afghanistan? Let’s all be intellectually honest for a second.
At least try.
Here is the thing, my conservative and Republican friends, you don’t have to defend Rush. He will be okay. You don’t have to risk your morals to defend a man who earns $50million a year. He isn’t sharing any of that money with you for defending him. There are plenty of other things on your plate and the plate of the nation.
It’s okay.
You CAN opt to skip using a searchable, and infintely-archived public medium to tell the world all the many different ways you think Sandra Fluke is a whore who wants taxpayers to pay for her to have sex.
It’s ugly. You are not advancing yourself or your cause any by doing this.
Just stop.
Jay Jay Ghatt is also editor at Techyaya.com, founder of the JayJayGhatt.com and JayJayGhatt.com where she teaches online creators how to navigate digital entrepreneurship and offers Do-It-For-You Blogging Service. She manages her lifestyle sites BellyitchBlog, Jenebaspeaks and JJBraids.com and is the founder of BlackWomenTech.com 200 Black Women in Tech On Twitter. Her biz podcast 10 Minute Podcast is available on iTunes and Player.fm. Follow her on Twitter at @Jenebaspeaks. Buy her templates over at her legal and business templates on Etsy shop!
