Edwards Bloggers Fired, Reports Salon
Jeez, it’s getting to where you can’t be a rabid anti-Catholic extremist and find good work anymore:
The right-wing blogosphere has gotten its scalps — John Edwards has fired the two controversial bloggers he recently hired to do liberal blogger outreach, Salon has learned.
The bloggers, Amanda Marcotte, formerly of Pandagon, and Melissa McEwan, of Shakespeare’s Sister, had come under fire from right-wing bloggers for statements they had previously made on their respective blogs. A statement by the Catholic League’s Bill Donohue, which called Marcotte and McEwan “anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots,” and an accompanying article on the controversy in the New York Times this morning, put extra pressure on the campaign.
Speculation from sources that the two bloggers might be rehired was bolstered by Jennifer Palmieri, a spokeswoman for the Edwards campaign, who said in an e-mail that she would “caution [Salon] against reporting that they have been fired. We will have something to say later.”
Notably missing from this piece in Salon, the new home of Gleen Greenwald, is any context as to what the bloggers might have said. Amazing how people who are so quote happy suddenly lose the ability when damaging information to their argument might result. We know, of course, what they said, and it’s not just obscenities, but extremist anti-Catholic rhetoric of the worst kind.
The Left Wing Noise Machine is in full force making all sorts of ‘equivalency’ claims and deflections, but no prominent voice on the left has stood up yet, to my knowledge, and categorically condemned the comments in question…
UPDATE 8:02 p.m.: There is reason to believe the Salon report is wrong, or at a minimum, premature…
EACROTWK? Do I hear faint echoes of “weapons of mass destruction program-related activities?”
But seriously. In trying to gin up a euphemism for hate speech, in many ways you’ve made it worse. Do you really believe it represents the worst kind, or that Bill Donahue is standing up for anything other than his own career as a cable TV boob?
Screw Marcotte. Can you not see the problem created with such sophism? How it erodes the concept and the very real and very terrible history of anti-Catholic extremism?
I just don’t get it. You’re a thoughtful person. How is ranting about some dumb blogger worth this obnoxious kabuki, when it represents precisely the what got you fired up about this in the first place?
Alright. This stuff pushes my buttons and I’ve done gone and let my self get obsessive, so I’ll stop.
No, rant away…I’m not trying to be unreasonable here. If it’s not the worst kind, it’s pretty damn bad. I mean, read the quote…
Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? A: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.
That’s absolutely vile, from beginning to end. There are at least three ways that little short quote is offensive: it equates Christianity with mythology, tars all Catholics as misogynists, and uses highly inflammatory sexually-charged imagery towards the mother of Jesus and the Holy Spirit.
Now you may be a complete atheist and say you agree with all of the above…but to pretend it’s not offensive to Catholics is absolutely absurd…
That’s not what I said at all. I’ll try the Kierkegaardian approach and put it in terms of qualitative distinctions, leveling and such.
That statement is vile. But it isn’t in any way on the same continuum as hate like, say, the things Orangemen say to Catholics when they march through Belfast and the cameras aren’t looking.
To suggest, like Terry Moran, that the two things aren’t on entirely different planes erases the distinction. And that’s a very bad thing,
That’s not what I said at all. I’ll try the Kierkegaardian approach and put it in terms of qualitative distinctions, leveling and such.
Marcotte’s harangue is vile. But it isn’t in any way on the same continuum as hate like, say, the things the Orangemen say to Catholics on a march through Belfast when the cameras aren’t rolling. If you get my drift.
To suggest, like Terry Moran, that the two concepts aren’t on entirely different planes erases the distinction. And that’s a very bad thing, because it brings hate speech – evil speech, a blessed rarity in a society like ours – down to the level of vile. And because vile is common and expected – human nature ensures that it always has been and always will be – you increase the likelihood of making truly hateful speech ordinary (the relationship is the same between vulgar and vile, like when people conflate Marcotte’s language with the content of her posts).
Donahue’s motives are pretty transparent. He’s just hewing to the narrative that gets him paid. I don’t know if Moran is being dense, has a political agenda or if he’s just trying to juice up his story. It doesn’t matter. These casual, thoughtless soundbites – made for no better reason than the need to be the newscycle’s loudest squawker – are for the lack of a better word, vile.
And those forays are worse than Marcottes’ smegma – not in superficialities like the level of disgust it engenders, but in their long-term cultural effects. I suppose one could attempt to make a case that Marcotte and her ilk are poisoning the public well and generating ill-will, or even hate, toward Catholics. But there’s just no comparison to the impact Morans’ type of simplistic MSM sophistry – what you like to call bullspit – has. It’s being spread on the 10s of every hour of every day, 24/7.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with calling out Marcotte or with characterizing her writing as vulgar and vile – it is – and there’s noting wrong with calling for her to be fired (even though the scale and intensity of this torch mobbing makes me worry someone will get hurt). Although I understand people are outraged, I believe it’s a colossal waste of time. The internets make the supply of vile infinite, and Marcotte is a bit player.
But to claim Marcotte has done something singularly evil is an not merely an insult to her, and that’s not why I’m criticizing. It’s blot on our perception of what hate means. Next time, Moran will have to stretch things a little further to gin up interest; eventually no one beyond the perpetually outraged will give a damn.
I’m sure you can think of a few examples – and not just fairy tales involving boys and wolves – where people have lost sight of evil.
Man, I could’ve saved a lot of time and effort.
Vile.
Hateful.
Andy, I’m not claiming it’s the equivalent of the KKK, or anything like that…let’s not get carried away. All I ever said was that Edwards should fire them, and he has (maybe?). That’s a good end to a situation that his campaign would never have been in if they had bothered to read her blog before offering her a job…
I understand the difference between, say, genocide and blog postings. I have this in perspective – but what she said, if directed at Jews, would have been called anti-Semitism, if directed at blacks racism, if directed at Muslims, Islamophobia. What she said was MUCH worse than what Joe Biden said a few days ago…so let’s not sugercoat it, either…
I’m not claiming it’s the equivalent of the KKK
No, that’s not what I’m trying to say. Just the opposite, in fact. I’m saying terms like “hate speech” have a particular meaning, and when they’re bandied about to make a rhetorical point, they begin to lose that meaning. We’re left with diminished ability to make such distinctions, and every level of outrage from a wardrobe malfunction to a man drop-kicking a puppy melds into a constant hum, day in and day out. Karma Police/Arrest this man/He buzzes like a fridge/He’s like a detuned radio.
Liberal political correctness draws from the same well, issuing charges of racism until they inevitably into fade into the background of everyday chatter and political argument.
I understand the difference between, say, genocide and blog postings.
You may understand the difference but there’s no shortage of people who do not. The specific quote that you object to is hurtful because it directly attacks something which you hold sacred. What it doesn’t do hewever is accuse you of treason (which is a capital crime) nor does it call for your extermination based on the accusation that as a member of your religion, you advocate for the extermination of Americans or Jews. Such hateful rhetoric is nevertheless common among right-wing websites.
That is why the phrase “civil discourse” makes so many leftists livid. There’s nothing civil about what they are up against.
Hey, you won’t find any cheerleading for that ‘treason’ crap around here, I promise you. I condemn that kind of garbage when it comes from Ann Coulter and Debbie Schlussel, as my regulars can attest to…
And Paul, it’s got nothing to do with what I hold sacred or not – if she had made the same comments about Muslims, I would be equally appalled. I’m not a Catholic, by the way, but you don’t have to be a Jew to know what anti-Semitism is, either…
My only point is this: The vulgarity is one thing, but the underlying point isn’t anything that should need to be hidden away just because it offends the sensibilities of somebody else. Man, imagine if I had to not defend evolution by saying that Intelligent Design is as stupid as it clearly is, because it offends people to think that God, their Intelligent Designer, is stupid. Imagine if right-wing bloggers had to stop ridiculing the extremist Muslim idea of 72 virgins waiting in the afterlife, because it offends some who believe in it. Shoot, imagine if I had to not make fun of Greek mythology just because there’s some whackjob that still believes in it somewhere.
At one point you cited the fact that Marcotte “equated Christianity to mythology” as part of why it was offensive across the board, and not just to Christians, and man, I couldn’t disagree with you more. What about all of the people of the world who don’t believe in Christianity? Isn’t the assertion that it’s the only truth and the only way to God just as revolting and offensive?
It’s a slippery slope you’re helping to grease up here, Mark.
So, let me get this straight. She says a quote that YOU describe as vile and therefore must be fired? I think that quote is a perfect summary of how many of us feel about the absurdity of that religion specifically and the mythologically adapted male-dominated religions generally. To sum it up in two sentences is quite a feat and even more of a reason why I say they ought to keep their jobs. If they can produce two sentence snippets like that about the Democratic party I think they were good hires.
If you want to disagree on the merits, by all means, let’s have the discussion, but to write it off as “vile” just discredits you…therefore you have been discredited. Because I said so…la dee da.
Dennis: Cursing and racial slurs are not equal in my eyes…but to you they might be (I allow for that possibility with something called moral relativism…)
Aaron: I never equated belief with a method of arguing. Using curse words or just plain disgusting[ly funny, IMO] quotes to make a point isn’t a method of arguing. It’s a method of stating your beliefs in a way your readers will enjoy and keep coming back to. The arguement is buried within the curse words and other items. If racial slurs enter the picture, then the argument doesn’t disappear, it just lets someone know “wow, this person is a racist”.
“If you cannot make a point without cursing”…that’s not the point at all. The point is that they sometimes used cursing or hyperbole or “vile” statements while making their argument and now they are being fired for it? You know, they have other posts where they don’t curse or use absurd statements like the hilighted one that are actually cogent points…but you wouldn’t know anything about that.
No, I would not use profanity in a job interview, but their personal blogs are not their interviews.
If you say “yes, yes it is, their blog space in total is their personal interview”. I disagree. What if a photographer was really good at his craft. However, he decides to take some pornographic pictures as well. He then shows his clothed pictures to Vogue or whatever magazine he’s trying to get a gig with…how is this any different a scenario?
I was willing to go along with the “vile,” but the analogy to antisemitism is yet another case where imprecision does more harm than good by diluting meaning. Her comments were mean-spirited and sacrilegious, but they were not persecutory.
I can’t believe how many people are still missing the salient point. The reason this has become a big to-do in the blogosphere is Amanda Marcotte was hired, in effect, to be a spokeswoman for a presidential candidate. She’s one of thousands of angry people who spill their angry thoughts onto the Web every day, and if that was all, this wouldn’t be an issue, although I would still have little respect for her.
But if you get hired by a presidential campaign, you can bet people are going to look at you and wonder if the candidate is really the kind of person who endorses crass jokes at the expense of a religion believed by millions of voters.
You can argue all you want that people should ignore it, that somehow the political rantings of a blogger should not be considered when hiring a person to do a political blog, that underneath the layer of insults there’s some sophisticated thinking or that other bloggers have said equally nasty things. None of those change the fact that when you’re talking about people running for president, the stakes are higher, and Caesar’s wife (and blogger) must be above reproach.
So if someone finds out some bloggers hired by Republican campaigns have run around throwing temper tantrums and spewing profanities everywhere they go and insulting the beliefs of huge masses of voters, let the blogstorm begin. I’m all for dumping the more vicious bloggers into a political ditch, no matter what their politics. Defending vile behavior by saying “He started it!” is hardly a noble thing.
Dennis: Caesar’s wife does not equal Ceasar’s blogger.
Do you think women have a right to be angry at our male dominated society, let alone male dominated religion? Do you deny that religion is male dominated? Argue on the merits man. Just because she is angry doesn’t mean she shouldn’t be allowed to blog for a presidential candidate.
Do people not have a right to be vicious? Why does the right not defend amendment 1 just as strongly as amendment 2?
For the record, any lefty bloggers that highlight comments of republican staffers (or bloggers) that are “vile” comments and think that cause for firing them are just as stupid. Link me to a place where that happens (has happened) (and when it actually becomes a “news” item) and I will reaffirm my position.
But if you get hired by a presidential campaign, you can bet people are going to look at you and wonder if the candidate is really the kind of person who endorses crass jokes at the expense of a religion believed by millions of voters.
Oh, brother. I don’t know if you just fell off the turnip truck, or you think I did.
Mike, you still are not getting the point. It doesn’t matter what you think or what I think on our own. What matters is what the voters in general think. John Edwards has bigger fish to fry than rushing to defend someone who can’t make a point without flying off the handle and issuing vicious insults at those who dare to disagree with her (for example, as if the only reason to think the Duke case is dodgy is because you’re some racist, sexist monster).
Stop fighting strawmen; I’m not arguing she should be banned from speaking or anything dopey like that. She’s free to say whatever she wants. But John Edwards is not obliged to pay her.
Andy, I’m really not sure what your point is. So you cite an example of a disgraced lobbyist who says insulting things. Is this supposed to prove that saying insulting things is now OK? It’s obnoxious, no matter who says it. I’m certainly not arguing either side is pure, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to determine that if both sides have insulting political operatives, being insulting is now OK.
Why does he have to go out of his way to defend her? Why can’t he just keep her in his employ and have that be it? It’s what McCain did when he was asked about the repugnant blogger in his employ, and I don’t see you imploding over that.
That’s complete BS. It’s as though no other text either have written matters (you know, the text where they don’t do what you describe). That is the “salient point”.
So you cite an example of a disgraced lobbyist who says insulting things
Scanlon served as Tom DeLay’s spokesman and communications director. You’ve heard of Tom DeLay, right?
I understand the sentiment, but I don’t think you realize what kind of rabbit hole vetting every campaign worker represents. The flip side of assessing character is character assassination. Our politics is a hopeless morass as it is because people inevitably use “character counts” arguments as cover for changing the subject. While there is often some kernel of substance in these discussions, we end up talking about John Kerry yelling at a Sec. Service agent and GWB’s frat hazing days as if these were relevant to national affairs.
Can you imagine what will happen
ifwhen this is extended to hundreds if not thousands of aides?…and not only that, but for every campaign worker vetted, we’re going to end up with some proportion of dirty tricks specialists as the “vetters,” a la Donald Segretti.
Well, we’re very far afield from the salient point, and this if my final word on the subject (though of course you are free to disagree). Anyone who speaks that way in public is an anti-Catholic bigot and has no place on a politician’s campaign staff…you wouldn’t be this sanguine, I don’t think, if the comment had referred to Jews or blacks. No difference, other than the target…
Oh please, Mike. I’m sure Ann Coulter has written some things that are perfectly legitimate. That doesn’t outweigh the other times when she’s been vicious and libelous. I wouldn’t want to vote for a candidate who hired her on as a spokeswoman.
Keeping her in his employ is defending her, Fargus, and the voters will decide whether that matters to them, just as McCain will have to find out if the voters are significantly agitated over his blogger making juvenile remarks over Henry Waxman. Maybe the voters won’t care. I’m not imploding over either blogger, but I think both of them are obnoxious and the campaigns would be better off without them. I’m certainly not going to sit here and defend obnoxiousness out of some partisan blindness, or out of some silly “they did it too” defense.
Andy, let’s consider what we’re discussing here; the hiring of bloggers to communicate a campaign’s message. We’re not talking about finding out if some low-rung staffer in charge of booking hotel rooms got liquored up and started ranting at a party. We’re talking about people whose very job is to promote your campaign with their words. People who are hired presumably because they’re good at reaching out to others in public. People whose history of reaching out is chronicled in black and white for all to see in a very public forum. Asking for a little vetting is hardly an impossible task. Unless you want to see more Scanlons and Segrettis in politics.
Very far, indeed. My original objection was your characterization (or endorsement of Moran’s) of the comment as “hate speech,” which you then backed away from (blogger post vs. KKK) because it’s patently ridiculous. And then you ratcheted it up again with the anti-semitism analogy. Again, ridiculous. I’m not concerned about any disservice to Marcotte, but to those whose lives have been disrupted and destroyed by actual hate speech. Including Catholics.
My point is that it’s possible to accurately describe why the posts were shameful, vehemently criticize Marcotte, and call for her dismissal without deploying nuclear and misleading rhetoric about ‘hate.’ The latter trivializes the whole subject, including the case against Marcotte, as petty partisan point scoring.
Well, you disagree with my characterization, that’s clear. Sorry, we can’t always agree, and on this one, we don’t…I can call Marcotte’s post anti-Catholic bigotry without thinking it’s the second Holocaust – it’s a matter of degrees, Andy, that’s all…
I don’t mind having this debate, and I don’t mind being criticized, and I’m not minimizing your points, but I just don’t have anything to add at this point to what I’ve already said…
thinking it’s the second Holocaust
Sigh. Again with the nuclear. I’m talking about speech as a weapon in and of itself. I’m sure there were Catholics who are shocked, appalled, distressed, disheartened, deeply offended (or none of the above)…. The question is, did her remarks incite and intimidate.
Moran’s story flatly states that’s what happened. Nobody believes that (wellm never say nobody) but we all accept that such mindless hyperbole is just part of the game. We move on to the next bundle of nuclear bullspit, never reflecting on the fact that reporting on Marcotte’s vile words in such a vile fashion makes it all completely meaningless. We may as well be playing video games.
What, then, Mark, of the people who have mocked Wahabbism? Or the people who have mocked the belief of the September 11 terrorists who vehemently believed that they were going to get 72 virgins in the afterlife? Those beliefs are mocked in all quarters, and ain’t nobody sticking up for them. Beliefs are not something that in and of themselves demand respect, and disrespect of a belief that you think to be patently ridiculous is not the same as bigotry. Bigotry requires stubborn, unreasoning intolerance. Intolerance borne of observation of the misogynist tendencies of a religion, coupled with its tolerance of pedophilia in its highest ranks and its adherence to doctrines at least as ridiculous as ones that its own members feel free to mock in other religions…..that ain’t bigotry, bud. That’s an informed opinion.
Bloggers NOT Being Fired
Exactly the right decision from Edwards, and for exactly the right reasons. Namely, the posts brought to light had nothing to do with the jobs that Marcotte and McEwan were hired to do, and thus reflect NOT AT ALL on Edwards’ positions.
…and by completely meaningless, I mean any valid concerns from the Catholic community are now inexorably bound up in Moranian-type nuclear bullspit. There’s no way there will be a serious discussion about this now.
And now we learn the Edwards campaign is sticking by its guns, because they think there’s a credible case to be made that the whole episode was ginned up by nuclear wingnuts. If the objective was to hold Marcotte personally accountable, this rhetorical strategy failed miserably. If the objective was to create a feedback loop of stupidity that will feed the perpetual outrage machine, it worked brilliantly.
Equating a religious belief that demands the murder of women who commit “adultery” (a term which the adherants think applies even if the woman is raped) or a belief that compels people to murder in the thousands with a belief in an immaculate conception? That may be many things, but an informed opinion it most certainly is not.
Fargus:
Intolerance borne of observation of the misogynist tendencies of a religion, coupled with its tolerance of pedophilia in its highest ranks and its adherence to doctrines at least as ridiculous as ones that its own members feel free to mock in other religions…..that ain’t bigotry, bud. That’s an informed opinion.
Nicely done. And to think that people consider progressives anti-religion.
Wow…
Well, we know where you stand. Mark my words, Edwards will regret this before it’s all said and done. Suffice to say, the millions of traditionally Democratic voters who are Catholic will have plenty to chew on when they consider who to vote for…
Aaron: you’re just talking about straight-up moral superiority there. Just because you don’t believe in something and think it’s ridiculous doesn’t mean that people don’t hold that belief just as strongly as others hold more “reasonable” beliefs. To be sure, I don’t believe in either of them, but you’re going wrong in focusing on all of the bad in one and all of the benign in the other. Nobody would be complaining if all that Catholicism amounted to, in toto, was a belief in the immaculate conception (a concept which, outside of the Bible, would be laughed at as ridiculous by just about anybody, Christians included).
Mark: I can’t mark those words. I’m still busy marking your words from yesterday that they’d be fired.
Definitely, Mark. Don’t forget. 2004 was the first time (since they started recording these things, whenever that was) that more Catholics voted Republican than Democrat, even though it was the first time since 1960 that the Democrats nominated a Catholic for the presidency.
The blogress was attacking immaculate conception. You were equating her attack on immaculate conception with conservative bloggers attacking Wahabiism or the belief that the hijackers held that by murdering 3000 people they would receive 72 eternal virgins in paradise.
Fargus, I guessed wrong…I thought Edwards was smart enough to realize that Catholics outnumber Nutroots®, but apparently I gave him too much credit…
Aaron: She’s not attacking the immaculate conception in the quote that Mark found so disgusting that he posted it seventeen times in the last day:
If anything, she’s taking for granted that the Immaculate Conception happened, and positing an alternate scenario taking place afterwards. Offensive? Depends on the beholder, of course. But my point remains: you’re standing there ranking people’s beliefs based on what’s more reasonable, and that gets you into a morass of nobody ever being able to say anything. Think Tom Cruise and Scientology are ridiculous? Perish the thought. It’s offensive to even think it.
And Mark: Your assertion that this will alienate all Catholics is ridiculous, and the assertion that it’s anti-Catholic on Edwards’ part is ridiculous. Hell, some Catholics still voted for Kerry in 2004 after one of their own bishops told them that it was a sin because he was pro-choice (never mind the Catholic Church’s stance on capital punishment, I guess). Pardon me for thinking that they’re not going to be all too inclined to pay the attention you’re attributing to them to someone as insane and actually bigoted (Hollywood loves anal sex, it’s run by the Catholic-hating Jews, etc.) as William Donohue.
No, Fargus, it won’t alienate all Catholics…I’m not stupid, despite your recent assertions to the contrary. But it’s a factor that I can assure you will be brought up again at the appropriate time by Donohue and others like him, regardless of whether you care for the man or not.
I’m not going on the warpath; I have nothing but contempt for John Edwards, regardless of who his staffers are, and it doesn’t mean that much to me. The only reason I’m still blogging about it today is because of Edwards’ transparently lying statement of taking Marcotte at her word that she wasn’t trying to malign anyone’s religion.
But other people will go on the warpath, and they have a lot more firepower than Chris Bowers, for cryin’ out loud…
This is what makes me think you have a literacy problem, Fargy.
She is mocking the immaculate conception! It doesn’t take a phd to understand that!
Also, you weren’t even able to read what I just posted in this thread about how 2004 was the first time since exit polls were taken that Catholics voted GOP over Dem. Or so I assume by the your use of the fact that not every single Catholic in the country voted against John Kerry (when the trend lends itself more to support the claim that Catholics tend not to like anti-Catholicism).
I’m not ranking people’s beliefs based upon what seems reasonable (which is, after all, quite subjective). I’m ranking them on how many acts of violence they have compelled. How does believing in the immaculate conception directly cause anyone to commit a violent act?
Compare that to the number of deaths and violent acts that have been commited by people who believed that God wanted them to beat and/or murder their wives or blow up office workers, or slaughter school children.
Excuse me, just so I make my point perfectly clear: I should have said “because they believed” when I said “who believed” in #39.
Catholics tend not to like anti-Catholicism? You’re saying Kerry’s campaign was anti-Catholic? What in the hell does that even mean?
Note that you’re singling out the immaculate conception, and not the main thrust of her point, which was the misogyny of the Catholic Church. Or maybe its historical repression of science. Or maybe its condoning pedophilia in the priesthood. I dunno. Like I said, if it was all just believing in the Immaculate Conception and nothing else, then there wouldn’t be a problem. Just a disagreement.
The problem is that beliefs don’t end inside your head. People feel that they’ve got to go defend them, that they’ve got a monopoly on the truth, etc. So your assertion that belief in the immaculate conception is completely innocuous (again, what would you think of a claim today, in 2007, of an immaculate conception? Would you come down this hard on someone for saying that it’s a ridiculous assertion?) is only half right.
How can you say that mocking immaculate conception is not the main thrust of her point when, by your own admission you don’t even know what the main thrust of her point is?
Where does she mention or imply pedophilia (as if it were in Catholic doctrine in the first place)? Where does she mention a historical repression of science?
She jumps from the immaculate conception to misogyny. What I take from that is she thinks believing in the immaculate conception is somehow used to justify misogyny, which is, to say the least, a leap in logic, and on top of that, she doesn’t even justify her claim that the Catholic Church is misogynistic.
Excuse me, I did not mean that Kerry’s campaing was actively anti-Catholic. His position on abortion was, however, interpreted as anti-Catholic by many Catholics, causing them to vote more for a GOP candidate for the first time in recorded history. So, if something that is debatably and incidentially anti-Catholic, such as being pro-choice drives Catholic voters away, why would something that is overtly and intentionally anti-Catholic not drive even more away.
Right. The GOP is pro-death-penalty, and that falls right in line with Catholic doctrine, right? Gimme a break, Aaron.
Side note: When you refer to me, please do me the respect of calling me “Fargus” or nothing at all. None of this “Fargy” nonsense. I don’t need your condescension.
Her main thrust was clearly the misogyny. I’m throwing in other things that could be attributed to an unwavering belief in those doctrines of faith held so dear that people are willing to kill and die for them, and actions condoned by adherents to those doctrines. My bad for being confusing that. She was talking about misogyny, I was talking about the others.
I’m guessing that it was a throwaway comment that fit into the context of previous posts she’s had about the misogyny of the Catholic Church. Most likely, the passive role of Mary and the active part of God, in the “daddy” role, contribute in her view to the present and continued misogyny of the church.