This weekend Rush Limbaugh decided to use some defamatory words towards a female student on his radio show, here is an article about the situation: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/03/rush-limbaugh-apologizes-to-sandra-fluke_n_1318718.html
While I am glad he apologized, I am appalled by his comments. As much as I disagree with miss Fluke, I cannot condone and must condemn treating any women like this, no matter where she stands on an issue. As a father I am heartbroken for Sandra Flukes father to have to hear that kind of hatred spewed towards his daughter.
The pro-life movement is about fighting for all women, born and unborn / pro-life or pro-choice, they must ALL be treated with respect and not be subject to this kind of nastiness. For us to truly call ourselves pro-life, we must stand for the dignity of all women and that includes pro-choice women. We simply cannot sink to a level like this which lacks basic love and compassion.
I may wholeheartedly disagree with Sandra Fluke on the abortion or contraception issues, but I must love her as a person and treat her with the dignity that all women deserve. Calling women sluts and prostitutes because of their beliefs is not love and cannot be tolerated.
I am highly intrigued by what you may think on this issue, please leave a comment and let me know.
Bryan Kemper
36 Comments
I am with you Bryan. I understand what Rush was saying, but he should have chosen different words. We need to show love to these women. Not to judge, but to show them the truth
Bryan, I’m mixed. I completely get (understand) Rush’s use of sarcasm to make a point. If you listen close enough and consider the context of what he says and why he is saying it, you will see that he was not attacking her personally. Rather, he was trying to be too cute by half in commenting on the duplicity of her ‘behavior.’
Did Rush cross some lines? That’s up for every listener to decide for themself. I believe that I (through many years of listening) know his heart better than to think that he was being anything more than his usual ‘sarcastic’ self.
Maybe I am projecting just a little. But I believe that Rush loves all women and that includes those who he attacks in the middle of an argument, just to make a point.
~ Loren
Loren I ask how we would react if Rachel Maddow used these same words against say, Abby Johnson?
Bryan, With Maddow? LOL I would simply consider the source. Abby and her actions are what I base my opinions about Abby on. Not what a commentator who is out to get her thinks.
I don’t agree with what he said, and it doesn’t excuse it…but you never heard the liberal nutjobs complaining when a pundit referred to Sarah Palin as a “c*nt.” They are so full of crap it astounds me. You’re only worth defending as a woman if you have the same beliefs as them. I have very little respect for Sandra Fluke, as a female law student at a Catholic university, but I wouldn’t EVER call her something so callous on national television. Limbaugh should be ashamed of himself. Call her pathetic, sad, irresponsible (because she is), but don’t throw out epithets.
(reposted from facebook) 😀
I think it was his first and truthful reaction to the numbers she gave. $3,000 for Contraceptives?! All of her summer earnings on Contraceptives?!?! Yeah that is what she sounded like. It is absurd!
This is why I quit listening to Rush a decade ago!
I had grown weary of his desire to illustrate the ridiculous by being ridiculous. It rarely correlates.
I have 4 daughters and am very angry at this treatment of women.
I would never talk like this about a woman, ever.
That’s too bad because you’re missing what is really happening to this country while we go along our merry way believing that all is well. God bless anyways and I’m happy you’ve been entrusted with four daughters.
Thank you Lawrence! I am very proud to have my daughters and I work very hard to do well by them.
Listening to Rush is not a prerequisite for political activism.
I just do not care for his style and I will get my information elsewhere.
We have to remind ourselves as often as it takes… that our struggles are not about ourselves or the “messengers” who purport the “pro-life” or Conservative message. Nor even a religious view.
We do ourselves a dis-service when we get hung up on being personally offended or discouraged and put our principles on the back burner so that we can pick apart every little personal imperfection that we can find to divide ourselves over.
Almost everyone agrees with Rush on his larger point.
And that^ is getting lost in the dialogue about what he said to make the point.
Amen Bryan! We have to Love the sinner hate the Sin. We need to respect and protect the dignity of all women. I am with you all the way brother. We need to Love with unconditional compassion. That is how God uses us to change hearts.
I think his apology was warranted, because he could have demonstrated the same points he was trying to make without resorting to addressing the woman personally and calling her demeaning names. It is sickening, though, that our culture has degraded to the point where a young, unmarried woman (at a Catholic university, no less) can be so brazen as to appear before Congress (Congress!) and demand that the government pay for her contraception because she can’t afford it herself and she “needs” it due to her constant, premeditated, mortally sinful behavior, and somehow she is the hero and the cultural commentator who rightly decries her behavior is the villain.
The people who need more love and help are those who have practice an abortion, for is a scar that does not go away, no mattar what they say or think, but they also need to hear the trut with compation, showing them, that we love them and so does God, but that they need to repent and turn away from doing what is not acceptable in the eyes of the Lord.
@ key points are being missed here. 1) She was not a 23-year-old coed, as the pro-abortion and feminist camps reported. 2) By her own admission, she recounted innumerable sexual liaisons by both, her and her alleged fellow coeds. In point of fact, it was these questionable liaisons that led her to expect the government to protect her from, by mandating that contraception be paid for by the U.S. taxpayer, regardless of moral opposition to such immoral behavior.
I submit that it is she who has shown the greatest disrespect to women by her alleged exploits, and demanding that we “protect” her from those exploits.
In addition, using the logic presented in this blog, we may not call Ted Bundy a serial killer, we may not called someone who does unspeakable things to children a pedophile, we may not call the guy who just broke your rear window and stole your stereo/computer system a thief or we may not call abortion the murder of a child.
The problem is there is no connotatively neutral word to describe a person who is sexually promiscuous. People hear “slut” and the capacity for rational discussion has ended. He is skilled enough in debate and rhetoric that he could have made the same argument without calling the specific woman a slut. He was being deliberately provocative and it obscured his larger point.
And for the record, a person who does unspeakable things to children is a child rapist. Pedophilia, like homosexuality, is a disordered sexual orientation, and is not in itself either sinful or criminal.
I’m pissed off that my insurance doesn’t cover tampons. Can I get a congressional hearing ? It’s embarrassing to go into a pharmacy, show my insurance card, and be told my insurance doesn’t cover tampons. I always slink away in shame.
I seem to be the only woman commenting. Hmmmm. I agree with Loren Brown’s comment. We shouldn’t be focusing on a phony controversy. The real issue is should the govt. pay for birth control or should it be forcing religious institutions to pay for it? Miss Fluke should’ve been laughed out of the room. The left has no shame.
Yay Dan!
And… dietary supplements!
Lol! Dan, my sentiments exactly. I spend far more in a week on coffee, treats, drinks out with friends and my boyfriend, and a ton of other unnecessary things…than I would every MONTH on the birth control pill. And seriously, I have to buy necessary things like food and “girly” items like you mentioned above and I don’t sit there complaining that someone else should cover them. This woman is an insult to myself and other female law students at Catholic universities. How pathetic. I don’t ask you to subsidize my sex life…I sure as hell won’t subsidize yours.
Funny Dan!
I do not condemn what Rush Limbaugh said. It was satire, and I refuse to jump on the political band wagon as the left salivates while we canibalize our own. Do you condemn all of the other off colored satire that Rush produces; because there is a lot of it? Do you all make this much noise over all of the good that Rush does?
Rush’s satire is not always my cup of tea and Rush Limbaugh is not a perfect person. However, Rush Limbaugh is the most consistent and persistent voice of conservative values of our life time (with the exceptions of Pope John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI).
God bless Rush Limbaugh.
It’s just a word, and I have heard his heart, as long as I’ve listened to him, he’s grown a lot, I mean, that’s the same thought I had about her. I don’t think we should judge one and not the other. It’s all about the heart. He’s a sinner forgiven as I am, and she could be too, if she would look to the Lord and ask. I was the same type of liberal, unsaved, promiscuous person when I was young, and I grew up and grew close to Christ. I’m not being hypocritical…I’m being real. I am a mom of 5 kids now and honest with them about life. I live the life now I want to model to my children. Not perfectly, but in His power.
Don’t knock Rush anymore than knock these women.
Did he specifically call her a slut or was it just implied? I believe she was a speaker at a Slut Walk as well. This has every thing to do with making contraception totally free, backing Obama;s mandate (the timing is a bit blatant you have to admit and the fact that Obama called her and offered his support) and little to do with Rush Limbaugh and love. Rush is a loose cannon and says abrasive things all the time, but what about the reasonable people that have real concerns about Fluke, the lie about her age, her background as a women’s rights activist and the fact that she was interviewed saying she choose Georgetown specifically for it’s lack of birth control coverage and that she wanted to fight it (axe to grind, much?). They aren’t addressing those people and they aren’t going to because they don’t care and that is not the point. This whole Rush controversy is just as contrived as Fluke’s case. They are trying to detract you from her and focus on Rush. Rush is an easy target and they know it and have exploited it.
He specifically called her a slut. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0312/73487.html
She admitted herself she is promiscuous…not just promiscuous but promiscuous with men who aren’t even gentlemen enough to pay for her contraceptives…so she must go begging the state to fund her 3000 dollar need….Do they at least pay for dinner before they get down to business???..or open the door for her..
likely not.
She should not be condemned…she should be pitied.
And I do pity her.
Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
-Saul Alinsky
The Left is excellent at getting conservatives to attack conservatives. They win every time! Their goal is to break down our unity…
Honesty….we should just ignore Rush’s comments. And if truth be told any woman who would parade her sexual antics at a Congressional hearing should be called worse…how about an idiot!!!
She’s a phony and a liar. I wouldn’t call anyone a slut, but if one of my three daughters was publicly testifying that she demands that the rest of America fund her promiscuous sex life, I would be horrified. Also, you can get the pill at Target for nine bucks…
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/sandra-fluke-a-fake-victim-of-georgetowns-policy-on-contraceptives/
Personally, I think people have confused Victorian etiquette with Christian virtue. And considering what we now know of that woman’s agenda, to have a Catholic institution offer contraception (almost all chemical forms can act as abortifacients) as part of its health insurance, I think the “insult” rather mild. But it was a pointless remark, and took the discussion off into the wrong direction. Consider the stats in the linked article- http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Journalism/2012/03/02/Boehner%20and%20Fiorina%20Fall%20For%20Manufactured%20Story
By using such charged words, Rush made the conservative side look bad. It was in poor taste, and I’m glad he apologized. That said, I think he had an interesting point: when a woman seeks money in order to have sex, yes, she is considered a prostitute.
Still, as Jim pointed out (and perhaps others), by taking this road and arguing against the “women’s rights” bit as the liberal media has framed it, Rush and other conservatives are handing this argument to them. We need to stay focused on the fact that this issue is about religious freedom. Period.
While I disagree with Ms. Fluke, and do agree that her actions are demeaning to her own sex; I do find Mr. Limbaugh’s words reflect a similar attitude towards women as the men who took the liberty of sleeping with Ms. Fluke. If Mr. Limbaugh were to actually take the moral high ground, he could have at least acted like a gentleman. There are better ways to get the same point across than stooping to the level of the person you are critiquing.
Although I agree that what he said was harsh, I think people are overreacting. The media is just using this as another way to promote her views. He was joking, it’s part of what he does. I don’t think he has a problem with women, or this specific woman. He was making a point, no one should expect someone else to pay for their sexual behavior.
She was stupid. He was stupid. He apologized. The left has us wasting time discussing this while Rome burns. We have an election in less than a year. Gas proces are shooting toward $5.00/gal. War could break out. The economy is still a mess. Please lets focus. Lets move on.
Remember this. We care about people – even our enemies. They don’t. Add up everything that they have said about Sarah Palin and her family and – good luck looking for the apologies from the Left. But we see our enemies as human beings and worthy of a certain dignity, hence our desire to play by the rules. And rightly so because we answer to Almighty God. But all of us have fallen short in our lives. Lets move on.
There are babies dying because of these people.
Focus friends on the big picture.
I just went to Rush’s website and read the transcript myself. Here it is:
“What does it say about the college co-ed Sandra Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex, what does that make her? It makes her a slut right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps. The johns? We would be the johns. No we’re not the johns. Yeah, that’s right. Pimp’s not the word. Okay, so she’s not a slut. She’s “round heeled.” I take it back.”
Sorry, but as a Catholic Christian I don’t see anything terrible or insulting about this. He’s simply stating the truth. Someone who gets paid for sex IS a prostitute (aka slut). And we, if we have to end up paying for her to be able to have sex, WILL be the johns. I see his logic here and don’t believe it needs ANY apology. Why do we as Christians feel pressured to only say “nice things” to not chance possibly hurting anyones feelings? Sometimes the truth hurts. We should NOT refrain from speaking the truth out of fear of the chance of hurting someones feelings or being disliked. That is the devil’s way of keeping the truth hidden and allowing sin to flourish. It is his way for everything to be “ok” and have us be “nicey nice” good Christians. The Lord didn’t teach in a “nicey nice” manner, as many hated Him for speaking the truth too. And John the Baptist (the next greatest man ever alive besides Jesus himself) could teach us a thing or two today about standing for and speaking the truth about sin – no matter who it offends. He was beheaded for that exact thing and we should be willing to act likewise.
Rush didn’t call her a slut because of her belief, but because of her statement that she’s going broke because of having to purchase condoms. Now that statement alone makes an argument for referring to a person as a slut; which is the term for a sexually promiscuous woman. However, Rush did apologize because it made him like the left wingers who feel free to stoop to any level to destroy and he’s not a person out to hurt others. Apology accepted and now, back to the lousy economy, bad housing situation, high unemployment, high cost of gas, etc. This “hope and change” is really killing us while people like Pelosi hold ficticious hearings with a 30 year old birth control activist because Issa wouldn’t let her testify before his legitimate hearings on the mandate that contraceptives must be given free of charge by in surance companies. That White house God will have to be replaced since he can’t walk on water.
If he was going to call her cruel, sophomoric names, why not “cheap skate”? As a FORMER user of birth control, I know that it is inexpensive. This is not some homeless woman with no funds. She CAN afford her own luxury medication. Whenever I’ve seen photos of her she has a nice hair cut and nice clothes. She CAN afford to pay for birth control herself.
Nice weblog right here! Additionally your website so much up fast! What host are you the use of? Can I am getting your associate link on your host? I desire my website loaded up as quickly as yours lol