The mainstream media have found their latest leftist martyr, Georgetown Law student Sandra Fluke, who has been called an abrasive name by two talk show hosts after she testified, in essence, that Congress should gut the First Amendment because it mildly economically inconveniences the nation’s elite law students.
Sandra Fluke was barred from testifying before a House Oversight Committee hearing on religious freedom, because she had no intention to discuss the issue. The Democrats’ other witness, Barry Lynn, was invited but refused to come, a turn of events that led Virginia Democrat Gerald Connolly to charge the clergy who attended with being “complicit in the trampling of freedom.” (Trickle-down histrionics.)
But Nancy Pelosi ensured that Fluke, the former head of Georgetown’s Students for Reproductive Justice, was allowed to address the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee on Monday.
The fact that Georgetown Law does not cover contraception for students, Fluke testified, created “untenable burdens that impede our academic success” and proved Georgetown does not “live up to the Jesuit creed.”
As a result, the school’s sisterhood had “suffered financially, emotionally, and medically,” she said. Surely when one thinks of the faces of deprivation, one thinks of Georgetown Law co-eds.
Contraception, she said, “can cost a woman over $3,000 a year during law school…that’s practically an entire summer’s salary.”
As proof the Freedom of Religion should be repealed, she said, “Forty percent of the women at Georgetown Law reported to us that they struggled financially as a result of this policy.”
That is, less than half of women she asked have told her they “struggled financially” while attending a $60,000-a-year school without holding down a full-time job.
She followed this datum by citing the tragic case of a woman who needed contraception to prevent ovarian cysts – and that, um, actually, Georgetown covered that. Case closed.
Craig Bannister points out at CNSNews.com, $3,000 is enough money to buy enough condoms to have “protected” sex 2.74 times a day every day for three years. Asking why religious institutions should have to foot the bill for such extravagant sexual behavior, Rush Limbaugh on Wednesday said the fact the Fluke “says that she must be paid to have sex…makes her a prostitute.” Drawing attention to Fluke’s testimony about a classmate who found out at the pharmacy that Georgetown doesn’t cover contraceptives, one of Glenn Beck’s cohorts joked the store’s paging system would call her a “skank” and “slut.” (See 2:00 in the video below.)
Such statements, however uncouth, are not usually a Congressional matter. These were.
Democratic Representatives Pelosi, Louise Slaughter, Rosa DeLauro, Eleanor Holmes-Norton, Carolyn Maloney, Elijah Cummings, and Diana DeGette issued a joint press release condemning the “vicious and inappropriate attacks,” which “are outside the circle of civilized discussion and that unmask the strong disrespect for women held by some in this country.”
But where were these defenders of decency and femininity when left-wing activists threatened to murder 14-year-old Sarah Crank, a homeschool student who dared to tell the Maryland state senate she opposed same-sex “marriage”?
This young lady’s crime was telling a hearing that was open to the public: “I really feel bad for the kids who have two parents of the same gender. Even though some kids think it’s fine, they have no idea what kind of wonderful experiences they miss out on.”
The Forces of Tolerance and women’s rights greeted the expression of traditional moral sentiments as doubleplus un-good and immediately rained hatred upon her early adolescent, female skull.
Comments posted about Miss Crank threatened:
- “If I ever see this girl, I will kill her. That’s a promise”;
- “I hope you get raped by your married parents”;
- “Her parents should be exterminated”; and
- “Kill this child and his [sic] parent, for my 11 birthday would be a wonderful gift, thanks.”
Yet aside from a handful of websites, her treatment was not reported at all, while the nation has been treated to saturation coverage of the Passion of Sandra Fluke.
(Click “like” if you want to end abortion!
When the Left is not celebrating the death of Andrew Breitbart, praying for Rush Limbaugh’s kidneys to fail, or writing an apologia for murdering newborn children, they castigate their opponents as angry, violent, potential terrorists.
Physician, heal thyself.
Sarah Crank is threatened with death for saying every child deserves a mother and a father. Pastor Youcef Nadarkhani faces the death penalty in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity. Chen Guangcheng is gravely ill following vicious beatings, home imprisonment, and separation from his family for exposing China’s vicious “one child” policy. Indeed, 3,288 babies were killed in the United States today without ever seeing the light of day, but not before making a lifelong mark on their mothers’ hearts and psyches.
There are a host of people whose mistreatment elicits my sympathies before the plight of Sandra Fluke. Perhaps they merit an iota of the media coverage that she has been accorded.
Ben Johnson is a journalist for LifeSiteNews.com. He maintains his own website, TheRightsWriter.com.