Fundamentalist Prattle

What is happening with the right wing in the Catholic Church? Have they lost their marbles, or is it just plain stupidity? Take the latest incident where these clueless people are calling John Edwards an anti Catholic bigot. 

For those of you who have been vacationing on planet Mars here is what is going on. John hired two bloggers for his campaign with a reputation of being liberal. Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan both operated Web logs, or online commentary pages similar to this one, before being hired by the Edwards campaign.

William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights, demanded that Edwards fire the two women and called them "anti-Catholic, vulgar, trash-talking bigots," along with that came and another nutty individual named  Michael J. Gaynor ranting about double standard, and how evil CNN is, whatever.  

Here is what two women had to say.

Marcotte — 'The Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way— of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.'

And McEwan questioned what religious conservatives don't understand about, 'keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds and our families.'

In a Feb. 8 statement, Edwards said that the sentiments in some of Marcotte's and McEwan's postings on their blog pages "personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people and it's not how I expect the people who work for me to talk to people."

"Everyone is entitled to their opinion," Edwards' press release said, "but that kind of intolerant language will not be permitted from anyone in my campaign, whether it's intended as satire, humor or anything else."

Edwards said he would not fire the women, however, adding that he believes "in giving everyone a fair shake."

Let's be quite clear here that disagreeing with other people's opinion is not the same as being a bigot. If that was the case then there would be a lot of Catholics who could be called bigotted for their views on the Church. Also while William Donohue has aligned himself with the Republican party through his Cafeteria brand of Catholicism, he does not now, or has he ever spoken for the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is a very big Tent and the Catholic League occupies a very small part of that tent. The last time I checked it was the Pope and his Bishops who speak for the Catholic Church. God bless

Joe Murray
US Convener
Rainbow Sash Movement