Clearing up Some Misconceptions
It’s been a week since radio personality Rush Limbaugh
issued his on-air ‘apology’ to law student Sandra Fluke, and the boycott
against his sponsors remains strong. Having followed far more media stories on
the topic than I’d wish on anyone, I’d like to devote this piece to clearing up
a few of the most common erroneous bits surrounding the controversy.
MISCONCEPTION 1: Literally
hundreds of news stories have cited Rush’s use of the words “slut” and “prostitute”
as the capital offense that has galvanized the U.S. female population – as
though our delicate ears should not have to endure such foul filth. Indeed,
Rush’s own apology references only his “poor choice of words” and candidate Mitt
Romney reinforced that sentiment with his “not the words I would’ve chosen” statement
(translation: I agree with the message, if not the delivery).
TRUTH: While it’s
true that the words weren’t nice ones – weren’t words to which any women should
be subjected in a civil society – there were so many offensive aspects to the
crude and bullying attack, it’s difficult to know where to begin. First and
foremost was the fact that Ms. Fluke was publicly assailed over the course of
three days for doing nothing more than performing a civic duty on behalf of all
women (not to mention the other fact that all women who have ever used birth control were dragged
into the unwarranted assault). Other offenses are covered under the next
misconceptions:
MISCONCEPTION 2: Sandra
Fluke testified in advocation of the recreational use of birth control for
herself and her college ‘fluzy’ friends.
TRUTH: This one
really “grinds my gears” (to steal an idiom from Peter Griffin) because it
addresses several of my journalistic pet peeves. First, it illustrates the deliberate
mischaracterization by Mr. Limbaugh of the truth; I find it hard to believe he
chose to rail about Ms. Fluke for three days without either listening to her
testimony or reading its online transcript. HE LIED in an extremely calculating
manner for what purpose? To make his listeners believe that the President
supports the tax-payer subsidized and evil sexual recreation of women via the
means for them to engage in fornication without the consequence of pregnancy? Second,
it shows how eager the right wing is to embrace the “truth” as spewed by Mr.
Limbaugh rather than discovering the actual facts themselves. Countless crude
cartoons, nasty tweets, and vulgar Facebook posts about Sandra Fluke – many by
notables who should’ve known much, much better – have polluted the Internet,
and either their authors chose not to educate themselves, or have followed in
the wake of Limbaugh and sought to purposefully mislead others. Ms. Fluke’s
testimony (approximately 1,600 words) can be found here: http://www.buzzfeed.com/boxofficebuz/transcript-of-testimony-by-sandra-fluke-48z2
For those short of time, I’ll sum it up: Ms. Fluke was
advocating for the non-partisan
medical advice of the Institute of Medicine. She was advocating for the critical health needs that birth control
provides many women. She was speaking not
on behalf of herself, but on behalf of all women who work for a religiously-affiliated
employer or attend a religiously-affiliated higher education institute. She cited
numerous cases of medical issues addressed by birth control, including
polycystic ovarian syndrome and endometriosis. Never once in her testimony did she advocate for birth control for
the purposes of recreational sex, for either herself or any of the women she was
representing.
MISCONCEPTION 3: Sandra
Fluke testified in advocation of tax-paid
birth control.
TRUTH: The only
people who believe this whopper are people who obviously don’t follow the news
(aside from the slanted ‘news’ they may receive from Rush). For their
enlightenment, I’ll sum it up as follows: part of the new healthcare
legislation required employers to provide reproductive health coverage for
women as a part of employee-paid insurance
plans (approximately half of U.S. states already require this). Religious
institutions – primarily Catholic – that don’t sanction birth control but do
employ or educate hundreds of thousands of women, felt that this requirement
infringed on their freedom to deny contraception because of the religious
belief that birth control is sinful (this belief, based primarily on an obscure
part of the Book of Genesis, will be covered in a future blog). At any rate,
Ms. Fluke’s testimony had absolutely NOTHING to do with taxpayer-funded
insurance plans – she was advocating for employee- and student-paid insurance
plans to provide this medical coverage for women, regardless of religious
affiliation. (And here’s an interesting side note: an estimated 10%-20% of the
money that goes into college student-paid plans, religious or otherwise, is used
to treat football injuries.)
The other misconceptions surrounding this controversy run
far and wide: How “Fluke-Gate” is a left-wing conspiracy, how liberals are
trying to suppress Limbaugh’s right to his freedom of speech, how students who
are elitist enough to attend law school should have no trouble paying for their
own birth control, how the more sex a women has the more birth control pills
she needs to take, etc., etc., etc.
For me personally, the most offensive part of the Rush
Limbaugh rant against Sandra Fluke was how quickly so many jumped on Rush’s
bandwagon, taking every foul word from his mouth as gospel. Having been forced
to listen to his loony ravings growing up in a conservative family, I sincerely
believed that no one – not even the ultra-conservative – took him seriously. It
was eye-opening and dismaying to see how wrong I was. I think the most
important lesson we can all learn from the Fluke/Limbaugh controversy is how
vitally important it is to educate yourself
on the facts before aligning yourself with a bullying liar who could stand to
learn some real religious values.
UPDATE: "Rush Limbaugh Syndicator Suspends National Ads For Two Weeks
UPDATE: "Rush Limbaugh Syndicator Suspends National Ads For Two Weeks
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