By Kevin Foley
Contraception is and always has been a thorny social issue, especially for Catholics and politicians. That’s why it was puzzling when Catholic politician Rick Santorum made birth control a campaign issue.
By stupidly stumbling into the contraception mine field, Santorum discovered why, over the decades, his predecessors wisely steered clear of this highly personal, emotionally charged discussion best left to women, their partners and, if necessary, the clergy.
It all began with an Obama administration directive to Catholic institutions doing business in the secular world that said women must not be denied contraception under health insurance programs offered by these institutions. Because Catholic teaching forbids the use of birth control, a firestorm ensued stoked mainly by the far right media and GOP presidential candidates who charged the president with waging a “war on religion.”
Enter Sandra Fluke, a Methodist student attending the Jesuit Georgetown University law school who testified before a congressional committee last week. She expressed her gratitude for the new regulation, citing the financial burden students and other women at Catholic institutions shoulder in having to pay for contraception out of their own pockets.
The episode was over. Or so we thought, until Rush Limbaugh decided to weigh in last week.
Limbaugh vilely bullied Fluke on the air, calling her a “slut” and a “prostitute” who was “having so much sex” she could no longer afford it.
In the predictable uproar that followed, Limbaugh continued his vicious attacks on the 30-year-old. Not until his sponsors began leaving did Limbaugh finally blink, issuing a tepid apology while claiming liberals made him do it.
"Against my own instincts, against my own knowledge, against everything I know to be right and wrong I descended to their level when I used those two words to describe Sandra Fluke,” declared Limbaugh on the air. “That was my error. I became like them, and I feel very badly about that."
On “The View” Monday, Fluke called Limbaugh's mea culpa “meaningless” saying she is considering a slander suit against El Rushbo.
"This is about women's health," Fluke said. "That's what it's always been about for me and many Americans."
Advertisers weren’t buying Limbaugh’s apology either. Through March 6, at least 36 advertisers had pulled their spots from the show. Executive Editor Jim Cooper of Adweek told MediaMatters that Limbaugh has finally jumped the shark and probably hurt his program’s long term commercial prospects.
“I don’t think most brands, unless they have a political bias, are going to want to be part of this,” Cooper said.
More troubling is the deafening silence from the GOP presidential candidates and conservative leaders in Congress.
Most all have daughters or granddaughters but none has condemned Limbaugh’s cowardly assault on Fluke, no doubt because they’re afraid to offend the erstwhile leader of the conservative wing of their party.
Frontrunner Mitt Romney did concede they weren’t the words he would have used.
In 2008, women supported Obama by a margin of 56 percent to 43 percent for John McCain. The president has sided with women on healthcare and other issues and has been rewarded in the polls with their support this time around.
How is it, then, that the GOP could make such an egregious public relations blunder, letting its national candidates go out of their way to alienate this crucially important constituency (along with Latinos, gays, union workers, conservative Democrats, moderates, and independents)?
Why is the Republican Party following Santorum and Limbaugh off a cliff?
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Kevin
Foley is president of KEF
Media Associates, an Atlanta-based producer and distributor
of sponsored news content to television and radio media. |