by Mark Morford
And then came the swell tale of sweet Judy Blume, she of tender, coming-of-age "Are you there, God?" 'tween lit fame, sending out a letter on behalf of Planned Parenthood that dared to suggest that Mother's Day might be a terrific time to make a donation, and wouldn't it be nice to help women in need on this most charming of maternal-themed days, so sayeth the woman who taught you about masturbation and hormones and unbearable teen angst when you were 12 and bepimpled and tingling in the most interesting of places?
Can you guess what happened next? Of course you can.
Yes, the desperate anti-choice groups got a hold of Blume's letter and went appropriately apoplectic, accusing her of besmirching our most beloved of soft-focus Hallmark holidays by endorsing a group that "kills babies" and eats live kittens for breakfast and oh yes also helps women get informed and take charge of their own health and sexuality lest they accidentally get pregnant and give birth to uptight right-wing zealots who never have sex.
Upshot: Blume reportedly received a flood of hate mail, verbal attacks, even death threats. Planned Parenthood, smart enough to know a hunk of invaluable PR when they see it, did the right thing by leveraging news of the harassment and reportedly received a flood of donations in response. Thanks, zealots!
It was all trifling and forgettable on its own, were it not for other recent, related developments in the same righteous vein, most notably a cute flurry of conservative Catholic outrage over the fact that Notre Dame University has invited President Obama to deliver this year's commencement address.
Obama, apparently, accepted. And then Angry Catholic God (ACG) spewed coffee through His nose.
It's true. From what I can glean, upon hearing the news, ACG made a quick collect call to numerous conservative archdiocese around the nation and woke up a very tired army of old, peevish white men who also never have sex but who fantasize more about vaginas than any gaggle of humans on the planet, and told them to rally the faithful and launch a protest against Obama's speech, clearly not realizing that most Catholics love this president and no one really cares what conservative cardinals or bishops have to say. About anything. Ever.
No matter. See, the president is pro-choice. He is also pro stem-cell research. He is also thoughtful and deeply intelligent and far, far wiser and more supportive of women and women's rights that his lug-nut misogynist predecessor, and he has a fantastically smart, outspoken, pro-choice wife to show for it. This makes him a tremendous threat to grumpy male church leaders everywhere who, as a general rule, wouldn't know a vulva from a rototiller.
But wait, there's more. Perhaps you've heard that the GOP is preparing to fight like feral cats against Obama's nomination for the Supreme Court? Perhaps you've heard that they are ready to fight regardless of who the nominee might be, because s/he will doubtlessly be -- you guessed it -- pro-choice, pro-women, or (even worse) might actually be a woman? The horror.
As a warm-up, the Republicans have already reaffirmed their inept misogyny by bogging down the nomination of Kathleen Sebelius because, of course, Sebelius dares to be both intelligent and pro-choice, and heaven forefend we have a Secretary of Health and Human Services who A) actually understands female sexuality as it functions in this millennium, and B) is a woman.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/05/13/notes051309.DTL
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