So, it’s Saturday morning. Here I sit, drinking a cup tea in my fleece pajamas, cozy on the couch with my laptop, surfing the ‘net, when all of a sudden… Are you in the mood to get riled up? zOMG me too!
I know it’s bad to read any piece of news related to Rush Limbaugh. It is guaranteed to raise your blood pressure significantly (“urge to kill rising…”). On Friday, Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke received a telephone call from President Obama, telling her not to take Limbaugh’s calling her a prostitute to heart. Oh yes, get ready.
At a hearing at Georgetown about health care coverage of contraception at religious institutions, Fluke spoke about the high cost of contraception and about their importance to women’s health. Limbaugh made these comments about Fluke’s testimony:
What does it say about the college coed Susan [sic] Fluke, who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex? What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex.
She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex. What does that make us? We’re the pimps.
The johns, that’s right. We would be the johns—no! We’re not the johns. Well—yeah, that’s right. Pimp’s not the right word.
Can you believe it? Can you fucking believe it! Then, after a public outcry against these comments, he responds with:
So, Ms. Fluke and the rest of you feminazis, here’s the deal: If we are going to pay for your contraceptives and thus pay for you to have sex, we want something for it. And I’ll tell you what it is. We want you to post the videos online so we can all watch.
…. I’m not questioning her virtue. I know what her virtue is. She’s having so much sex that she’s going broke!
This is jaw-dropping, shocking stuff. This is hate-speech. How is he still allowed to voice an opinion about anything? Oh wait, I forgot. He’s actually aligned with Republican politics. Reproductive rights belong only to those who can afford them. ”‘She’s going broke!’ — that’s what makes [Fluke] attackable,” says Amy Davidson in The New Yorker. ”The real target here is poor women — poor families.” So, while Limbaugh’s bullshit might seem extreme, this sort of slander really isn’t anything new.