Religious right bearing false witness against Sandra Fluke

The religious right are attacking Sandra Fluke

For all of their talking about morality and following God's laws, religious right groups seem to throw these things out of the window when it doesn't suit their purposes, particularly the commandment about not bearing false witness.

The lgbtq community know this hypocrisy very well since we tend to be the recipients of the religious right's lying vitriol.

But now they have a new target - Sandra Fluke. Fluke, who was venomously attacked by Rush Limbaugh two weeks ago for her testimony in front of Congress regarding contraception, now have members of the religious right smearing her name.

According to Equality Matters:

Spokespersons from groups like the American Family Association, Family Research Council, Liberty Counsel and the National Organization for Marriage have come to Rush’s defense while continuing to demonize Fluke as an immoral and promiscuous “sexual anarchist.”

These groups include:

The American Family Association:

AFA’s Bryan Fischer: Fluke “Sleeping With So Many Guys That She Can’t Keep Track.” During the March 7 edition of his Focal Point radio show, American Family Association (AFA) spokesman Bryan Fischer said:

FISCHER: To think that you would have a leftist like the President of the United States saying that the parents of a woman who goes on national TV, admits that she’s sleeping with so many guys that she can’t keep track, doing it three time a day, running out of money, driving me to the poor house, and to think that parents, he’s saying that parents ought to be proud of that. You know, I just wonder if he would be proud if his daughters were doing the same thing. Would he be proud of his daughters going on national TV to say the same thing? [AFA’s Focal Point, 3/7/12]

The Liberty Counsel:

Liberty Counsel’s Matt Barber: Fluke Has A “Sexually Immoral Lifestyle,” Thinks “Sex Is Cheap And Causal.” In a March 8 column in Canada Free Press, Liberty Counsel Director of Cultural Affairs Matt Barber wrote:

Ms. Fluke recently went on Schultz’s program to criticize Limbaugh for indirectly suggesting that, in light of her admitted sexually immoral lifestyle, she was a “sl-t” (an offensive and inappropriate slang for which he has apologized).

[...]

David Burge (@iowahawkblog) of the Iowa Hawk blog summed it up nicely in a tweet: “How can you monsters talk about a $15 trillion debt at a time like this, when a brave coed has hurt lady-feelings?”

Yes, how can we focus on trillions in Obama debt, $6.00 gasoline and Islamo-fascists with nukes while a Georgetown “coed” is being denied free medication from Christians for her “Saturday night fever”?

Barber even had the nerve to tweet the following:

The National Organization for Marriage:

NOM’s Jennifer Morse: Fluke Is An Advocate Of “Sexual Anarchy.” During the March 6 edition of Lutheran Public Radio’s Issues, Etc., the National Organization for Marriage’s (NOM) Jennifer Morse said:

MORSE: She’s trying to say that nine dollars for prescription for contraceptive drugs is an untenable burden for a law student and in the absence of hormonal contraceptives, they are not intelligent enough to find condoms, which are considerably cheaper than even that. And that in the absence of finding either condoms or hormonal contraception that they’re somehow going to be stricken with pregnancy that is going to stop them from becoming academic successes. That’s the chain of logic that’s behind that appeal to the emotions and I think it’s obvious that the advocates of sexual anarchy, such as Sandra Fluke, have to stay in the realm of the emotional because they minute they get into the realm of the logical, they completely lose. They are completely illogical. [Lutheran Public Radio, Issues, Etc., 3/6/12, emphasis added]

The Family Research Council:

FRC’s Cathy Ruse: “I Understand [Limbaugh’s] Larger Point” About Fluke. In a March 6 op-ed in the Wall Street Journal, Family Research Council (FRC) Senior Fellow Cathy Ruse wrote:

What about Rush Limbaugh? I won't defend his use of epithets (for which he's apologized), but I understand his larger point. At issue isn't inhalers for asthmatics or insulin for diabetics. Contraception isn't like other kinds of "health care." Yes, birth-control pills can be prescribed to address medical problems, though that's relatively rare and the Catholic Church has no quarrel with their use in this circumstance. And the university's insurance covers prescriptions in these cases.

Still, Ms. Fluke is not mollified. Why? Because at the end of the day this is not about coverage of a medical condition.

Ms. Fluke's crusade for reproductive justice is simply a demand that a Catholic institution pay for drugs that make it possible for her to have sex without getting pregnant. It's nothing grander or nobler than that. Georgetown's refusal to do so does not mean she has to have less sex, only that she has to take financial responsibility for it herself.

It's irrelevant to ask if these people even read Fluke's testimony in which she talked about a friend with polycystic ovary syndrome and had to take contraceptive medication to combat it. The friend could not afford the medication and the insurance company wouldn't cover it because they believed the purpose of the medication was to prevent pregnancy. Without the medication, a cyst the size of a tennis ball had grown on one of her friend's ovary and it had to be removed.

The sad thing is I think that many of these so-called moral people probably did read her testimony but they don't care what it actually said.

So much for the 8th commandment of not bearing false witness. These folks should be aware of the fact that morality and values are not things that you simply talk about in order to prop up your egos. Nor can they be can turn on and off like a light switch. Either you have them or you don't. 

And judging by the way these so-called Christian people have attacked Fluke, they don't have them.