Faithful Democrats
As Eduardo Penalver at Commonweal argues, Bill Donohue — a one-man outrage show — is probably not the best guy to be out policing blogs for civility.
Eduardo Penalver over at Commonweal has a nice commentary on the Edwards campaign's recent blogosphere-related troubles:
"According to the NY Times:
were criticized Tuesday by a Catholic group for posts they had written
elsewhere on the Internet. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic
League for Religious and Civil Rights, demanded that Edwards fire
Amanda Marcotte and Melissa McEwan. ''John Edwards is a decent man who
has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic, vulgar,
trash-talking bigots,'' Donohue wrote in a statement. ''He has no
choice but to fire them immediately.' The Edwards campaign declined to
comment. McEwan and Marcotte did not respond to e-mails requesting a
response. Donohue cited posts that the women made on blogs in the past
several months in which they criticized the pope and the church for its
opposition to homosexuality, abortion and contraception, sometimes using profanity.
"Sometimes using profanity? Get around the blogosphere much? Lots of
interesting things here. First, the headline of the article in the
Times is 'Catholics Slam Bloggers Hired By Edwards.' This is true as
far as it goes. Donohue is a Catholic, although I'm not sure the use of
the plural to describe his one-man outrage show is technically correct.
Second, it's interesting that Donohue thinks Edwards is a stand-up guy.
Let's see if that attitude survives should Edwards win the primary.
Third, Donohue is probably not the best guy to be out policing blogs
for civility. After all, this is the person who said the following:
'Who really cares what Hollywood thinks? All these hacks come out there. Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it. … Hollywood likes anal sex. They like to see the public square without nativity scenes. I like families. I like children. They like abortions. I believe in traditional values and restraint. They believe in libertinism.'
"Not only is he an embarrassment who obviously doesn't hold himself to
the same standards he holds for others, but his judgment of what counts
as anti-Catholic is, to say the least, seriously suspect, and has a
tendency towards, shall we say, ideological selectivity.
"Finally, as
much as it pains me to say it, I think Donohue may have a point in this
case. The blog posts mentioned in the story did speak of a deep-seated
hostility to the Church as an institution. For example, one post
described in the article said the following:
girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women
to bear more tithing Catholics,'' Marcotte wrote on the blog Pandagon
on Dec. 26.
"Besides being inaccurate (how many Catholics actually tithe?), I think
Marcotte's post goes beyond simply criticizing the Church's positions
on contraception, etc. on the merits and attacks the institution as a
whole in ways that resonate with traditionally anti-Catholic rhetoric
from the old days. There are plenty of substantive grounds on which to
criticize the Church's position on contraception without resorting to
rhetoric that consiously aims to offend."
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