I’m glad Melissa Harris Perry will be getting her own show although I wish it was during the prime time slot.

Now if we could just get something more than the occasional token woman on the Sunday talk shows…

Speaking of the MSM, I am sure you have seen or heard about this train wreck (Foster Friess) that appeared on Andrea Mitchell’s show- Mitchell has certainly had some interesting women’s health interviews of late so at least she’s on the ball and exposing some of this nonsense. But this guy takes the cake (via Wonkette because really, Friess is deserving of Wonkette’s snark):

http://wonkette.com/464023/aspirin-has-other-exciting-off-label-use-ladies-will-want-to-know-about#more-464023

This is the brilliance of the GOP and the Right- they become so extreme that the new definition of “moderate” is way to the right of the middle. The Supreme Court became so extreme Souter and Breyer were practically radical leftists.

This total perversion of the political spectrum is why the media so willingly parrots the ridiculous line that Obama is a lefty despite the fact that he’s done little other than pander to Wall Street while expanding the worst executive power excesses of the Bush administration in the war/foreign policy area.

http://www.salon.com/2012/02/15/rep_issa_to_air_bishops_complaints/

The only possible good that could come of this political showboating is that people will see just how far the GOP and the Catholic Church are over-reaching. It also smacks of really pathetic desperation. The religious right can’t handle social evolution- gay rights, women’s rights, less rigid gender roles/ideas about family etc. and they are now lashing out at anything and everything like wounded bears.

As for the Priests and nuns you mentioned in your comment above- there is a reason no new people are entering the Catholic religious orders. It’s almost as though the Church doesn’t care and is trying to drive the nuns out, at least in the US (and focusing instead on Developing Countries where the Church has more power over people’s lives due to poverty, lack of education and entrenched gender roles).

Religious leaders of all stripes have a right to their own views, but they do not have a right to hide behind their religion when they catapult themselves over the line separating Church and State while advocating laws and policies that trample over the rights of ALL of us, irrespective of religion.

I have a friend who is a Nurse Practitioner and a Franciscan Nun and she told me she walked out of Sunday Mass this past weekend because the priest went on and on about Obama’s supposed violation of their religious freedom with respect to contraception. Now, granted, she is quite progressive, but she told me she can pray at home- she doesn’t need to go hear the same lecture every Sunday about 1) contraception is abortion and 2) the evils of gay marriage.

BTW, sort of on topic- did you hear the Vatican is undertaking a doctrinal investigation of US nuns (the women who lead each of the individual orders for Women Religious) for being too socially progressive, feminist and independent? Naturally, the Pope seems primarily concerned with 1. contraception and b. attitudes towards gay rights and gay marriage. Apparently, prior to becoming Pope, Cardinal Ratzinger was pretty obsessed with reigning in US nuns because they were too social justice minded. You can’t make this stuff up.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/04/15/pope-investigating-us-cat_n_187516.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/03/nuns-hopeful-on-us-archbi_1_n_803830.html