Fluke No Fluke



Rush Limbaugh keeps on going.     No one expected him to apologize for his remarks about Sandra Fluke, the Georgetown University law student who testified, before a hearing convened by Nancy Pelosi, about the Department of Health and Human Services' policy regarding contraceptive coverage under the Affordable Care Act.      And he didn't disappoint.

On Wednesday, it was

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.

On Thursday, Rush responded to criticism of his initial comments by remarking

'Without insurance coverage, contraception, as you know, can cost a woman over $3,000 during law school,' Fluke told the hearing. ... That’s a thousand dollars a year of sex -- and, she wants us to pay for it." Now, what does that make her? She wants us to buy her sex. She wants us to pay for her sex, and she went to a congressional committee to close the sale....

Folks, for all the hilarity that's contained in what's going on here...  Here's a woman exercising no self-control. The fact that she wants to have repeated, never-ending, as often as she wants it sex -- given.  No question about that.  Of course, it's normal.

After the report that a supportive President Obama called Ms. Fluke, Rush on Friday commented

Your daughter appears before a congressional committee and says she's having so much sex, she can't pay for it and wants a new welfare program to pay for it.

Obviously, attacking (without evidence) on radio a young woman whom one does not know for being a "slut" or "prostitute" is tasteless and misogynistic.        So is characterizing Fluke as someone who is "happily presenting herself as an immoral, baseless, no-purpose-to-her-life woman" who "wants all the sex in the world."        Of course, she is not a prostitute, never implied that she ever has been paid for sex, and Rush Limbaugh has no evidence that she is or has.     Nor has she advocated anyone being paid for sex.     But the issue has been raised:   is Sandra Fluke a "slut" who has inferred she wants that sex "whenever she wants it, all the time?"

I don't know Fluke any better than Rush Limbaugh but apparently unlike him, I have read her testimony.     And as you can see here, Sandra Fluke said this about her own sex life:

Nothing.    Fluke said nothing about her own sex life, let alone anything to suggest that she is sexually active.   Rush may imagine that she has, but as anyone who listens to him regularly and is not blinded by his/her status as a "dittohead" realizes, Limbaugh has an unhealthy obsession with sex.    Fluke summarized the reason for her testimony as

When I look around my campus, I see the faces of the women affected by this lack of contraceptive coverage.    And especially in the last week, I have heard more and more of their stories. On a daily basis, I hear yet from another woman from Georgetown or from another school or who works for a religiously-affiliated employer, and they tell me that they have suffered financially and emotionally and medically because of this lack of coverage.  And so, I’m here today to share their voices, and I want to thank you for allowing them – not me – to be heard.

She concluded

And even if that meant going to a less prestigious university, we refuse to pick between a quality education and our health. And we resent that in the 21st century, anyone think it’s acceptable to ask us to make this choice simply because we are women.

Many of the women whose stories I’ve shared today are Catholic women. So ours is not a war against the church. It is a struggle for the access to the health care we need.

The President of the Association of Jesuit Colleges has shared that Jesuit colleges and the universities appreciate the modifications to the rule announced recently. Religious concerns are addressed and women get the health care they need. And I sincerely hope that that is something we can all agree upon.

President Obama was right when he told Sandra that her parents have much reason to be proud of her.     And so, too, was Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia, who reminded the "Georgetown Community" that one of its own

was respectful, sincere, and spoke with conviction. She provided a model of civil discourse. This expression of conscience was in the tradition of the deepest values we share as a people. One need not agree with her substantive position to support her right to respectful free expression. And yet, some of those who disagreed with her position – including Rush Limbaugh and commentators throughout the blogosphere and in various other media channels – responded with behavior that can only be described as misogynistic, vitriolic, and a misrepresentation of the position of our student.




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