I want to thank Rush Limbaugh.  His fallacious, misogynistic, and abhorrent comments directed toward a woman’s health advocate, Sandra Fluke, tore down the curtain that has veiled the systematic attempt in this country to squelch the voice and curb the rights of all American women.  

His despicable, egregious, and vitriolic comments indicating that women’s reproductive health advocates are “sluts” and “prostitutes” not only pandered to his insecure and uneducated demographic, it also brought to light the organized effort underfoot to oppress 21^st Century American women.  

Not surprisingly, Mr. Limbaugh is not alone in his efforts to belittle and vilify us. 

In a February 2012 televised interview about contraception, the man whose website shows him as the “ Man Atop the Horse” and asks us all to “Saddle Up”, Foster Friess told Andrea Mitchell, “ In my day, the gals just put a [Bayer aspirin] between their knees and it wasn’t that costly.” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMVzaIMYuTY

He may be able to straddle a horse, but it’s very unlikely that the man behind Rick Santorum’s curtain ever found the man in the boat.

The brutal comments from Mr. Friess, Rush Limbaugh and even well known American actresses are lauded in the vitriolic blogs being posted by their minions from every hamlet and city across this great bastion of free speech.  In the shadow of Women’s History Month, we can almost hear the voices of Margaret Sanger, Katharine Houghton Hepburn, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton shrieking, “ Have we learned nothing in 100 years”?

Rush did not start this fire, he merely stoked the embers that have been smoldering  in American political culture since the Tea Party was given a venue.

Kudos to those elected officials and the President of Georgetown University, John J. Degioia, of which Ms. Fluke is a law student, who publically supported Ms. Fluke’s constitutional right to contribute to important national discourse.  Shame to those elected officials (Rep. Darrell Issa, CA-R), who front-loaded a public hearing with testosterone-rich, poorly informed representatives of part but not all of this great nation.

This political tactic to squelch the voice of American women has reached Stepford proportions.   In North Carolina, the Republican-led General Assembly engaged in “double-bunking”.   A tactic that relies on re-mapping districts to force incumbents into retirement.  In the North Carolina House 55% of Democratic women, women who fight for education, healthcare, and welfare; who fight against violence toward women; who advocate for child care and equal rights; and yes even advocate for women’s reproductive health, have been double bunked. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSbZoBJFNDc

The Democratic Convention may be held in North Carolina, but little is being done to illustrate another example of how political culture is squelching the female voice.  Is this happening in your state?  Do you know?  If not, why not?

This is more than a woman’s issue, more than a Democratic issue, it is an American issue.  One for which we all: Catholic and non Catholic, Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, urban and rural, vagina or Viagra need to scream foul play when the chosen equipment in a political game is the oppression and vilification of the American woman: today her name is Sandra Fluke. 

A name which I am sure will be remembered not just this month, but in many months to come as one of the most graceful, serene, and erudite advocates of American women.