David Brooks is concerned

Peggy Noonan is concerned

Gary Bauer is in deep denial

Saxby Chambliss coughs up a non-sequiter

Rush Limbaugh knows nothing

Limbaugh flails

Limbaugh longs for women to “bow down”

Limbaugh resorts to lying about his initial nonsense

And now for the weirdest anti-gay marriage argument

On this episode of Reality Cast, I’ll be talking to Martha Bailey about her research showing how family planning access benefits families and children. The Supreme Court hears arguments about same-sex marriage, and Rush Limbaugh wildly misinterprets a Beyonce song, not that he’ll admit it.

If you’re as tired as the ridiculous debate over whether women are funny as I am, you’ll appreciate this clip from a this Showtime documentary “Why We Laugh: Funny Women”.

• funny *

There’s a direct correlation between how unfunny a man is and how little he thinks of women’s ability to be funny, I’ve found.

*********

I don’t cover gay rights that much on this podcast, even though it’s part of the greater constellation of sexual liberty issues, because there are so many other great podcasts that cover the issue in-depth. That said, the Supreme Court listened to arguments last week regarding the Defense of Marriage Act and California’s Prop 8 , and I’d be remiss if I didn’t cover what could end up being the equivalent of Roe v. Wade for gay rights. Or at least covering the conservative reaction, which is getting downright comical as they slowly realize the tide of public opinion has turned against them and they’re never getting it back. The standard arguments against legalizing same-sex marriage have collapsed under the weight of their own bad logic, and so instead of bothering to make the same disproved claims, some conservative pundits just pretended to be concerned that gay rights were moving too fast. David Brooks trotted out that line, while making like he was trying to be helpful:

• doma 1 *

Peggy Noonan didn’t try as hard to mimic concern:

• doma 2 *

You hear that a lot, that the abortion debate isn’t about a bunch of misogynists trying to control women so much as a bunch of misogynists getting mad that a court tried to tell them that they don’t get to control women. The idea is by saying, “Hey, okay, women are in fact your property and you totally have the right to force them to give birth,” the misogynists will, in their gratitude, graciously not force their female property to give birth. I’m skeptical, and prefer the more straightforward approach of recognizing and protecting all human rights.

Either way, understand that Noonan and Brooks were issuing threats: Either lay off demanding gay rights or we’ll never give them to you! I don’t think that the gay rights movement should give into these kinds of threats. At least these two admit that the tide has turned against homophobia, but Gary Bauer just is living in denial. He claimed the public opposes gay marriage, and this happened:

• doma 3 *

He then went on to try to argue that the anti-gay side losing in four states in November was somehow secretly a win. He’s lost the plot, not that he ever really had it. Sen. Saxby Chambliss has reacted to the whole thing by not even acknowledging the changing landscape, but just sticking to old school homophobia.

• doma 4 *

I do like the notion that all laws should be determined strictly by what you personally would do. I will never marry Saxby Chambliss, so I guess marriage to him should also be banned by that measure.

*********

insert interview

*********

Rush Limbaugh has once again shot himself in the foot with his obsessive, over-the-top misogyny and his obsession with attacking feminists. The latest idiocy started with a bizarre rant about Beyonce’s new song “Bow Down”. The song is basically a kiss-off to her haters, which is a fairly typical genre of song in hip-hop, but for some reason, Limbaugh read it as an ode to female submission.

• beyonce 1 *

This is a line I heard a lot when I was younger, as conservative men would claim that it’s all cute that I think women are equal, but I’d grow up and want a man and would give up this silly feminism stuff. Now that I’m in my 30s, they’ve given that up. But this belief persists that women’s desperation for male approval will out and we’ll be forced, forced I tell you, to accept our roles as a servant class to men. So much so that Limbaugh insists that Beyonce’s new song must be about how women should submit to men. The problem is that this is what the lyrics actually say.

• beyonce 2 *

Despite being completely wrong, Limbaugh gloated about Beyonce’s supposed comeuppance and how she’s learned to submit blah blah.

• beyonce 3 *

She says she’s not just someone’s little wife and don’t be confused about that. So quite literally the opposite of Limbaugh’s wishful thinking. But he’s never admitted he’s wrong in his life, so watching him try to rationalize being so obviously wrong in the most clear-cut way possible has been quite entertaining. First of all, he claimed to be a victim of evil liberals and their evil strategy of pointing it out when you said something objectively wrong.

• beyonce 4 *

He’s a victim because he basically lied to quote-unquote low information voters, and got caught. How that’s holding up a mirror is hard to really understand. Still, the people making fun of how he got the song 100% wrong continued, and he tried another attempt to do anything but admit that he didn’t listen to it before pontificating on how it was supposedly an ode to female submission.

• beyonce 5 *

 

So he’s now claiming that he totally knew it was a feminist song from the get-go, and he’s claiming that the attacks are because he opposed the feminism of it. Okay, a refresher of what he said:

• beyonce 1 *

So, in sum: Rush Limbaugh was too lazy to listen to Beyonce’s new song before he praised it for being an ode to female submission. When he was alerted to the fact that it’s actually a celebration of female independence, he pretended not to hear, then claimed to be a victim by the meanie heads who corrected him, and now is pretending that he was attacking it for its feminism all along. Maybe Limbaugh should lay off the relentless attacks on women. It just seems to blow up in his face when he goes there way too often.

*********

And now for the Wisdom of Wingnuts, and now for the weirdest argument you’ll hear against gay marriage edition. This is Christian right TV host Matthew Hagee:

• hagee *

Gosh, if only the Soviets had thought of that instead of engaging with a nuclear arms races with the U.S. Seriously, this argument only works if you assume that if women have a chance to marry women, they will not only stop marrying men, but will abandon the practice of childbirth altogether. How crappy are these right wing Christian husbands if they think that’s actually a legitimate concern?