Where Fools Rush In: Commentary on Limbaugh's Faux Pas and Right's Attack on Women's Contraceptive Rights

At Alternet, Naomi Cahn and June Carbone (rightly) note that Rush Limbaugh's recent slimy, misogynistic attack on Georgetown law student Sandra Fluke proves they were correct when they argued in their book Red Families v. Blue Families (2010) that the political and religious right would eventually try to use contraception as a wedge issue "because at a symbolic level it represents the social changes they oppose . . . ."  Contraception--when women use it and expect to have access to it as routine healthcare--is shorthand for: society is going to the dogs; families are falling apart; people are becoming hypersexualized; the work ethic is going down the drain; no one salutes the flag anymore; they've taken God out of the schools; the queers are getting out of hand; children no longer obey; people are killing babies; black people expect handouts; a black socialist-Muslim president is turning America into a dictatorship;

menarelosingcontromenarelosingcontrolwhitemenarelosingcontrol, etc.

And though Rush Limbaugh may formulate these propositions in the grossest way possible, Cahn and Carbone point out that he is merely speaking out loud and with in-your-face formulations what a majority of those on the political and religious right believe and want for the nation right along with Limbaugh:

Limbaugh is not, however, an outlier in anything except rhetoric. The equation of contraception with the ability to have sex outside of marriage is central to conservative dogma. The more carefully calculated appeals work like dog whistles; Republican talking points celebrate “religious freedom,” but the coded message to the base is Limbaugh’s – we’re with you in opposing women’s sexual freedom. Last week, the Senate only narrowly defeated a Republican plan to effectively gut insurance coverage for contraception. Retiring Senator Olympia Snowe was the only Republican brave enough to vote against it.

And at Common Dreams, Amanda Marcotte carefully deconstructs the "argument" Limbaugh continues to peddle, along with his supporters in the religious and political right, even after his "apology" to Ms. Fluke: 

Worth repeating that Limbaugh continues to only detest the “sexual recreational activities” of women; Viagra coverage continues to go without a whit of criticism.  But let’s break this argument apart. First of all, Limbaugh is acting like insurance coverage of contraception is a new idea; in fact, it’s been around for decades now, so his supposition that women who use it are prostitutes really is universal to women. Second of all is his claim that “American citizens” are the ones on the hook when we’re debating private insurance coverage of contraception. Well, I suppose American citizens ARE on the hook. After all, the women using the contraception are the ones paying for it and they are American citizens. 

Conservatives keep arguing about this as if private health insurance were some monetary redistribution program. In fact, the health insurance women use to pay for these services is theirs, just as surely as their wages are theirs. Insurance you get through your employer is paid for by you through a combination of labor and money. Limbaugh’s claims that he’s paying for my contraception when I use my insurance to pay for it make as much sense as Limbaugh taking over my checking account and declaring it’s his money. It’s true that taxpayers subsidize access to contraception for low-income women through programs like Title X and Medicaid---rightly, since public health is a concern of the taxpayer---but that’s not actually the money in dispute here.

At Religion Dispatches, Sarah Posner proposes that the political and religious right have landed on contraception as their cause du jour because they recognize that they're losing the fight against the gays--contraceptive health insurance coverage for women now becomes the new shorthand for all that's wrong with the world and all that they oppose in the name of God: 

Religious opposition to gay marriage is rooted in notions of "God's design" for men and women, and for sex. If conservatives can't convince the American public that gay marriage violates those notions, they will target women who have sex using contraceptives. As nutty and antiquated as that seems, it's a reaction to being stymied. 

Opponents of same sex marriage have argued permitting marriage equality would violate their religious freedom. Losing that battle shifted their focus to making other, similarly constitutionally erroneous arguments about infringements of religous liberty. 

Republicans are on their way to losing the gay marriage fight. That's why they've picked another battle.

As the doyen and founder of American neoconservatism (and right-wing Catholic, one must never forget), William F. Buckley, once famously said, being a conservative is all about standing athwart history and yelling Stop!  Many liberals watching the battles over women's access to contraception play out in the current American election cycle are astonished that the political and religious right has chosen contraception, of all issues, and women's rights, as the line they wish to draw in the sand in 2012.

But this strategy is entirely consistent with what neoconservatism has been about for years now: never conceding a single inch to cultural changes that, for the rest of us, became commonplace (and necessary) years ago.  The war they intend to keep waging is a war against modernity itself, insofar as the latter is defined by increasing democratization of societies around the world; an extension to women of powers and privileges previously restricted to men; the inclusion of those on the socioeconomic margins in the structures of participatory democracy; and opening the doors of clubs of power and privilege to non-white human beings.

And, let's face it, these enervating wars that recur each election cycle regarding issues long since resolved for most of us are just so handy for those controlling the political and economic process in American society, since they distract us from what really ought to be occupying the center of our attention in every election cycle: the plundering of the world's resources by an elite cadre of super-rich individuals, and the subjection of the rest of us, the 99%, to a new serfdom in the brave new world they've created to serve their needs and theirs alone.