Amanda Marcotte is an anti-religion bigot. Plain and simple. Although she has chosen to use Catholicism as her particular punching bag, her disgusting rants can be equally applied to general Christian beliefs (Catholic, EO, Mormon and Protestant) as well as … Muslim beliefs! Remember, we also acknowledge the virgin birth, the miracles of Jesus (PBUH), and the holiness of his mother.

I suspect that as Catholicism is so organized and highly visible in society that it makes a much easier target than say Presbyterianism or Methodism. At the same time, her defenses of her positions are ludicrous and intellectually disingenous. She claims that she is a satirist and doesn’t truly mean to insult Catholics (and also insert Christians and Muslims here, too). I find that hard to believe, especially as that is the very defense that Michael Moore used to cover his Bowling For Columbine and Fahrenheit 9/11 flicks.

Satire requires that a writer walk a very fine line and extremely few people in history have demonstrated the balance necessary. Most satirists become mere ranting hacks like Marcotte and Moore and are deeply incensed when anyone questions their “art.” They want the best of both worlds, however, as they expect to be appreciated as satirists (and avoid the condemnation that would be in store for them if people took their words literally) and they also expect to be taken seriously enough to affect policy debate. Sorry, you can’t have it both ways. Honestly, satire as a form of political expression is best left alone as its pitfalls are many. A much more effective method of political expression would be actual dialogue, of the give and take sort.

Marcotte could simply have said, “Hey, I hate Catholicism,” and then listed her specific grievances. Heck, it worked for Martin Luther. Instead, she choose to use the foulest language possible, along with shallow caricatures of personalities and beliefs so that she could make herself feel better. Now that people are calling her on it, she has to take the greatest possible offense, because we have invaded her personal “comfort zone.” Her bigotry is the foundation of her beliefs and personality and the fact that those things are being challenged represents a direct psychological threat to her. Is it any wonder that she has taken to victimology and hurling blows left and right against all imagined oppressors?

Were she a mature, psychologically balanced person, she would acknowledge that her beliefs are biased and that her work is an accurate reflection of those beliefs, not simply poor satire. She should then have the courage to confront her challengers in an open, honest dialogue with her objections to their beliefs. That is how rational conversation occurs. Somehow, though, I just don’t see this happening.

Very funny.

However, I admit reflecting early in the film that a world without kids would have one major benefit–that we wouldn’t get all kinds of crappy laws shoved down our throats with the justification “FOR THE CHILDREN.” Yes, thinking that does make me a bad person.

One of the other things that impressed me about the film was that it was political but it didn’t seem to have a particular axe to grind. However, I suspect that many viewers were only too happy to bring their own axes. And that’s OK; we all do that to some degree. Marcotte’s axe-grinding is just a lot louder and more obvious than most.

And that’s not limited to the left! Check the note about the film at Libertas, and particularly the comments, for some old-fashioned right-wing axe grinding. Comment #16 is particularly awesome.