In Defense of Joy Behar, Part II: Fem-enemies, Persist!

Nowadays in Trumplandia, there’s a price “sassy” women must pay for using humor against the Trump Administration. Any female who engages in wisecracks, quips, puns, lame humor, or amusing observations will now be considered a fem-enemy. And fem-enemies will be silenced with swift and unjust retributions. Jokes don’t even have to be uproariously funny, either. Start kidding about The Great Leader and his cohorts will spring into action.

Never mind that POTUS #45 is a one-man Tweetstorm who revels in publicly humiliating and denouncing citizens in the most vile ways imaginable. Never mind that he’s completely uncensored in both behavior and verbal diarrhea. His hit list of enemies — and fem-enemies — grows even larger as I write this op-ed. And that’s OKAY with everyone? Why, yes. Seems perfectly acceptable for most Republicans, anyway.

The ol’ GOP Double Standard rides again.

Recently, Alt-right hell broke loose on stand-up comic/TV personality Joy Behar of ABC’s “The View.” Trumpatrollers at Fox Nooz, ABC, The Disney Corp and its shareholders, Trump’s trolls and base — AND, especially, Vice President Mike Pence, Trump’s second in command — all declared war on Joy Behar.

After she made quips and commentary about Pence during a discussion on the morning show, the smears began. Behar was falsely accused of saying religion was a mental illness, and that anyone who was a Christian — like Mike Pence — was mentally ill. NOT TRUE.

For more background information and specific quotes on this matter, I urge you, dear readers, to go back to Part I of “In Defense of Joy Behar.” I posted it on Sunday, March 18, 2018, in The Richfield Patch, hoping that factual information and simple accuracy in describing events might make a national comeback. Unfortunately, I was too late.

Once social media, Fox commentary, and other online Nooz get a foothold, it’s already too late. Once they get going, it becomes about impossible to separate fact from fiction. As individual media outlets, they’re silly-sleazy. Together, though, they’re invincible.

So what does that mean? That advertising dollars always trump freedom of speech? Or that Trump can do and say whatever he wants but women who challenge him must be silenced?

It means people — especially women on his fem-enemies list — must do anything and everything to keep their jobs, paychecks, benefits, and reputation by apologizing. And apologizing and apologizing for something “bad” they allegedly said or did when they never said or did anything bad or wrong in the first place!

It also means that, when it comes to facts behind news stories, the media will gladly forego accurate information and replace it with “alternative facts” provided by the White House & Corporate America cohorts.

Conspicuously featured in their narration was Mike Pence’s elevation from mere mortal VEEP to undisputed spiritual leader and universal spokesman for Christianity at large. It’s an undeserved and presumptuous promotion that makes no sense whatsoever. It’s also an ascension to power that violates the Constitution he swore to respect and defend. Unfortunately, the media carelessly neglected two major problems with Pence’s self-proclaimed, self-serving role.

* First of all, as Vice President of The United States, a nation of over 300 million Americans, Pence is supposed to be working for everyone — even those who aren’t Christians. America includes Jews, Muslims, Agnostics, Atheists, Pagans, and more…So it’s both unrealistic and unconstitutional for him to start pontificating about Christianity when he’s not a pontiff, he’s just an elected public official who’s supposed to represent everyone.

Second, and more problematic than Pence’s legal and official Constitutional constraints, is the nature of Christianity itself. There are so many different sects and denominations of Christianity in this country that it’s virtually impossible for just one person to faithfully represent all of them and interpret the doctrines of each and every denomination.

Sure, all Christians love and accept Jesus Christ and want to emulate him in various ways. But the ways they go about realizing that — their approach, their ideology, even theology — varies from church to church. In other words, there are many mansions in His Kingdom, but a whole lot of different housing projects on the way to God’s High-Rise in the Sky. Pence should have known better.

(Different Christians have different ideas, Mike. You should know that.)

Sacred doctrines of the Mormons might clash with the teachings of Christian Scientists. Or Baptists. Or Seventh Day Adventists. Lutheranism might not interest Episcopalians at all. Unitarians might shrug off the rites of the Greek Orthodox Church. And the Quaker and Amish and Evangelicals might collectively yawn during the transubstantiation at a Roman Catholic mass.

So which Christian denomination has the right approach to worshipping Jesus Christ? And if they all do, why do they all have so many radically different approaches to honoring and praising the same deity? Who knows?

Certainly not Mike Pence.

Personally, I don’t care which God he worships or which church he attends. His life, his choice. As an American, he has that right. It’s his business. But whenever anyone sets himself up as some judgmental expert on religions, out comes a heapin’ helpin’ of hypocrisy on the side.

In Pence’s case, he set himself up to be this holier-that-thou defender of Christianity, after turning his back on his own religion. While he was defending Christianity against the evil Joy Behar, he forgot to defend his own faith — the religion his soul embraced when he came into the world.

Mike Pence was baptized and raised a Catholic.

As a member of the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church, he must have sworn at some time in his life to defend and uphold its teachings. So he must have been familiar with the doctrine about Baptism leaving this indelible character or mark on his soul.

According to the Church, the sacrament of Baptism ( like Confirmation and Holy Orders) leaves an indelible mark on the soul — one that can NEVER be erased. Once a Catholic, always a Catholic. Nothing but nothing can ever remove this indelible character. Ever. That, dear readers, remains an important doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.

And hey, don’t get snotty with me about that. I didn’t make it up. It’s an actual, bona fide teaching of the Catholic Church. It’s a belief that Catholics accept and value — except for Pence.

According to the teachings of his own church, Pence’s soul has already been indelibly marked CATHOLIC, not Protestant, not Evangelical. It’s a done deal, in other words. That’s what this Church teaches.

Of course, ordinarily I never would have even thought about it, wrote about it, or brought it up. But Mike Pence did. His own actions invited interest on the subject. Whenever you start acting like a religious expert, your own religious practices (and beliefs) are going to be scrutinized. It comes with the territory of being a self-proclaimed religious authority.

When it comes to his own personal religious history, though, Pence doesn’t like to discuss it much. The only thing he’ll say is that he didn’t really become a Christian until he was in college. Like, Catholics aren’t Christians?

The fact that he doesn’t seem to understand that Catholics are Christians shows how little he knows. Without a good handle on faith and theology he has no business proclaiming himself as J.C.’s right-hand man. Or acting as spokesman for all Christians.

How is it that the Catholic Church believes he’s renounced the one, true faith while other Christian churches — ESPECIALLY HIS OWN — believe he’s one of the “true faithful?” How do you reconcile this contradiction of belief among fellow Christians?

Well, you can’t You can’t because both opposing sides are invoking their own respective beliefs. And whatever you believe, you’re right. End of story.

Come to think of it, this big religious brouhaha with Joy Behar doesn’t sound like it’s about religion at all. It sounds like yet another political ploy by Trump, Inc. to squash the free speech of any woman who opposes POTUS #45. This time, Pence got to handle the headlines and the mea culpas, but he also got to show how little he really knew about true forgiveness and reconciliation.

Not only did Pence expect — no, demand — an apology from Behar, he actually politicized the whole thing by appearing on FOX NOOZ and gloating about it!

“I felt it was important that I defend the faith of tens of millions of Americans against that kind of slander. And I did so,” Pence said. “And you know, I give Joy Behar a lot of credit. She picked up the phone. She called me. She was very sincere, and she apologized and one of the things my faith teaches me is grace; forgive as you’ve been forgiven.”

Then he also informed FOX interviewer Sean Hannity that he’d told her how crucial it was to apologize to everyone (and to seek forgiveness, no doubt, from everyone) who was offended by what she did. And said.

Such pseudo-sanctimony only reveals his ignorance about religion, but hey, ignorance has never stopped anyone from appearing on FOX NOOZ before. Why should it bother St. Mike?