What were two major marches and a campaign in January about?
Women’s March on DC, March for Life, Human Trafficking Awareness.
None of these things is like the other, except that for the marches, hundreds of thousands of women and male sympathizers and advocates, of all ages, descended on Washington DC within a week of each other. While the effort to combat human trafficking was a month long awareness campaign. They got varying degrees of news coverage, and had core commonality: women.
And that tied them together in a ‘what’s wrong with this picture’ snapshot of division and dissent in America.
An Independent Journal Review writer captures it with little text and ample photographic proof of points.
A week after the Inauguration of Donald Trump, politically active women across America could choose to make themselves heard at two major rallies revolving around women’s issues. They could attend a pro-choice, feminist march known as the Women’s March or they could wait one week and attend the 44th annual pro-life, March for Life.
Some lucky few, such as myself, were able to attend both.
How were they different? She supplied ample proof in the photographs that they were diametrically opposite.
Take a look for yourself, perhaps you will agree.
The photos are lined up according to categories, and each type had comparative color photos to illustrate the point:
Young adults at both marches (photos) Examples of inclusion (photos) Signs at both marches (photos) Attire (photos) Speakers (photos) Men (photos)
The main reason for the 1st annual women’s march (photos) The Main reason for the 44th march for life (photos)
Then she concluded:
“Only one march persuaded me to attend again.”
Her reason was obvious, and made abundantly clear. (I don’t link to the article intentionally. Some of the graphics are vulgar and terribly undignified to the women and men who chose to portray themselves and make their graphic statements as they did. I choose not to make such disgrace more accessible.)
A writer who attended the March for Life turned up this past week in First Things with a first hand account that made admissions not often heard but painfully accurate in their incisive truths.
The voices proclaiming the “Forty-Fourth Annual March for Life” seemed to be celebrating an anniversary, not observing four-and-a-half decades of failure. If there was mourning at this event, it was hidden behind the banners and posters, behind the colorful sweatshirts of school groups, behind the cheers and prayers of the friendly crowds…
“This is the generation that will end abortion!” the speakers exclaim, every year. And every following year the marchers return, with equal enthusiasm and good cheer, as our national shame grows one year deeper.
But this year there was some justification for the enthusiasm. For the first time, a vice president visited the march, and the president tweeted his full support. One did not need to be a Trump supporter to applaud the administration’s reiterated promises to defund Planned Parenthood and appoint pro-life justices…
A week earlier, the Women’s March had formally committed itself to the abortion license, and anti-abortion women marching against Trump had found themselves heckled and marginalized. But at the March for Life, no efforts were made to police the ideology of the marchers. Feminists for Life, some stalwart Democrats for Life, and a pregnant woman carrying the quixotic poster: “End Abortion: Abolish Capitalism” walked side by side with the #MAGA caps and monarchists. All political differences faded in a cause greater than any government.
Since we must have a government, those of us who oppose abortion will listen to Trump’s promises. We will hope that he keeps them. But the enthusiasm I saw at the march last Friday, the cheerful and confident faces, was not the result of any recent election. It has been there for years, and will be as long as the fight against abortion continues.
And that will be for a while, since the major setbacks Planned Parenthood and the entire abortion industry and its backers suffered in Election 2016, in addition to the increase of common sense abortion restriction laws, and the undercover investigative series of videos revealing the marketing of baby body parts, has – somehow – helped the abortion giant mount a massive fundraising campaign. And use those funds and that marketing campaign push back against the federal government redirecting taxpayer funds away from abortion providers and toward federally qualified, comprehensive women’s health clinics.
All of which is aided by complicit big media, whose style books don’t allow for the ‘pro-life’ designation and haven’t for years. Or decades.
NPR is a good example.
The New York Times has plenty of examples, from this article using ‘anti-abortion march’ (as opposed to the Women’s March on Washington) in the headline of an article that opens with the words “For opponents of abortion…”
Which, interestingly, this NYT article did only slightly differently, using the headline ‘Abortion Foes Aim to Compete With Turnout for Women’s March’. Which also opens with the words “Opponents of abortion…” (And, note to NYT staff writers: The March for Life just held its 44th annual event, swelling each year into higher numbers of young activists joining the faithful annual attendees, making the whole event hundreds of thousands strong, and not competing with anybody. Though that was a revealing claim.)
And then there’s this post-March report in the Times declaring that “Pence Tells Anti-Abortion Marchers That ‘Life is Winning’, and again opening the article with the words “Abortion opponents…”, and used that wording in the text to talk about “opposition to abortion” to define a huge swath of America committed for four decades and growing, by what they oppose, and not propose.
Just saying. It’s so entrenched, so ingrained, so obvious, the bias.
But look who did that. This little blog post, off the beaten track of big media websites and spinoff blogs, written by a Dominican Brother to share experiences in the Dominican priory which happened to be situated just off the Mall of Washington and close to massive crowds assembled there for the Women’s March.
There were not enough restrooms set up for the Women’s March that took place in Washington, DC, the day after the presidential inauguration. I found this out while visiting the Dominican priory on the southern side of the National Mall, where I saw many people from the March looking around for a restroom. Observing the desperation of those outside, some friars kindly offered to let a dozen marchers use the public restrooms in the priory. But, unexpectedly, hundreds of people quickly formed a line seeking relief.
While I was interested in helping those in need, this small act of mercy became a source of anxiety. Not only was a large crowd descending on the priory, but with the people came many disagreeable signs, shirts, and hats, some of which had messages that were anti-Catholic, pro-abortion, vulgar, or even pornographic. Nevertheless, those carrying or wearing these things had the courtesy to cover them up. The fervor that may have animated the large crowd did not go so deep as to make people oblivious or rude to flesh-and-blood humans.
That’s great news. Br. Martin’s account gives hope that “we can often find common ground on many issues when we take the time to speak with others.”
I have had several conversations on radio with guests who are doing this in their daily work, as I am in mine, speaking with whoever will listen and speak in turn, and engage. Anyone open to dialogue, with ideas grounded in fact and reason, and propositions backed by resources, and offers to help in any way needed, free for the taking. Especially for those in crisis, trouble, or need of any kind.
January was Human Trafficking Awareness Month. But Wednesday was ‘International Day of Prayer and Awareness Against Human Trafficking’ marked annually on 8 February, which falls on the feast of St. Josephine Bakita, who Pope Francis called an “enslaved, exploited and humiliated girl” who never lost hope, ended up a migrant in Europe, and became a nun.
Wednesday I featured a guest on radio who devotes his work to battling human trafficking and calls for “a new vigilance, a rising up, particularly of men who will love incredibly and sacrifically,” It was Australian musician Joel Smallbone, lead actor of PRICELESS, the top independent film on launch weekend last October, dramatically dealing with the issue of human trafficking in what turns out to be a drama about heroic love and sacrifice. Joel and his brother, Luke Smallbone, head the Grammy Award-winning band for KING & COUNTRY, and are releasing the film on DVD and On Demand February 14th from Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, in time for Valentine’s Day.
Joel explains it’s a love story that emphasizes the value of women, building a movement on the “idea of respect and honor in relationship and women being priceless. What we’ve found in our beliefs as men is that people are made equal. No one is a commodity and everyone deserves to be loved and loved well.”
He told me that “women are being objectified for their body or their looks, but not loved for their inherent beauty,” and he called this “a blatant ideology” that unfortunately, enslaves so many people in America and the world.
I thought of those in the Women’s March in January, who marched through the streets of DC in costumes made to appear as ‘women’s private parts’, female genitalia, and the signs with vulgar messages. And wondered how they could not realize how they degraded themselves and other women, objectifying them and playing right into the “blatant ideology” of women as commodities.
As Br. Martin showed, we’ve got to try to speak with each other, and find common ground.
