So what that she caused rancor and a pall? The facts she states are the truths about the matter. I am empowered by this. It is true and right and correct.

Brava, Anne.

Every time Anne Lamott writes for Salon, I have to brace myself for the backlash from people who believe that because she is a person of faith that she is not a "real" progressive. Maybe this will shut a few of them up.

I only wish this had not been posted on a Friday evening where it will get buried.

Dear Salon

I have enjoyed some of Annie Lamott's writing in the past. NO MORE. For the record, I am a pro-choice Catholic. The telling sentence in the article was when the moderator had to gently remind liberal people that having contempt for

those who are anti-abortion does them and society no favours. I don't think Lamott got it that she was the contemptuous narrow minded liberal he was referring to.

There is a consistency to the Catholic position of no death penalty, no abortions. However, I have chosen to be pro-choice despite my personal repugnance about abortion. When I read someone like Lamott and her absolute conviction that she is right, I think, why do I bother trying to see both sides?

Lamott shows she is narrow minded, angry, and nasty, not to mention clueless in terms of audiens and persuasion.

Not gonna read her anymore

How unfortunate that Anne, whose nerve and writing I so admire, could not express regret or sadness for the fetuses she aborted. I hope, and believe, that she has agonized for the lives she caused not to continue; it would have been appropriate to share that part of her "truth" as well. She talks about her abortions as if the decisions were, at their most difficult, "intimate" decisions, requiring the attention of her "deepest heart of hearts," whatever that means, rather than gut-wrenching or life-altering decisions. That's where she lost me, and it's where I believe she slid into self-delusion.

And for her information, not everyone who believes that we, the already born, have a solemn obligation from God to protect the "teeny weenie so-called babies — some microscopic, some no bigger than the sea monkeys we used to send away for" is a victim of "patriarchal sentimentality" unless that means being disgusted by her analogy. In which case, count me in.

I have every right to treat those who seek to control my body and restrict my rights with contempt, what religion they are does not matter to me in the slightest. Anne Lamott used an amazing amount of restraint and I admire her for what saying what many of us only wish we could say in similar situations.

The fact is, no matter how much you may wish it were different, a fetus is not a child and whether to have an abortion or not is the woman's decision and no one else's. With women's reproductive rights being threatened by the religious right on all fronts, this is not the time to be walking on eggshells.

I'd be glad to share a bag of M&Ms with Ms. Lamott any time.

I have had a growing unease about the paths trodden by Salon as of late. I have happily supported this alternative publication because I thought that the alternatives it provided were rigorous, conscientious, and necessary in today’s political environment. I must begin from the outset that I despise political hyperbole of all sorts: it cheapens one’s own argument, makes it less efficacious, and lowers the level of discourse. Progressive ideas will win in the electoral and political marketplace because the ideas are better, expressed better, and ring true to the average American. The triumph of progressive ideas is not accomplished by riffing on the established norms of a sub-segment of ideologically like-minded people. To what am I referring and what has this to do with the Broadsheet presentation about Lamont’s remarks at the Politics and Spirituality Conference? First, in neither the Broadsheet presentation nor in Lamont’s own article was there a reference to what conference Lamont attended or a link to the website of the conference for the reader to check out the tenor of the conference (http://www.sojo.net). Second, there is the impression given that Lamont ‘spoke truth to power’ when, in fact, given what is said on the conference website, this does not at all seem to be the case. There one finds people commenting how much they appreciated her alternative point of view. For example, “The 3 keynote speakers were very inspiring and engaging,” and “Anne Lamott's witness to the realities of the poor and of women in this world was an essential element of the conference. What she said during her talk and while on the panel is memorable and important.” On the message boards of the conference no one has anything but positive things to say regarding not only the right of Lamont to say what she wants but the importance of the content of her speech (and, presumably, her reply to the question about abortion) for achieving the goals of the conference, even if the majority may have disagreed with that content. This was hardly the case of arguing her point to pride of Catholic lions waiting to devour her for her perspective, in spite of the hyperbolically phrased question about abortion. My goodness, what else are we to expect of people? Lamont points out that she agrees with 90% of what Richard Rohr and Jim Wallis say and then excoriates those who, like Rohr and Wallis, see abortion as a problem (but by no means the only problem) in an unjust society. It would seem that Lamont is not satisfied to have one on board unless one’s ideological checklist corresponds exactly to hers. But, that can’t be the truth – certainly things are more complicated than that and that nuance is precisely what is lost in the hyperbolic presentation of Lamont in the LA Times piece and in Salon’s not providing any greater context.

More than anything else, Lamont’s piece seems to be a report about her response to her own emotional bogeyman in the person of a crowd “made up largely of Catholics.” She is certainly free to report the incident as she sees fit and there may well be value in that report, but it would seem responsible journalism on the part of Salon to contextualize the conference and especially the conference’s reception of her statements rather than re-presenting Lamont’s own perspective as the truth of the matter. To do less alienates people who agree substantively on 90-plus percent of the time unnecessarily. Perhaps I have a misunderstanding of Broadsheet and of Salon – in terms of a commitment to rigorous, alternative journalism - in which case my small financial support of alternative journalism is better spent elsewhere. The Broadsheet link to Lamont’s piece is by no means the only troubling journalism in Salon as of late but it is the one that, for whatever reason, most greatly focused my attention.