Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit?

A: You'd have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.

The joke was typical of Pandagon's satirical tone and was intended to mock a common rhetorical ploy of abortion opponents -- a hypothetical question and answer -- not to mock anyone's personal faith.

Not mock anyone's personal faith? How on earth can she possibly make that statement? Amanda Marcotte is either very ignorant of the personal faith of Catholics or legitmately an anti-Catholic bigot. Hot, white, and sticky are not adjectives I've ever heard associated with the Holy Spirit. They were chosen specifically to be jarring and offensive. Linking Catholicism futher with misogyny and reducing it to mythology only futher proves my point. She's either ignorant or a bigot.

The next time Ms. Marcotte wants to needle anti-abortion extremsits, she would be wise not to take out the shotgun when trying to kill a fly. When you insult Christian icons like Mary and the Holy Spirit, you should not be surprised that mild-mannered Catholics like myself condemn you.

I wish you had not quit.

Sounds to me like Donohue and O'reilly won.

Democrats are better people and diplomats but lately we suck at politic and "opposition research."

Perhaps we should spend more money looking at who The likes of Donohue and O'reilly are sleeping with. Or just wear loofas around our necks. Clearly honest debate is impossible.

It is telling that Amanda Marcotte did not call her article "Why I choose to quit the John Edwards campaign."

One of the central tenets of feminism is understanding that woman have the ability to make our own decisions. In fact, we demand the *right* to make choices.

Yet, Ms Marcotte *had* to quit.....as though she had no choice anywhere in the matter.

I wish I could endorse her as a First Amendment martyr. But I can't. She has demonstrated incredibly poor judgment and immaturity. Edwards' campaign had no business hiring her and should have done its homework. Yes, she has a lot of potential, but she has some growing up to do. I'd like to see her work on improving her writing skills: As Joan Walsh writes, her writing is "uneven." At best. But she's going to ride her incredibly poor judgment all the way to the bank.

I do not want to embrace this woman as a champion of the left. We need to take the high road, not fight right-wing invective with highly inflammatory left-wing invective. The reality in this country, like it or not, is that is a religious nation, and the left has NOTHING to gain from endorsing Marcotte's polemics. And no, she doesn't take responsibility for the things she said. I know a half-assed apology when I see one.

Don't waste time feeling sorry for her, I'm sure she's going to become a best-selling Ann Coulter-ish figure in the very near future.

Sorry, Amanda, but that's life. Stop whining. The personal attacks should be off-limits, but nowhere did anyone misquote you or misrepresent your position.

If you don't have the courage of your convictions, maybe you should go into another line of work.

Remember, it's a "smear" only if it's not true, but everything I read about you was true, since they were quoting your very words.

Again: stop whining. It's annoying.

True -you experienced the Right Wing smear machine first hand, and them promptly caved in and gave them exactly what they wanted. How disappointing! Are there no Democratic bloggers with spines/balls/ovum of steel to withstand the Right's constant whining? Edwards gave you the opportunity to stay on, and you choked. Seriously Amanda, I'm a fan of yours, but you should have hung in there.

I'm actually a socialist-leaning liberal. And a mixture of ELCA Lutheran and Moravian. Thanks for presuming to think you can figure me out, though. Your arrogance is a nice touch.

You are whatever you are; you didn't say, but smart money says some variant of conservative.

Wrong again, now we know how you got the name cminus.

Marcotte made a very offensive comment to Catholics, there is just no getting around that. Really offensive. Her arguments are so theologically incorrect that it made me want to laugh. As a Catholic who just sat though one of those classes, I can tell you there are much better, theologically sound reasons for arguing against the Church’s stand on birth control than the trash Marcotte wrote. When I first heard about this whole commotion, I thought Donahue was in the wrong (he usually is, and please do not assume he speaks for all devout Catholics) – until I read her post. She has the right to say whatever she wants to say, but Marcotte’s whole post was vitriolic and made Marcotte seem as though her problem was with the Church and not their stance on birth control, just like the selections from the letters posted in response to Marcotte’s article today:

From my standpoint, if the Catholic Church is going to take up an anti-science and anti-truth position, then the only pro-science, pro-truth position is going to be interpreted as anti-Catholic.

The Church is free to do what it wants. As far as anti-science, Catholics are pretty far advanced – we believe in evolution and science. But this position on birth control is nuanced, and not for the reasons you might suspect. Still, the Church is free to believe what it wants to believe and preach, and it has zero to do with you. The Church has a coherent line of thinking – they are truly pro-life – opposing the death penalty as well as abortion. They also opposed the War in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and have fought for social justice. Catholic Charities feeds a whole lot of people each day in cities across the country. And as I mentioned above, I just attended one of these classes a few months ago. There was nothing unscientific in the materials handed out, nothing untrue. Theologically unsound? Yes. But not anti-science. And, my mother took the same course back when it was the rhythm method, and while she never used the info for birth control, she did use it to identify changes in her body and cycle at various points in her life and was glad she had the knowledge.

If you're willing to stop offending us by trying to control our bodies, denying teenagers access to correct information about birth control, deeming birth control beyond the pale, denying women leadership roles, and playing the ridiculous role of persecuted victim that you have been milking for thousands of years (yes, you're victims because the rest of us don't particularly want to say "Merry Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays")...then maybe we can talk about ceasing to offend you by mentioning birth control and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the same sentence.

In this situation, the information was passed out at a meeting for pre-marital couples. No one was trying to control your body, denying teenagers anything, or talking about Christmas. The Church is free to have whoever it wants in a leadership role, and you have nothing to say about it, because you aren’t in that Church. There are plenty of female Catholics who would not accept a female priest. These were people attending a meeting they wanted to attend about their Church. Why do you care so much?