On February 6, the Catholic League demanded that presidential hopeful John Edwards fire two recently hired anti-Catholics who had joined his team: Amanda Marcotte as Blogmaster and Melissa McEwan as the Netroots Coordinator. He chose to fire them, then rehire them. After we exposed another anti-Christian screed by Marcotte—written only three days after Edwards had assured everyone that this would not happen again—she was forced to quit. She blamed Bill Donohue as she waltzed out the door. The next day, McEwan also resigned.
Writing on the Pandagon blogsite on December 26, 2006, Amanda Marcotte wrote that “the Catholic church is not about to let something like compassion for girls get in the way of using the state as an instrument to force women to bear more tithing Catholics.”
On October 9, 2006, she said that “the Pope’s gotta tell women who give birth to stillborns that their babies are cast into Satan’s maw.” On the same day she wrote that “it’s going to be bad PR for the church, so you can sort of see why the Pope is dragging ass.” And on June 14, 2006, Marcotte offered the following Q&A: “What if Mary had taken Plan B after [here she described the Virgin Birth with vulgar sexual terms],” to which she offered the reply, “You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology.”
On November 21, 2006, Melissa McEwan wrote on the website AlterNet that “some of Christianity’s most prominent leaders—including the Pope—regularly speak out against gay tolerance.” On November 1, 2006, on her blog Shakespeare’s Sister, she referred to President Bush’s “wingnut Christofascist base” when lashing out against religious conservatives.
On February 21, 2006, she attacked religious conservatives again, this time saying, “What don’t you lousy [expletive] understand about keeping your noses out of our britches, our beds, and our families?” Currently, the very first entry under “Greatest Hits” on her website (where she brags about being appointed to Edwards’ campaign) is titled something so filthy we cannot in good conscience reprint it here.
Our initial news release was easy on Edwards: “John Edwards is a decent man who has had his campaign tarnished by two anti-Catholic vulgar trash-talking bigots. He has no choice but to fire them immediately.”
After Marcotte resigned, we issued a news release demanding that McEwan either quit or be forced out. It didn’t take long.
