What's So Funny?

CNN's Piers Morgan and his guests have a good guffaw at the expense of the hapless Mitt Romney because he quotes a Psalm (127:3-5) that tells us that children are a blessing from God and a source of happiness. This makes him a "religious fanatic" in the estimation of Prof. Lamont Hill who proudly boasts that he didn't vote for Romney for precisely this reason, presumably preferring to vote for a man who himself once demonstrated the measure of his regard for children by actually opposing legislation that would have banned the sort of thing that happened regularly in Kermit Gosnell's abattoir.

That someone would actually be made the object of ridicule on national television for offering an encomium on behalf of children should be deeply disturbing. The guests on Morgan's show apparently think that the sentiment Romney expresses is uniquely Mormon, but, of course, it's not. The notion that children are a blessing is shared by almost all Christians as well as many members of other faiths. That these media luminaries find this derisory reveals a disturbing antipathy toward traditional views of family.

In addition to Hill's fatuous remark, it was astonishing that Ms Reston opined that it was because Romney is "into his marriage" that he didn't do well with single women in the last election. Are we to infer that single women are so philistine that they would withhold their vote from someone simply because he's devoted to his wife and kids? If this really is how most single women think then we're closer to the abyss than even I had thought.

Perhaps this derision and disdain for someone who holds children in such high esteem takes us some distance toward explaining why progressives and other pro-choice folk have been reluctant to condemn what the execrable Gosnell did. There's been little outrage from liberals over revelations of Gosnell's blood bespattered clinic, the shelves of pickled babies, and the tales of grisly executions of living children because, I submit, a lot of pro-choice people really don't see anything wrong with killing a child that was supposed to be killed in an abortion anyway. Indeed, infanticide is hard to oppose once one commits to the fight to keep late-term abortions legal, as our President could probably tell you.

So liberals haven't had much to say about the Gosnell horrors - at least not compared to, say, the volcanic eruptions of anger we witnessed from them when Rush Limbaugh insulted a woman who insisted that you and I be forced to pay for her contraception - but they'll gleefully mock someone who encourages families to have lots of kids and who quotes the Bible to boot.

Romney's blend of love of family and religious piety (before an audience comprised primarily of Mormon students) is more than the sophisticates in the liberal media can bear. Their scorn is reflexive. It's odd, when one thinks about it, that they make a hero out of NBA player Jason Collins for shouting from the housetops that he's gay, as if anyone other than President Obama - who felt impelled to call him to congratulate him on his entirely gratuitous announcement - really cares, but they seek to humiliate a man who has repeatedly demonstrated genuine character and virtue throughout his life. They laugh at him precisely because he prizes his wife, his children, and his faith.

I'm afraid that video clip, more than anything else, reveals four very shallow and pathetic souls. It's terribly sad.