Jesse Lee Petersen: Why are his allies quiet?

It has been six days.  Six days since Kirsten Powers "hijacked" the Sean Hannity show on Fox News to make a valiant attempt at confronting Jesse Lee Petersen and his idiot rant on his misogynistic beliefs - in a sermon, no less.  Yes, it has been six days since Sean Hannity was confronted with the issue on his show, right under his nose. 

Six days of silence. 

Well, not really silence.  Hannity, at 10:38PM EST that evening posted a short transcript of the confrontation and yet focused exclusively on the "hijacking", rather than the content of Kirsten's words, especially what she was referencing.  Jesse Lee Petersen and his allies at bondaction.org posted their own version of the events, painting Kirsten Powers as a liberal-minded woman who savagely attacked the innocent lamb, Petersen.

Nothing is farther from the truth.

The fact that Kirsten Powers had to do the deed makes me ill.  Sean Hannity, as has been reported elsewhere, was dredging up an old partisan head-fake, attempting to get the guests to argue about the fact that Obama does not deserve credit for the death of Osama Bin Laden.  Out of the blue, Kirsten confronted Petersen and Hannity, understandably, looked like a deer in the headlights. 

I understand the nature of fast segmented discussion shows and that Hannity was trying to save his show from going off the rails.  To the casual observer, it appeared that Powers had a personal vendetta against Petersen and I suspect this may have been what Hannity focused on, though his judgement was severely clouded by the fact that he sits on the board of Petersen's BOND organization.  The fact that Hannity did not dig into the accusations on his show is not at issue here. 

The problem is the six days of silence.

Worse yet, Petersen posted this misogynist rant on his own YouTube channel on March 5, 2012.  That was a full two months before he appeared on the May 1 show.  Does Fox News, especially the show that is going to be using this man as a credible pundit, not vet their guests before each and every appearance? Also, why have Sean Hannity or his handlers not done their due diligence and researched what Powers was referring to?

Or have they?

Forget about Sean Hannity for a minute.  What about others on the conservative side?  Anyone!  I don't care who steps up to the microphone and simply distances themselves from Petersen's beliefs.  But strangely, every one of his allies are silent.

When Hilary Rosen coughed up a gaffe on a news commentary show about Ann Romney not having worked a day in her life, the allies of Ann Romney were there to defend her in 3.2 seconds.  For two weeks, it was all Fox News could talk about.  Does this mean they only defend stay at home mom's (women in their rightful place, according to Jesse Lee Petersen, that is, as long as the husband is telling her what to do)? 

And a finer point, Jesse Lee Petersen is a liar.  He stared at Powers with a smirk on his face and tried to spin his words from March 5, 2012, pretending that he was only referring to "liberal" women.  That is a lie from the pit of hell.  If you watch his sermon there are many quotable quotes to catch him at his lie, but let me grace you with one of the better ones:

"I think that one of the greatest mistakes that America made, was to allow women the opportunity to vote.  We should have never turned it over to women." (8:29)

Yes, he was obviously just talking about liberal women.

Will Sean Hannity stay on the board of BOND and stand behind his man?  Will he stand up for every woman that has ever lived, who have worked so hard to become equals in society with men?  Will others yell from the rooftops and give two weeks of programming to decrying the words of Jesse Lee Petersen?  I'm not speaking of P.Z. Myers, Libby Anne, Vyckie Garrison, and many more who already disagree with Jesse Lee Petersen in other areas.  I'm referring to his allies.  Those that call him friend and expert commentator.

Why are you silent?

Jesse Lee Petersen Misogyny Video Transcript and Commentary

I recently wrote out most of the transcript of Jesse Lee Petersen's March 5, 2012 rant on how much he hates women - all women - not just liberal women, as he is trying to spin it now.  You can read the commentary and transcript "Society is Headed for Destruction because Women are in Charge" at the following links:

Page 1

Excerpt: "I realize that one of the primary reasons that it is over for America is because women are taking over." - Jesse Lee Petersen

Page 2

Excerpt: "One thing I know, without a doubt, is that women cannot handle power.  It's not in them to handle power in the right way.  They don't know what to do with it." - Jesse Lee Petersen

Page 3

Excerpt: "It's unfortunate that men are so weak that they allow these women to just run wild, and screw up everything, including their souls, and their children.  And if you speak up about it, Satan got it set up, through the women, that you're going to be punished in some way." - Jesse Lee Petersen

Page 4

Excerpt: "Because God knew that [women] would have control over these things.  They would use it to intimidate you because they don't have good on their side.  So they have to use physical things to control you.  And if you're not of God, you will allow yourself to be controlled with physical things.  The fear of losing something material.  A friend or family member, a house or car or job." - Jesse Lee Petersen

Page 5

Excerpt: "Another big thing - I think I might have mentioned this before - is to put women in power, these positions, these businesses and jobs, because they can't handle the stress.  They can't handle anything. You walk up to them with an issue, they freak out right away.  Especially if they can't get the problem handled right away.  I've seen them go nuts at airports, at post offices, everywhere." - Jesse Lee Petersen

Page 6

Excerpt: "If you doubt me, all you have to do is open up your eyes and see it for yourself.  It's not hard to see anymore.  Look at every place that women is in control - maybe not all, not all, but most - and you see nothing but confusion.  There is no good in it all all.  None." - Jesse Lee Petersen

There you go.  Make sure you take the batteries out of the smoke alarms in the house.  Your sleeping children will thank you for not setting them off with all the nefarious clouds escaping from your ears. (Yes...I meant 'nefarious'.)

Society is Heading for Destruction because Women are in Charge - Page 1

Jesse Lee Petersen is a preacher and a "biblical" politician/pundit, appearing on Fox News, CNN, among other networks, as well as radio programs, to speak about his view of black America and other issues.  Recently, he gave a sermon at his church and spoke about the impending downfall of America.  I was alerted to this video from Libby Anne of Love, Joy, Feminism.

Before I jump into my critique of this work, I must say that I don't like the America portrayed by Mr. Petersen.  When I see division (women vs. men, black vs. white, rich vs. poor, politicians vs. the common folk), I feel as if nothing was accomplished during the Civil War and more recently, during the Civil Rights movement, not to mention the women's suffrage movement, as well.  My vision of America is one where we can disagree on issues and not section ourselves off into artificial camps based on race, gender, creed, etc.  Thus, I do not appreciate anyone who attempts to drag us back to where we came from.

Now, to the Jesse Lee Petersen and his rant.

Jesse opens this talk by saying the following:

"Goodby America.  It's over.  My America is gone.  Short of God intervening, I don't see any turnaround." (0:22)

He says all this by the 0:22 mark of the 12:03 video.  By this time, I have my Bible open, sitting on the edge of my seat, ready to refute everything this gentleman will say, proving that what he says God said is irrelevant to today or, more in line with much of what is spouted from pulpits today, patently false.  But what he said next made me fall out of my chair. (Don't worry, I'm okay.  They were able to save the left side of my brain.)

"I realize that one of the primary reasons that it is over for America is because women are taking over." (0:39)

Yep.  He said that.  America is falling apart because women are in charge.  Surely he has irrefutable data to back that up, right?  Wrong.  Let's lean in and listen.  Keep all firearms away from arm's reach.  I'm sure your computer screen is expensive.

What proof does he have?

"They are in so called powerful positions, running companies, making decisions." (0:45)

Jesse has to stop there because he gets some blow back from the look of a woman in the crowd.  He catches himself and says "Not all, not all, not all..." (0:50)

Oh good!  I was thinking he meant it was a principle that was undeniably inarguable where women were inherently unable to lead.  As we'll see later, his qualification of "not all" is completely meaningless.  He does mean all women.  He just says "not all" to placate the women in the crowd that might disagree with him.  I say "women in the crowd" while hoping beyond hope that most men disagree with his ideas.

Petersen gets more specific about those women that can lead.

"There are a few out there - logical women - that can make sound decisions.  Most cannot." (1:03)

So, the only women that can be in charge are those that make logical decisions.  Women are not logical.  If you're at all familiar with this line of thinking, the antonym of "logic" is "emotion."  Nothing makes me angrier to hear this line of thinking.  Oh wait...I'm not supposed to be getting angry.  That clouds my logic and makes me effeminate - ineffective in making sound decisions.

You see how stupid that idea is?  If anyone removes emotion from their decision-making paradigm, first, they are lying to themselves that they are even capable of doing such a thing, and second, I want no part of the ramifications of their decisions.  Have you ever spoken to an emotionless being?  They are boring!  And an oxymoron at the same time.  I've never met one and you never will, either.

Men will make good decisions and men will make bad ones.  So will women.  Positions of power are open to those that are the most qualified.  If that happens to be a woman, then a woman it is.  Looking at the pockmarked history of the world, a preacher would be better off standing in front of a crowd, railing against MEN being in charge.  After all, in the "good ole' days", as Petersen loves to say, all positions of power were held by men.  And we have many black spots in the storied history of male dominated humanity. 

Continued on Page 2