University of Michigan football head coach Jim Harbaugh is facing calls for his termination after he went public with his pro-life views. Harbaugh is a devout Catholic and said that “I believe in having the courage to let the unborn be born.” The response has been overwhelming and furious, but it is unlikely that Harbaugh (who just signed signed a 5-year, $36.7 million contract) will be canned. It is an interesting comparison to the successful campaign recently to force a NFL coach to withdraw his comments about Jan. 6th. Yet, if critics had their way, both coaches would be fired for holding dissenting views on such issues.
Harbaugh spoke at the Plymouth Right to Life dinner on Sunday and reportedly shared his own religious beliefs in favor of life.
“I love life. I believe in having a loving care and respect for life and death. My faith and my science are what drives these beliefs in me. [Quoting Jeremiah 1:5] ‘Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.’
…
There are many things one may hold to be immoral, but the government appropriately allows because of some greater good or personal or constitutional right.
Ultimately, I don’t believe that is the case with abortion. Yes, there are conflicts between the legitimate rights of the mother and the rights of the unborn child. One resolution might involve incredible hardship for the mother, family and society. Another results in the death of an unborn person…
In God’s plan, each unborn human truly has a future filled with potential, talent, dreams and love,” Harbaugh said. “I have living proof in my family, my children, and the many thousands that I’ve coached that the unborn are amazing gifts from God to make this world a better place. To me, the right choice is to have the courage to let the unborn be born.”
Harbaugh is used to calls for “unnecessary roughness” but nothing likely prepared him for what came next. The reaction was immediate and unhinged. Harbaugh was accused of being “full of deep seething hatred of women.” Despite his explanation of his deep-seated religious view in favor of life, various people accused him of “publicly expressing his distaste for women’s rights.”
Others called for Harbaugh to be fired for holding a pro-life view shared by millions of citizens; F**k Jim Harbaugh, may the University of Michigan 86 him before his contract goes full-term.” The liberal Palmer Report posted (with thousands of “likes”):
“No one who actively attempts to deny women their most basic rights should ever be allowed to hold a position of influence at a public university. That incudes (sic) University of Michigan football coach Jim Harbaugh and his anti-woman fundraising. He’s a public employee. Fire his a**.
It’s one thing to hold this personal view, if you can keep it separate from your actions. But to use your clout as a public employee go out and do fundraisers for groups that actively seek to deny women their most basic of rights, is a whole different ballgame.”
The ease with which many move to censorship is vividly on display in these statements. Some critics make a passing gesture toward free speech and then say that this is no longer merely a “personal view” because Harbaugh is well-known. Under that approach, any public comment could be viewed as “using your clout as a public employee.” Thus, you can (presumably) speak in favor of life if you are an unknown, but not if you are a known figure.
Of course, the same conditional right to free speech would not apply to Harbaugh if he were to offer pro-choice views or Coach Del Rio if he were to support the J6 Committee. Those views can not only be expressed but will receive widespread acclaim for a coach being a leader and mentor to others.
Fortunately, as a public university, Michigan is subject to the full weight of the First Amendment even if it wanted to tackle the contractual challenges to termination. Yet, the vile rhetoric directed at Harbaugh should, even in this age of rage, give some pause. To label all pro-life supporters as anti-women is unfounded and unfair. Millions of women support limiting or barring abortions. They are not self-haters or anti-feminists.
Harbaugh gave a heartfelt and honest speech about his faith and commitment to the pro-life cause. This is part of a debate that will now unfold in 50 states as voters decide where to draw the line on abortion services. It is a debate that should be passionate on both sides, but we should be able to disagree without such personal attacks or calls for terminations. Indeed, a state employee should be able to hold a pro-life view while holding a job at the University of Michigan.
So they disagree with him.
Here is more of the famous leftist ‘tolerance’ we keep hearing so much about. In fact they are so ‘tolerant’, they call for firing, doxxing and destruction for all those having the ‘wrong’ opinion on one of the sacred issues.
I DO NOT WANT TO UNDERSTAND, DIALOGUE OR RECONCILE WITH THESE PEOPLE. I want a divorce.
Hate to break it to you s@@tlibs but you won’t be able to keep the rest of us in this abusive relationship forever. You can create your leftist, multicult utopia without us.
antonio
antonio
As a die hard Buckeyes fan there is no need for Harbaugh to quit and his removal for PC BS would be a sin as he is 0-5 against Ohio State. Oh, yeah and there’s that whole free speech thing that the dims hate so much.
He beat OSU last year
We are 5-1 against him. He gets the credit for the win, but we all know that the weather played a big factor in that game.
Right on abortion, wrong on football.
RE:”Look at these poll numbers….” I take polling at face value including the agency or institution conducting the poll. Whether Roe or Dobbs were good or bad decision will be debated ad infinitum. Witness the conversation in these pages across the many months. That the Supreme Court has historically corrected itself is a matter of fact. Whether or not Congress will codify an abortion law remains to be seen. Have the electorate ‘lean’ on their Senators and Representative in that matter, according to their personal persuasions.. Restructuring SCOTUS to make it ‘equitable’ in the eyes of some is tantamount to throwing the baby out with the bathwater. What this nation faces at its heart, is a far greater. The partisan politics which have contributed to the disregard and lack of respect and enforcement of laws which protect and defend the Constitution and the good and welfare of the citizenry.
Do the Extremist US Hatemongers here even realize that the SCOTUS did not ban murdering babies in the womb, they just put the authority back to where it belonged, back to the states. Hell, they can always go to China as they’ve banned guns/weapons. Maybe they’ll get some bucks selling the baby body parts like on the video from Cali?
EXCLUSIVE: Trump and DeSantis Have Made A Secret Agreement to Share the Ticket in 2024
47,321 views
Jul 20, 2022
https://banned.video/watch?id=62d8788c71452116cf83545f
Freedom of speech doesn’t mean entitlement to a high-paying job. This being a democracy, not a theocracy, each voice bears some accountability for proper consideration of others’ rights and interests. The reason the students are coming down hard on Harbaugh is because he seems unwilling to balance the interests of women and fetuses. The fetus gets 100% support, which leaves only lip service to the females. I guarantee you, if he gave a more nuanced weighting, say 50-50, he wouldn’t be excoriated. It’s the unwillingness to consider women as autonomous beings with the same freedoms as men that makes him so unpopular.
Pbinca:
You seem to have great regard for all women excepting only those in the womb. Their “rights” as well as society’s right to protect never seems to cross your mind in your rudimentary understanding of balancing rights. As for the father, well he’s irrelevant in a feminist wonderland we’ve spawned.
Don’t tell me what I think — that’s poor form for meritocratic debate. I believe fetal rights kick in around the 24th week.
It’s a balancing of women’s and fetal rights. Neither side gets everything they want. Beyond the 24th week, if there is a healthy fetus and mother, and a contractually-binding promise to raise the child (from parents or adoptees), then the state should stand defending that contract.
I’m much more concerned about the competent, caring development of the ones who are born than those who, in early pregnancy are unwanted. I’m very opposed to elective single-motherhood, which destroys the proper role and responsibility of men in society.
He doesn’t have to do anything, he is entitled to his opinions. Who the hell are you to give him lessons on anything?
He has the courage of his convictions. You are simply a whining clown spouting bafflegarble.
Sorry Pbinca but freedom of speech does not force one to balance their comments on one side of an issue or the other in order appease the side that will ultimately be triggered. That’s why it’s called “FREEDOM”. Your idea of repercussions for Harbaugh’s speech on the sanctity of life are straight out of the play book used by all the Marxist dictators that have murdered millions of their own citizens simply for voicing out opinions that were not consistent with the Marxist orthodoxy.
It’s you and the rest of the left wing Marxists this country has to fear, not Jim Harbaugh and his pro life speech.
This is like the McCarthy Era. Give a non-conforming opinion…some divergent thinking….and you’re branded as a Marxist. I couldn’t be farther from that. I’d rather hear your opinion and understand it, than to watch you stoop to denunciation based on cynical guesswork. I know you can do better.
If it were just harmless opinions, it wouldn’t generate this kind of strident reaction. These young women are seeing conservative men trying to strip them of hard-won equality rights. I say these women should fight back. I say they stand up for equality under the law. If some conservative men take some arrows, that’s the breaks. Better to chart a course of goodwill and trust toward your fellow citizens.
And these women are free to express their own opinions on an issue that has ethical and moral implications.
What the coach said does not fall within the bounds of Garcetti. As such, he has the right to be wrong.
“I say they stand up for equality under the law.”
pbinca: They can do so legally. The law is made by the state, not the federal government. Protest the state.
Additionally, they can group together so those potentially hurt can be helped with plane or train costs to fund their travel to a different state.
I think this will have almost no effect in the long run, though it might inconvenience some in a state with the most rigid laws. Different states have laws that negatively impact people, and those people adapt or move.
Roe v Wade was a decision wrongly decided. It is now up to the states to do what they are supposed to do. That is known as responsibility. People should take responsibility as well.
He is a public employee, and given the context, the speech is outside the bounds of Garcetti v. Ceballos, 547 U.S. 410 (2005)
Oh no, HE WOULD NOT (been given better consideration) if it were 50-50.
The ONLY position of these selfish cretins is to murder in the womb. And what they TRULY believe in, is CHATTEL SLAVERY.
The prospective mother does not OWN the growing body in her womb. It is not NOT “her body”. She is not an owner, she is a STEWARD.
These women are rabid, mentally ill, narcissists, and depraved. Tell them they are advocating SLAVERY, which makes them barbarians. Keep saying it… You are a slaver”.
The hateful response of the Left is rarely commensurate with the provocation. The Left is a totalitarian, intolerant movement. Other points of view are treated like a physical assault.
These extremists clamoring for his firing and impoverishment do not take into account that at some point in gestation, most Americans including Pro Choice believe it’s wrong to kill a fetus. Joy Behar said a third trimester abortion is “murder”. I somehow doubt Behar hates all women.
Yet this is the MO. It’s agree with them, or you hate all women, or are a fascist.
Tolerance goes both ways. This kind of hate and striking out at people you disagree with is wrong, and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms.
Karen,
Well said!
It has been said that a substantial majority of the guns ( all types ) in the United States, I think I’ve read there are over 400 million of them, are in the hands of people who are opposed to the left-wing liberal/progressive attitudes becoming more wide-spread each month that goes by. Each day that goes by, more and more of the conservative base of America are making the decision they’ve been avoiding, or putting off, since Barack Hussein Obama beat war-hero John McCain for the office of the presidency in 2008 — they are purchasing one more more guns, for self-protection. Didn’t we just read that a 22 year old young man in Indiana killed a crazed 20-year old AR-15 toting shooter in a Mall, and the ‘trolls’ and ‘critics’ immediately besmirched the kid’s heroic life-saving quick thinking….saying ‘this is not a good samaritan whatsoever.’ those trolls need to be ‘re-educated’ or eliminated, cancelled to use their language.
Every week now, we’re hearing stories of citizens with guns shooting and killing criminals in the act of perpetrating crime — Beto O’Rourke doesn’t applaud — he wants gun ‘confiscation!’
Where does a guy get that kind of thinking stuffed into his head?
OK – enough for now — I just hope we can avoid a 2nd Civil War, but those with guns will be ready — and those without won’t be.
You seem to be assuming that police and military will break in the direction of the “rebels”. But, I can tell you, that is not at all likely.
People go into law enforcement swearing allegiance to the Constitution. So long as you are afforded peaceful means of expressing your policy views, such as talking, writing, persuading non-violently (that doesn’t mean you’ll convince anyone), those who want to resort to intimidation through weaponry, disregard for the rights of others, and lawbreaking in the name of a “cause” — you will be taken down in short order. You’ll be lucky to be snuffed out, since the alternative of a long prison sentence for making classic misjudgments and self-righteous overconfidence would be hard to live with. Put aside your militant fantasies, and lend a hand improving society. It’s not your place to risk destroying freedom, when your grievances are exaggerated and speculative.
PB ; you have some serious issues, “but I can tell you that it is not at all likely”,,,,, poppycock I say !!!!. As prior service military with many LEO friends they would not perform illegal unlawful orders against friends family or people in general. Yet you threaten otherwise in your angst of not getting what you want the way you want. Well welcome to the land of freedom of choice cupcake. Move somewhere where the people think like you and graze.
Your grievances are exaggerated and speculative , for all to see.
I agree with you that most in law enforcement would refuse to carry out unconstitutional orders….that’s the strength of our political system….allegiance to the Constitution, not to a boss who has gone rogue. I took the same oath to the Constitution as a CERT volunteer to the local fire dept. I would defy a coup to take over govt, and shut the people out.
I can tell you the militants on the right who would violate the law violently for their “cause” are on shaky ground with law enforcement. Only in the most irretrievable circumstances of tyrranical government would they break for rebellion. We are NO WHERE NEAR that threshold. Hysterical interpretations of current events don’t count.
What we need now are IMPROVERS — those who work to correct institutions, to rid them of corruption….to demand accountability and good governance.
“People go into law enforcement swearing allegiance to the Constitution“
**************
The document formed in response to an armed rebellion against oppressive authority? Yep they did and they also have eyes. If I were in your Leftist shoes, I wouldn’t count too much on your safety when things get hinky. The Left thinks their outrage will save them along with the cops and military they hate. As with so many things, they’re wrong. A civil war is never stopped by cops. The military isn’t trained to fight a civil war. In fact, this military might not be able to fight any war given its woke leadership and conservative rank and file.
Wait, Harbaugh did “express his policy views, such as talking, writing, persuading non-violently”.
Hypocrite much?
Getting Harbaugh fired from his job would be a form of non-violent persuasion. If it were your rights being stripped away by the govt., you’d take up non-violent forms of blowback, too.
It would also be unconstitutional and unethical.
It would be immoral.
And, given the facts of this case, it would be unconstitutional.
Oh like the 2020 rioters
How can anyone with half a brain think that throwing temper tantrums and calling for the firing, impoverishment and ruination of his career is affording Mr. Harbaugh the “peaceful means of expressing his policy views, such as talking, writing, persuading non violently???
Seems like you leftard fascist hypocrites believe you should be the only ones afforded any means at all of expressing personal opinions, including violent and destructive means.
YOU woketard fascists are the ones refusing to afford anyone the peaceful means to express their policy views when you throw temper tantrums, scream for people to be fired and impoverished or riot when any view that you don’t agree with is expressed.
We will mercilessly destroy anyone who threatens the unity of the socialist state with his deeds or thoughts.
-Joseph Stalin, speaking on November 7, 1937 to explain the intellectual framework for the Great Purge.
What country are we living in?
Franklin D. Roosevelt took America off the gold standard in 1933.
Abraham Lincoln took America off the Constitution in 1860.
In the real world, most people have to get up, get dressed, and go to work. Those that have faithfully put in their time are retired. They come home tired, pull dinner together, visit with the family, and watch a little TV or read a book, perhaps look at the internet for a little while and they go to sleep. The next morning they do it again, whether they want to or not. The wolf is howling at the door. They get along with their coworkers and friends.
In this strange new Twilight Zone, there appears to be an explosion of “activists” and “trolls” who have incredible amounts of time on their hand to get mad about something new every day. They have no sense of humor, no ability to comprehend humor nor are they able to laugh or make a joke. Like radicalized cult members, they have no tolerance for fellow human beings to hold dissenting views. They are quick to pounce and “correct” anyone who does not follow their doctrine.
I would love to see what the late Mort Drucker, famed artist and humorous writer from Mad Magazine would have done with the current state of politics. He would have had a field day! The irony is ripe for the picking for comedians and sarcastic humorists with enough courage to swim against miscreants and the radicalized.
So what, the coach holds an ethic that respects the sanctity of life. Good for him. I admire his courage. He was hired to do a job. I have never asked my surgeon about his political or religious beliefs. In fact, my primary care physician warned me about the surgeon he recommended. “He is not known or his beside manner, but he is the very best.”
He was right. The surgeon was not very pleasant, but he completed my surgery in a short time and the results were excellent. That is all that I cared about.
This is a funny Monty Python skit with contestants Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Rivera.
https://youtu.be/vZ9myHhpS9s
“…there appears to be an explosion of “activists” and “trolls” who have incredible amounts of time on their hand to get mad about something new every day.”
– E.M.
_____
“It’s the [communist regimen], stupid!”
– James Carville
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It’s the welfare state.
Under the American thesis of freedom and self-reliance, and under the dominion of the “manifest tenor” of the Constitution, Americans were very busy in their “pursuit of happiness.”
Now they are funded by affirmative action and other people’s money.
American freedom and free enterprise lasted for 71 years, until 1860.
Lincoln espoused Karl Marx’s pejoratives “capitalist” and “fleece the people,” and, apparently, much more in 1837.
Lincoln was Karl Marx’s “earnest of the epoch” to lead America toward “the RECONSTRUCTION of a social world.”
__________________________________________________________________________________________
“These capitalists generally act harmoniously and in concert, to fleece the people.”
– Abraham Lincoln, from his first speech as an Illinois state legislator, 1837
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“Everyone now is more or less a Socialist.”
– Charles Dana, managing editor of the New York Tribune, and Lincoln’s assistant secretary of war, 1848
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“The goal of Socialism is Communism.”
– Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
_________________
“The workingmen of Europe feel sure that, as the American War of Independence initiated a new era of ascendancy for the middle class, so the American Antislavery War will do for the working classes. They consider it an earnest of the epoch to come that it fell to the lot of Abraham Lincoln, the single-minded son of the working class, to lead his country through the matchless struggle for the rescue of an enchained race and the reconstruction of a social world.”
– Karl Marx and the First International Workingmen’s Association to Lincoln, 1864
________________________________________________________________
Letter of congratulation and commendation from Karl Marx to Abraham Lincoln: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm
Franklin D. Roosevelt took America off the gold standard in 1933.
Abraham Lincoln took America off the Constitution in 1860.
Is this really REALITY?
Seems as though we are living in a Cartoon of the absurd! Daily we find those that want to take offense at the slightest contrary opinion. These INTOLERANTS (woke) continually push the envelope of stupidity, and utter nonsense on society without regard to the possible long-term damage they may cause. One of the most glaring examples has been and still is the Defunding the Police movement along with the out-of-control DA’s in WOKEVILLE communities across America. Citizens are being held hostage with fear of being swept up with the INTOLERANT(s) self-belief of moral and mental superiority and let’s not forget their childish notion of Criminal Reform.
These INTOLERANTS must be shunned, removed from office and their idea’s thrown in the waste basket of history, with a notation to place in the stupid file for any future reflection of what not to do.
Americans are forced to take back their country from the insane. Sometimes problems cannot be put off or avoided. These bio-entities are certifiably crazy. America has not stood for something, so America has fallen for anything, and everything. America has listened to lunatics. America has listened to its direct and mortal enemies. America’s fertility rate is in a “death spiral”; more Americans die than are born. America is vanishing. Abortion is the “killing” of “man,” the cidium of homi. Abortion is the killing of a very young human being, who, if nourished and protected, will develop inside and outside of the womb for an average of 78 years. The police must nourish and protect arrestees in their custody until the arrestees are released. Why not mothers?
Exactly when did America go totally and completely insane? Seems like soon after the coalescing of the “Reconstruction Amendments” and the 19th Amendment to form a hysterical, incoherent and grotesque, communist monstrosity, an anarchistic and suicidal, ideological Frankenstein.
Exactly when did Americans lose the courage of their noble and prosperous convictions, their majesty and resolve?
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“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
– Declaration of Independence, 1776
I am not anti- abortion. I just think that viability needs to be a component. That being said, Harbaugh unlike fake Catholics like Biden and Pelosi is just adhering to his faith’s doctrine. In the Catholic church, abortion is MURDER. Their rules, not mine. He certainly has the right to express his views, right? As usual the party of tolerance and inclusion ( Democrats) are hypocrites. They are tolerant and inclusive. As long as you agree with them.
Adding to that; If you are grounded, true to your convictions, faithful.
You will be come a target for Cancellation.
This is better than beating Ohio State. Almost.
Then there’s that.
Jonathan: The House just passed a bill “Ensuring Access to Abortion Act” to protect the ability to travel to states that provide abortion. In tweet yesterday you called the legislation not necessary: “The House is moving to protect rights not threatened by the Dobbs decision decision …The Court made clear that these rights were not abridged by the decision, but that appears irrelevant in the politics of the moment”. You appear to be late to the party.
The right to restrict a woman’s right to travel across state lines is already underway. In Texas, large law firms have decided to reimburse employees for abortion-related travel. One lawyer at Sidley Austin LLP received the following letter from legislators in the Texas House: “It has come to our attention that Sidley Austin has decided to reimburse the travel costs of employees to leave Texas to murder their unborn children”. The letter went on to threaten the lawyer with prosecution and disbarment of the firm’s partners and said legislation was being introduced to enforce bans on inter-state travel. In other states anti-abortion groups are proposing model legislation similar to that in Texas.
We are fast on the road to fascism when states want to ban the ability to freely travel throughout the US. But that is what is happening. But you blissfully say: “Don’t worry folks. The Supreme Court made clear in Dobbs that other rights are not in jeopardy”. You also said after Dobbs that state legislatures will now address abortion through the “democratic process”. Does that “process” include the right of states to tell women: “You can travel to any state except one that permits abortion”. What does this say about the “democratic” part of the phrase you chose to use to describe what is going on in this country? This is what happened in Germany during the 1930s when Jewish leaders said: “Don’t worry. The government is only going after the Socialists and Communists. Jews are not threatened.”
Threats do not equal legislation, particularly legislation that is clearly Unconstitutional on it’s face. Let them try, it will go down so fast your head will swim. These are issues that will need to be sorted out in any regard and the larger issue of states being able to prosecute for crimes committed outside of their jurisdiction is something the Court, not the Federal Legislature needs to address. The Supremacy Clause is not a blank check to Washington and it does not nullify the 10th Amendment, but at the same time it’s not a blank check to the states either. It remains to be seen where the dividing line is.
You didn’t mind the fascism when it was to deny the people who chose to not get an EXPERIMENTAL mRNA shot (for a virus that is 99.99% survivable) their right to travel or participate in society in any capacity at all. In fact you fascists were howling for the unvaccinated to be permanently locked down and some countries actually even hauled them off to vaxcentration camps.
But it is fascist to you to try to prevent women from crossing state lines to murder an unborn child?
Shame on you.
As far as democracy goes, you fascist leftist are all for mob rule, well in this case the mob rules. MOST AMERICANS ARE OPPOSED TO ABORTIONS ON DEMAND.
Don’t worry the fascists will be voted out this November.
RE:”The House just passed a bill ..”This is ‘looking good’ legislation to please the base’ SCOTUS has reserved abortion legislation to the states. If a state deems unlawful and criminal, obtaining abortion services out of state, SCOTUS may find that a Federal infringement on states rights..