Awhile back I came across an anti-Planned Parenthood article asking Catholics and other Right-to-Life supporters to boycott ALL of the organizations and people who support Planned Parenthood or are active with them. Imagine that! Don't do business with Unilever and don't buy their products like Dove, Q-tips, Slim-Fast, Best Foods (and they make the best mayonnaise!), Suave products, Breyers ice cream, Wish-bone, Ben and Jerry's, Good Humor, Lipton, Knorr, etc. Don’t do business with CIGNA, Bank of America, Gannett (which owns newspapers and television stations in the USA), The New York Times, Levi Strauss, Johnson & Johnson, (don’t bathe the baby!), and Adobe Systems, (so don’t open those pdf files on your comp!), among many others.

They want you to NOT watch movies with actors like Kim Basinger, Alan Alda, Matthew Broderick, Sarah Jessica Parker, Morgan Freeman (Ah, I LOVE him!), Jodie Foster, Rosie O'Donnell, Christopher Reeve, Robin Williams, and others I love! Don’t go see the movies in theaters. Don’t rent the movies. Don’t watch them on television. Don’t buy any products that advertise during the airing of any of the movies these people are in. The current Mrs Steven Spielberg, Kate Capshaw, as well as his ex-wife, Amy Irving are on their hit list too. I cannot say if Mr Spielberg himself is targeted but being that he resigned from the Boy Scouts of America board until they stop their discrimination against gays and admit homosexual leaders back into their ranks, I would say it is a good guess that he supports Planned Parenthood. But I am surmising.

They don't want you to buy or listen to music from Tony Bennett, Arlo Guthrie, Cher, Linda Ronstadt (a fervent supporter), Madonna, Barbara Streisand, (Babs too??), Peter, Paul, and Mary, U2, Yo-Yo Ma, and many punk rockers like Foo Fighters (formerly Nirvana), and Red Hot Chili Peppers. The list is huge!

They don't want you to read or so much as buy a book from Maya Angelou, Stephen Jay Gould (one of my Ubby's heros), Judy Blume, T. Berry Brazelton (the famous pediatrician), Dave Barry (love him!), Anna Quindlen (my personal favorite!), and others including Alice Walker (think The Color Purple), and Ann Telnaes, a cartoonist I admire. They include Alvin Poussaint, script consultant on The Cosby Show, so don't watch that either. Oh, and don't buy those tourist books by Arthur Frommer. He is a supporter.

They don't even want you to buy any products put out by Bill Gates!! Come on now!! MSN? MicroSoft? How will anyone even use a computer since it will never run without a Bill Gates product! I guess you will have to use paper and pencils and use the library for information. Just make sure you ask them to ban the books by the above mentioned authors.

They don't like Lee Iacocca. What? Don't buy American cars? (See, now that I can live with.)

What I think is ridiculous is that if you want a list of the entire list put out by _____ (I won’t put their name here because it’s my blog and I can edit out things I think are silly), you have to PAY for it! Yes, that’s right! P-A-Y as in give them money. I was able to read a “partial” list of marked people. So why not just give out the entire list? Give out free pamphlets! Heavens to betsy! What if someone unknowingly buys a product by a "do not patronize" list?

Daniel Maguire, a professor of theological and cross-cultural ethics at the Jesuit college Marquette University, a well-known Catholic University in Wisconsin is also on their list. Imagine that! A former priest! And he tours the country addressing and supporting contraception and abortion. Way to go, Danny Boy!

And surprise, surprise... Betty Ford is on their shun list too. Last I heard, she was a Republican... a Republican married to another famous dude. You know... former president Gerald Ford! Correct me if I am wrong, but he was a Republican, was he not? Hmm, a wayward Republican. Go figure.

The thing is that without all of the people mentioned above, and this is minute compared to their entire list, we would probably have to live like hermits.... and hungry and stinky and bored. I mean, no more Robin Williams? No more Henry Winkler? No Hal Prince? No Harry Belafonte? No Sheryl Crow and Cyndi Lauper? No Pete Seeger?

As for me, I send them my little check. There are many people I don’t like, Bush, for example, and Howard Stern. But I don’t go around telling people not to listen to them. They have that right. Stern, for example, I simply change the radio station when his show is on. That is why the buttons are there! I do not object to my daughter buying CDs with parental advisory labels because that would be silly. My husband and I have had talks with her about foul language. We have told her that curse words are just that... words. We don’t use them (though and occasional one pops out when we get cut off in traffic) but we cannot stop others from using them. I believe that banning things strengthens the banned item or idea. I might have said this before, but if I ever write a book, I hope it gets banned.

Maybe I am a rebel. So be it. And maybe I am turning my daughter into a rebel because I go out of my way to expose her to banned books. I have explained to her my belief in pro-choice. One day she will have an opinion on such subjects and I hope she can make her own choices, choices that are right for her and not what other people tell her are right. I hope she can be strong enough to stand her ground if others taunt her and tell her what she believes in is evil, wrong, anti-Christian, or plain wrong. I hope that if she has children of her own that she can teach them her point of view and respect that their point of view may not be like hers.

I hope I have taught her that there are opinions out there that are contrary to mine and that she has to respect that. That she does not have to agree with them but she should defend their right to say it. Because if their right to say or believe things is taken away, hers may be next. I hope I have taught her that she has the right to express her views as long as it does not infringe on the property, private or personal, of others.

I hope I have taught her that I believe that a woman has the right to decide when she wants to have children (contraception), if pregnant, whether she is mentally, physically, financially, or psychologically ready to have the baby and if not, that there are choices (abortion or adoption). I hope she knows that I believe that young girls who cannot go to their parents for help can get advice and help from Planned Parenthood who will be there for them at their greatest time of need. I believe that educating the young, the poor and the disadvantaged does not promote promiscuity but empowers girls and women everywhere to know their bodies and be able to make smart decisions with information they otherwise would not have if Planned Parenthood was not there. I hope she realizes and believes that choices regarding her body belong to her and only to her.

I want her to buy what she wants. I want her to read what she wants. I want her to watch and listen to whatever she wants. I do not want her to make decisions because someone is telling her what is right or wrong. I want her to do or not do something because that is her choice, and her right.

“If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.
~Noam Chomsky