After much searching I have been able to acquire a picture of Glenn Beck’s daughter. I am making this picture available in the spirit of full transparency, although I hope she never wears any clothing that is actually transparent. Just look at her. Calling her a pig would be insulting to pigs. This is someone who could be justifiably confined to a crawl space in the attic to protect the sensitivities of the rest of civil society.

That said…Please rest assured that the foregoing was meant to be facetious in order to make a point. Last week there was a very public feud between Glenn Beck and the McCain family. It erupted after Beck broadcast a prolonged and insulting segment wherein he mocked John McCain’s daughter for appearing in a public service announcement to bring awareness to skin cancer, which both of her parents have had.

Beck spent much of the segment pretending to vomit into a trash can at the sight of Meghan McCain. He and his radio zoo cronies relentlessly made fun of her appearance without ever acknowledging that she was doing this on behalf of an important charitable cause.

This isn’t the first time Beck has ventured into insulting the children of his political opponents. He and his crew previously attacked the intelligence of President Obama’s eleven year old daughter, Malia, calling her stupid. The outcry following that incident resulted in Beck making this apology:

“I broke my own rule about leaving kids out of political debates. The children of public figures should be left on the sidelines. It was a stupid mistake and I apologize – and as a dad I should have known better.”

Exactly. As a dad, how would he feel if his daughter was mocked and characterized as ugly, fat, and stupid? How would he feel if Keith Olbermann pretended to vomit at the sight of his daughter? And how can he be excused for having done so after his prior antics for which he was forced to apologize?

Remember, this is the same man who once called, on the air, the wife of one of his radio competitors two days after she had suffered a miscarriage and “joked” that “he [her husband] can’t do anything right.”

Meghan wrote a brilliant response to Beck that he ought to take to heart, if he has one. Noting that he has daughters of his own she wrote that…

“There really is no need to make something like my participation in a skin-cancer PSA into a sexist rant about my weight and physical appearance, because I’m going to let you in on a little secret, Glenn: you are the only one who looks bad in this scenario.”

Glenn Beck likes to portray himself as a devout Christian who advocates standing for strong family values. Apparently his idea of values includes repulsive and hurtful insults to people who are performing actual acts of charity. I hope he recalls this incident when one of his daughters comes home crying because they were made to feel ugly by some jerkwad who is just like their dad. But I doubt he has learned anything because he went on Bill O’Reilly’s show Friday and refused to apologize.

A new proposal has been introduced in the South Dakota state legislature that would upend the Constitutionally protected right to bear arms. This complex and insidious scheme, if enacted, would virtually eliminate access to guns by law abiding citizens. Here are the hoops that the legislation would require honest South Dakotans to jump through:

• Before being granted a permit, the purchaser would be required to listen to a legislature-written lecture on gun violence.
• There would then be a 24 hour waiting period.
• On returning to the permit office, there would be a mandatory viewing of photos and films of gun violence.
• The purchaser would then have to visit a state-accredited weapons training center.
• Then return to the permit office where there would be another lecture about the dangers of guns.
• Then another two hour wait before a permit would be issued.

This process is grossly unfair and serves only to make access to guns unnecessarily difficult. What makes it even worse is that there are presently no state-accredited weapons training centers as stipulated in the law, so the conditions required for acquiring a permit are actually impossible to meet. This has the effect of making gun ownership itself impossible.

This would be an outrageous violation of the Constitution’s second amendment except for one thing: none of it is true. At least insofar as guns are concerned. However, another Constitutionally protected right is being violated in South Dakota in precisely the same way:

• Before an abortion can be performed the patient would be required to listen to a legislature-written lecture on abortion.
• There would then be a 24 hour waiting period.
• On returning to the doctor’s office, there would be a mandatory viewing of a sonogram.
• The patient would then have to visit a state-accredited crisis pregnancy counseling center.
• Then return to the doctor’s office where there would be another lecture about alleged health dangers of abortion.
• Then another two hour wait before the abortion could be performed.

And of course, there really are no state-accredited crisis pregnancy counseling centers in South Dakota, so the conditions required for getting an abortion are actually impossible to meet.

What I have to wonder is how these extremist Christian conservatives can lay claim to a philosophy of small government? How can they profess to desire a state that is prohibited from interfering in the private lives of citizens, especially when it violates their rights? How can they assert these principles when it comes to gun ownership, but completely abandon them when it comes to the most private medical decisions?

Is it just because men, for the most part, want their guns to play with, and are trusted to use them responsibly, but women cannot be trusted to make decisions about their own bodies?