c. 1998 Religion News Service

(Andrew M. Greeley is a Roman Catholic priest, best-selling novelist and a sociologist at the University of Chicago National Opinion Research Center. Check out his home page at http://www.agreeley.com or contact him via e-mail at agreel(at)aol.com.)

UNDATED _ Meanness continues to run rampant in American society.

Consider the grim determination of some politicians not only to defeat their opponents in elections but to put them in jail. So we have”political trials”in which people are sent to jail for minor technical violations. For example, former agriculture secretary Mike Espy faces jail partly because he accepted two tickets to a Chicago Bulls basketball game.

Even if the victims of these political trials manage to escape jail, they are likely to be wiped out financially by the legal expenses. President Clinton is $3 million in debt because he has had to defend himself against charges for which there is no reasonable evidence of wrongdoing.

Meanness is destroying the political life of the country. But the mean don’t hesitate for a moment because it’s too much fun to be mean.

Yet the latest targets of our addiction to meanness are two women who have come into the national spotlight: Bobbi McCaughey, the mother of the Iowa septuplets, and Hunter Tylo, the actress who won a $5 million lawsuit against the producers of”Melrose Place”after they fired her for becoming pregnant.

The outpouring of hate in columns and editorials for these two women _ especially from some”official”feminists _ is simply breath-taking.

If we live in a so-called”pro-choice”environment, does that mean only those who choose abortion are to be approved and those who choose the opposite are to be denounced in the national media? It would seem so.

The argument against the mother of the septuplets seems to be, as one critic put it,”humans have babies not litters.”Against the actress, the argument runs that because she is beautiful and successful and accepted a job on”Melrose Place”she should not get pregnant.

In continuing their pregnancies despite prevailing attitudes, both women acted on religious principle. Are they not free to do so in our country?

Or are those who reject abortion on religious grounds to be sanctioned and denounced? Who is freedom of choice for? Only for those who have abortions?

And much of the animus against Tylo, especially from nasty women writers, seems to be based on her attractiveness. However, the resentment of some women toward their”sisters”who happen to be beautiful is at best unedifying and at worse despicable. Proper feminist ideology, it seems to me, would guarantee a woman the right to be beautiful and to be immune from the destructive envy of other women. Moreover, it would also seem to me Tylo’s victory is a victory for all mothers who are discriminated against in the job market. But solidarity, alas, is not a cure for envy.

McCaughey is also an excellent target for envy because she and her children have garnered so much publicity. Some mothers feel their children are just as good as the septuplets and deserve just as much attention and help.

One hears predictions from some”experts”that the children will grow up as misfits and the older sister in the family will feel deprived for the rest of her life.

These observations are gratuitously cruel. They are generalizations based on averages and have no inevitability in particular cases. Why can’t people just leave others alone?

If, God forbid, one of the septuplets should die, I wouldn’t be surprised to hear rejoicing among the critics. A dead baby may well be interpreted as a judgment on a fundamentalist couple who followed their religious beliefs in deciding how to respond to a multiple pregnancy.

The attacks on Hunter Tylo and Bobbi McCaughey are intolerant denials of the right of women to follow their own religious convictions. Liberal bigotry, sustained by meanness, is alive and well.

MJP END GREELEY