The very mixed messages from an unwelcoming march

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

Some of my friends attended the Women’s March on Washington on Saturday and, as one attendee told me later, “It was many marches put into one.”

Some women went to the march to support gender or health equality. Others to protest against President Donald Trump with their “Love Trumps Hate” signs.

But it was the images of demonstrators wearing vulgar hats and carrying obscene signs, along with angry speakers like Madonna, who talked casually of contemplating blowing up the White House, that would dominate the news cycle and expose some of the extreme, offensive and disturbing truths behind the massive protest.

I would have been embarrassed to have my five daughters exposed to the graphic and insulting language used by some of the speakers. And I was shocked to see women and girls proudly wearing their pink, cat-eared “pussy hats.” Do you imagine a men’s march would have included participants wearing their body part on their head? It’s insane. What should have been a march for all women was hijacked by a contingent of angry anti-feminists, obsessed with their body parts and less focused on respecting the woman as a whole being.

Of course, my liberal friends who hate our president will point to his language toward women in the past. I have shared my disappointment with some of Mr. Trump’s comments on women, but I also note that he supports a pro-life, pro-woman agenda. As a woman of faith, I believe in respecting all women: born and unborn. Saturday’s intolerant march apparently had no place for my daughters or me.

A better name for the event would have been “Anti-Trump Pro-Choice March for Democratic Women and Celebrities.”

I understand that liberal women are upset with the election results and concerned about a Trump presidency. But the leaders of the women’s march failed their constituency when they chose speakers like the actress Ashley Judd, who read a poem comparing Mr. Trump to Hitler and suggesting that he was sexually attracted to his daughter. She ended the poem talking about “birthing new generations of filthy, vulgar, nasty, proud, Christian, Buddhist, Muslim, Sikh women.” Her shocking statements were an illustration of the extreme “go low” mentality of some on the left.

March organizers early on decided to exclude pro-life women organizations and life pregnancy centers that represent millions of women. Stanton Health Care was one of the groups disinvited to the march.

“As a pro-life feminist, I think it is important that there is inclusion, diversity and a broad spectrum of opinions at the ’Women’s March on Washington,’” said Stanton President Brandi Swindell. “The WMW has turned into a purely partisan political rally and march with no regard for hearing from or listening to all women’s voices. Shame on them for using the term ’women’ to advance their political agenda.”

Pro-life women groups who did take part in the march were mocked and spit at; several protesters tried to burn their signs.

Simply put, the Women’s March represented some women, but by no means all. For too long the Democrats have claimed to champion women’s rights by lecturing us on how we need to think. The march followed the familiar playbook, with the liberal pro-abortion agenda front and center. Many women don’t agree with this agenda and feel that the liberals have become too extreme on these social issues.

The mainstream media gave wall-to-wall coverage to the Women’s March. In fact, Newsbusters reported that the major broadcast networks devoted 129 times more coverage to the march than to the 2016 March for Life. It’s a lock that Friday’s 2017 March for Life, which my family will be attending, will similarly get nowhere near the media exposure of the Women’s March on Washington.

I want my daughters to grow up in a culture and society where everyone is respected, especially the most vulnerable and innocent. Unlike the Women’s March, a gathering dominated by of darkness and anger, the March for Life will offer an uplifting, spiritual and positive message — a message vitally important for all women to hear.

• Mercedes Schlapp is a Fox News contributor, co-founder of Cove Strategies and former White House director of specialty media under President George W. Bush.