My Worst Suspicions Confirmed

Sometimes it sucks to be right. When John McCain announced his VP choice last week, I did what everyone else with an active mind did and went to my favorite news sources looking for info on Sarah Palin. The first stories I read seemed positive. She cleaned house, she was a small town success story and a woman who gave birth to a child with a birth defect. That takes guts. But later in the day, the bad news started rolling in. My initial thought on why McCain chose her- to draw in disgruntled Hillary voters- was discredited. It became clear that McCain chose her to pander to the Christian right. This sickening feeling was confirmed when I read that head nutjob Ralph Reed was thrilled by McCain's choice. This is a group of nuts who do not represent the mainstream of American thought in any way whatsoever. These people feel they have a right to impose their will and their twisted views on all people. Thankfully, although Mr. McCain doesn't seem willing to recognize this yet, their influence in American politics is fading. Barack Obama's certain victory in November will be the final nail in the Christian right's coffin.

The reason the Christian right is so thrilled with the choice of Sarah Palin is that she is pro-life. It reinforces the idea that John McCain, if elected, would appoint Supreme Court Justices that would overturn Roe vs. Wade. Again, this is a position held by only one out of three Americans. The rest of us believe that a woman should be able to choose to end a pregnancy that is unwanted, that would cause the mother harm, that came about as the result of a rape, or that would send the mother and the rest of her family into economic distress. I also believe that it should be done in the first trimester, but I don't possess the medical knowledge to make a definitive recommendation on this point. There are enough unwanted children in the world already. Taking away a woman's right to choose is not only undemocratic, it is unchristian.

I am a Christian. I believe in God strongly. But I also believe that everyone has the right to choose what they will believe and how they will live their lives, as long as that choice does not interfere with the conduct of society's daily affairs. The purpose of life is to accumulate as much knowledge as possible and then pass it on to the next generation. Stifling scientific progress in the name of morality is not helping mankind's present condition. I don't want a whole bunch of clones running around, but to withhold goverment money for stem cell research that might help to alleviate painful and long running disease is crazy, and I don't believe a benevolent God would want us to do so anyway.

I wish John McCain had gone ahead and chosen Joe Lieberman for his VP. That would have made this a real race. I know things seem to be close now, but in the end Barack Obama and Joe Biden will triumph and a new era of national pride and vision for the future will begin.