Laura Bush is pro-gay marriage and pro-choice

Attmay,

Thanks for reminding me about Cindy McCain! One of George Bush’s friends at Yale, Lanny Davis, wrote in the Washington Post years ago that Bush liked to hang out in the dormitory lobby and rib fellow students as they walked by. But when his buddies were ridiculing one classmate for being gay, Bush refused to join in. I suspect both Bush and McCain’s views are held in place by the coalitions they work with. Once their wives had more freedom from those pressures, they spoke their minds. I like that both Laura and Cindy ARE speaking their minds even though they are expressing opinions with which their husbands disagree. That says good things.

You are quite right to bring up spousal immunity. I can’t remember if I’ve included spousal immunity in my lists of rights same-sex spouses can’t get through making contracts — I think I have. My guess is that people believe that the “separate but equal” civil unions really will be equal, so they would include spousal immunity. I starting to think the Mormon Church is behind the push for civil unions in order to fracture and dissipate support for full equality — that’s because they define marriage based on whether it took place between Mormons and in one of their temples, in which case it is a marriage for eternity, and all other marriages performed outside their temple, which are a degraded form of marriage only for a lifetime. They’ve had a lot of success with defining two states of marriage and getting almost absolute control over the people who want the “temple recommend” so they can have the better kind of marriage.

Cynthia

Syd,

Spousal immunity, the right to plan a funeral AFTER the death of a same-sex spouse, and the right to ride in an ambulance with a same-sex spouse being transported to a hospital are three rights that you cannot obtain by making a contract.

Yes, Laura Bush’s speaking out like that made me respect and love her, too.

Cynthia

Amy,

I’ve gone back and forth on abortion because the pro-choice advocates got ambitious and began to extend their campaign to euthanasia and assisted suicide — they were particularly after quadriplegics as “life unworthy of life” (I’ve forgotten the German words the Nazis used, although they got the concept from the U.S.). As you may recall, my late life partner was quadriplegic due to multiple sclerosis (MS) the last 10 years of her life. The largest group of people killed by Jack Kevorkian were people with multiple sclerosis. So Margaret was doubly targeted.

However, as I became conservative and began to understand the people whose social conservatism is totalitarian in nature, I realized that these people do everything they can to get control of the reproductive process. They see women as property for the purpose of baby-making. They stigmatize, or make unlawful, all behaviors that do not directly make babies. They work to force gays into heterosexuality and make homosexuality unlawful, or at least devastatingly unequal, because they want everyone making babies for them.

So the way I see it, the only way that women will be able to maintain our equality and liberty is to have the right to refuse to bring an unwanted pregnancy to term. That means access to a safe and legal abortion. I do not think this right should be unlimited — after 120 days, then bring the child to term and give it up for adoption. Basically, women have a hostage in the fetus and the only thing that keeps the balance of power between women and the church is the right to kill the hostage. Without access to birth control AND the right to choose, women are property.

By the way, did you know that birth control is illegal in Ireland? What are the odds the Catholic Church had something to do with that?

Cynthia