Risky Business-Republican Candidates

Recently I had an opportunity to respond to someone online who said he did not understand why feminists did not rally behind Sarah Palin since she was the "embodiment of all feminism stood for".

After choking on my coffee, I proceeded to respond that Palin was about as far from a poster child for feminism as one woman could be and mentioned things like as governor of Alaska she allowed and even endorsed the machine gunning of wolves from helicopters and her mandatory motherhood affiliations.

With the election on the horizon more and more comes to light to reinforce my stand that Palin would make a dangerous vice president, and in a worst case scenario, a devastating president.

While serving as mayor, Palin led a campaign to ban books. Among them a book to help children understand their gay parent. When asked by her first mayoral campaign manager, Laura Chase if she had even read the book, she responded she did not need to read "that stuff". Her attempts at book banning failed, but did not stop her from sending a letter of dismissal to the librarian who had stood against her citing that the librarian (Mary Ellen Emmons) lacked co-operation with the mayor's office.

Laura Chase now says she finds it disturbing that someone would be willing to remove a book from the library that they had never read. When Palin asked Ms. Emmons about banning the books and removing them from the Wasilla library,

Emmons stated that the library holds that censorship was a purely individual matter, that while anyone was free to reject materials for themselves, they could not restrict the freedom of others via imposed censorship.

Emmons was reinstated following the citizens uproar over the firing of their popular librarian.

So far on my scorecard Palin is toting up a big fat zero. More accurately, a negative number:

Animal Rights: -10 (the wolves had just gotten back to not being at an endangered species level when Palin declared open season)

Right to Choose: -10

Censorship: -10 (Wasilla library fiasco)*

Fair Employment Practices: -5 (firing Ms Emmons for standing up for lack of co-operation)

Separation of Church and State -5 (the book banning was endorsed by and may have started with Palin's church at the time.)

The Right to life movement often lays claim to the title feminist, despite it being in reality the "mandatory motherhood movement" and their total disreguard of the feminist precept that women are able to make decisions on moral and ethical issues for themselves.

The more that comes to light about Palin, the more it amazes me that the Republican party is hanging onto her as the running mate for McCain. While McCain is a clear and present danger, to think that it would somehow help his campaign to grab at random any woman as running mate is foolhardy. The choice of Palin makes it even more scary to contemplate a Republican administration.

It is hoped that the voters will recognize that while it would be a great historic event to have a woman president or vice president, it still needs to be someone who's ethics are not so easily reproached and also someone who is not so clearly against the Constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights, animal rights, gay rights, and civil liberties.

* source: The Nation magazine, October 2008 issue