WHY THE REPUBLICAN PARTY DOESN'T WANT ME

To set the record straight:

1.  My parents, good people, were Republicans.

2.  Though it may sound like the start of a joke, some of my favorite friends are Republicans.  Most of my high school buddies are Republicans and better salt of the earth folks, you could not find anywhere.

3.  I say I am apolitical, but as I have gotten older I have become more liberal...usually not the way things go. I could not pretend, however, to be politically learned.  There is more that I don't know about politics than I do know.  I have always voted, a few times being extremely grateful I had a third
party candidate from whom to vote!  I like to think I vote for the man and not the party, but have never felt a Republican candidate was 'the man'.

I'm not sure I can make this a Top Ten List of Why The Republican Party Doesn't Want Me, but here goes...

1.  I believe in the separation of Church and State.
     Once the Christian Right became policy makers for the Republican Party, I felt our nation was on
     a slippery slope.
     Many Republicans rail at the opposition for eroding the Constitution...right to bear arms comes to
     mind.  (I do not think anyone's constitutional rights are violated if a semi-automatic assault weapon
     can't be in the gun rack.)  I don't hear Republicans mention separation of Church and State as a
     constitutional precept that must be safeguarded.
     Politicians who make decisions based upon what they say is God speaking to them often don't seem
     to be speaking the same language as a loving, accepting creator of all people.  Every person on this
     earth is a creation of God and they weren't put here to be converted to some other religious doctrine.
     God made them and placed them where they were meant to be, believing what they were meant to
     believe.
     I respect your right to worship (or not) any way you choose.  Show me the same courtesy.
 

Principles of a Free Society

The Ayn Rand Center for Individual Rights

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Separation of Church and State

Political freedom requires a separation of church and state. This principle is often advocated, but seldom fully understood. Properly, this separation is rooted in the principle of intellectual freedom. It means that every individual should be free to think about and accept any idea he chooses.

To say that church is separate from state means that the state makes no evaluation of its citizens’ ideas, religious or otherwise. The state’s concern is only with men’s actions, specifically actions that trespass on individual rights. It neither persecutes nor tolerates nor promotes ideas—because it is unconcerned with ideas per se.

From the other direction, to say that state is separate from church, means that a citizen—including any faction of them, such as a church—is incapable of using the state’s coercive power to penalize or support ideas, religious or otherwise. If a citizen wants to hinder or support an idea, he must argue his case with others, not enact a law.

In a free society, government has no power to persecute or establish religious ideas because it has no power to police ideas as such. No one, including those in government, may force their ideas on anyone.

2.  I believe that the government should not legislate the choices I may be allowed to make
     concerning  my body, reproductive organs specifically.  No one is for abortion: I must demand
     that the choice to have one be guaranteed for all women.   I'm a daughter and a mother with a
     daughter.  How is the US government making abortion illegal any different from the nations that   
     sanction genital mutilation?  These are a means used  to control a
     portion of the population.   I do not understand how any woman could support a political
     party that aims to control reproductive freedom.

3.  The Republican party touts itself as the fiscally responsible party.  President Clinton, Democrat, is
     the only President in decades to balance the Federal budget.

4.  Republicans decry government funded welfare programs, stating that the nation's citizens
     will take care of the poor, jobless, and homeless by voluntary loving kindness.  If that
     were happening now, the government could phase out of the welfare business because it
     would be evident those programs were no longer needed.  Not happening folks.

I write this in the wake of the furor over comments by a Republican running for office who voiced his opinion about pregnancy and rape victims.  I would have felt compelled to write this if the man had been a Democrat.   The title would have been a little different!  Idiots are idiots.  Neither political party has a monopoly on that.  Those off the cuff remarks cannot be apologized away.  The man spoke what was in his mind as fact and in his heart as religious belief.  Let us demand a government that governs by our Constitution and respect for all of its citizens, regardless of religious belief.  America was founded on the principles of freedom for all, not for some, and as stupid as our leaders might be (and us for electing them) that is what has made us a nation apart.

My Top Ten List seems to be a Top Four List, but in reality it is a Top Two List:  separation of Church and State and hands off the ovaries.