The Republican Party: the Party of Freedom of Choice

The Republican Party is currently threatened with becoming marginalized - in the far right margin! Hasn't anyone noticed that the great strength of our political system for the last 140 years or so, is in the fact that both parties DO IN FACT tend to trend to the middle of the road, and not to either margin.The GOP has in recent years become more and more an all white, all straight, all holier than thou on almost all issues. So the result is defeat like the Party suffered in 2008. The African Americans, the Gays, the Pro Choice, group, organized labor and the Hispanics all deserted the Grand Old Party leaving us looking very pale, very Churchy and VERY unelectable.

I am frankly tired of this Party's propensity to shoot itself in the foot (or perhaps in the brain!) I believe it is time that we concentrated on a couple of broad themes and put this holier than thou attitude behind us. I believe that (1)we should embrace the right of people to choose whether they have an abortion or not. This does not mean that we necessarily give up on education programs that show the downside of such procedures, but, just who are we to dictate what choice people can make. Consider this: having the right to have an abortion, does not mean that people have only one option. They have two: to abort or not to abort. I support freedom of choice!
(2) I believe that people should have the right to choose whether they want to send their children to a public school or not.The right to choose should allow some funding from the government. That right should not be compromised or denied because some powerful national teachers union wants to take away that choice so that they can protect their own agenda. I stand for the right to choose!
(3) I believe that the Party should embrace the Gay community and their Constitutional right to be different. What right does the Religious Right have to dictate who anyone wants to spend their life with? If the Religious community wants to believe that homosexuality is a sin based on obscure readings in the Bible, then so be it. They can even assert their right to teach their children in this way. But I reject the idea that they have the right to tell me what I must believe, or worse yet, that they have the right to deny a significant population group the right to choose their way of life. I think we should adopt a stand that says we believe in the right of people to make their own choice as to life style. I don't believe for a minute that the issue is whether gays can or should be married, or not. I do believe that the real issue is that the religious right interprets their scriptures to mean that the gay life style is a sin and they want to do whatever is possible to destroy that lifestyle in favor of their picture of what is acceptable. I reject that concept out of hand. I reject this effort to control behavior every bit as much as I would have rejected the Religious community's effort to deny the right to alcoholic beverages nearly 90 years ago! Belive what you will, but do not try to force me to believe with you!
(4) 150 years ago, the deep south was segregationist, anti-black and very Democratic Party. In 2008 the deep south is Republican, and 90+% of all African Americans voted Democratic in the recent election. Do you mean to tell me that there is no place in our party for thoughtful African Americans , desiring to make decisions based on the Right to Choose!
(5) Hispanics abandoned the GOP in 2008 despite the admirable efforts of John McCain to enact legislation that would have taken a long term,common sense approach to immigration. But no, there were just too many far right Republicans screaming that we "should send them all back", "what is it we don't understand about illegal,etc?" What I do understand is that there are AT LEAST 12,000,000 illegals in this country. Most of them are hard working (doing jobs that most other American's don't want to do!) and the simple logistics of "sending them all back" is improbable if not impossible! This would take a line of buses carrying 30 people each from San Diego, CA to Seattle, WA to Chicago, IL, to Boston, MA, to Orlando, FL!