Emily’s List Ranking of Presidential Candidates
/It’s kind of a strange thing to do, ranking GOP presidential candidates on a list of issues that are traditionally not supported by the GOP. As one would expect, in the recent Emily’s List ranking, all candidates had many strikes against them, from this perspective. Nevertheless I found some interesting nuggets when drilling down into some of the strikes they marked against specific candidates.
Here is my favorite. Did you know:
- In 2011, Newsweek interviewed Robert Bork, a top advisor for Mitt Romney. “How about the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment? Does he still think it shouldn’t apply to women? ‘Yeah,’ he answers. ‘I think I feel justified by the fact ever since then, the Equal Protection Clause kept expanding in ways that cannot be justified historically, grammatically, or any other way. Women are a majority of the population now—a majority in university classrooms and a majority in all kinds of contexts. It seems to me silly to say, ‘Gee, they’re discriminated against and we need to do something about it.’ They aren’t discriminated against anymore.’” [Newsweek, 10/17/11]
Get that? Women. Are. Not. Discriminated. Against. Anymore. Oh, yeah, they used to be, but that’s all over now! You can tell because so many women have jobs, and go to school. Plus there are more women than men. If they’re not a minority, that means discrimination is impossible!
I’m sure that’s why women's earnings were 77.4 percent of men's in 2010.
Am I naïve to hope that those at the very top of the list of individuals who may soon lead our country would have a better understanding of the concept of discrimination?
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Peg Shippert is a psychotherapist in private practice in Boulder, Colorado. She has a deep passion for working with survivors of sexual violence.