From One Social Issue To Another

I would belatedly like to express my happiness over the September 20 repeal of the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy that allowed gays to serve in the military so long as they stayed in the closet.  Keeping them from serving openly was an affront to human dignity, and the issue was completely irrelevant to whether someone should serve in the military on the basis of sexual orientation.  As Barry Goldwater once said, you don't have to be straight to serve in the military, you just have to shoot straight.  (This policy won't likely be repealed if a Republican becomes President, because it's already allowed gays in the military to come out of the closet so quickly.  Repealing it would be like repealing the Thirteenth Amendment.)

But  now the Republican party has one again focused on another social issue - abortion.  This time the House is taking up yet another bill to, among other things, curb insurance coverage for abortions and penalize health insurers that provide it.  The vote is today.  I don't know all the details, but I know this much - not only does it do us no good for House Republicans who ran on the economy to suddenly focus on issues that have nothing to do with the economy, their renewed focus on abortion in an age when most countries have settled the issue and moved on, once again, makes us look the ignoramouses we are to the rest of the world.