Choice words from Gloria Steinem

The iconic feminist author and publisher writes in today's Los Angeles Times about the Palin pick.

Here are some choice quotes:

To vote in protest for McCain/Palin would be like saying, "Somebody stole my shoes, so I'll amputate my legs."

[...]

She was elected governor largely because the incumbent was unpopular, and she's won over Alaskans mostly by using unprecedented oil wealth to give a $1,200 rebate to every resident. Now she is being praised by McCain's campaign as a tax cutter, despite the fact that Alaska has no state income or sales tax.

[...]

She is Phyllis Schlafly, only younger.

An admitted "hope-a-holic," she waxes longingly that a "loss in November could cause the centrist majority of Republicans to take back their party, which was the first to support the Equal Rights Amendment and should be the last to want to invite government into the wombs of women."

Not likely, Ms. Steinem. In all probability, the Republican Party, the party of my parents (and perhaps still my older brother), has become the party of the radical Christianist right. If the Republicans win in November, it will cement this paradigm shift in the GOP for generations. If they lose, it will be the non-Christianist Republicans who will have to break free of the new, theocratic GOP and form a new party from which to further their conservative American views.