General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Bernie! Bernie, bernie bernie bernie bernie bernie. Bernie: Bernie bernie [View all]bekkilyn
(454 posts)Now I'm a southern Democrat (unless I decide to go back to being Unaffiliated) and people *are* too hung up on abortion and homosexuality at the cost of everything else, and the reason is because Democrats allow the GOP (who practically worship these two things like idols) to control the conversation. They keep us arguing over abortion and homosexuality while they continue to inflict all sorts of economic atrocities onto us.
Abortion and gay rights are important issues. I absolutely will *not* vote for an anti-choice or anti-gay rights candidate no matter what letter is next to the name. These are just givens. However, I don't need these two things to be the entirety of the conversations.
What I *do* want is not-for-profit universal health care, a minimum living wage, strong employee rights, big money out of politics, people and not corporations controlling our government, paid family leave, support for PUBLIC (not charters, not vouchers) education, clean drinking water and other environmental protections, school to prison pipeline eliminated, fracking bans, equal pay for equal work, EXPANDING social security, medicare, and medicaid, free public college, immigration, and a bunch of other things in no particular order.
I am a strong feminist and support racial justice, LGBT rights, and social justice in general, but we can't achieve social justice without also having economic justice as the two are very tightly intertwined.
For example, women are the majority of our population making minimum wage, so raising the minimum wage is BOTH an economic issue AND a women's issue.
Lots of us down here in the south are very open to Bernie's policies AND support women's choice and gay marriage.
Just don't try to take our guns away, that's all.