A fair trade?

I sat at the Candidate's forum with my question in my hand. I hesitated to get up in the beginning, and was later beat to the microphone for the last couple of questions. My question involved women's rights, something that was barely mentioned during the 2 hour event so I left a little disappointed.

But I listened and it's taken a few days to decide how to put words to my feelings.

A theme that I've noticed lately (at the candidate's forum and in conversations with friends) is a separation between the economy and the "social agenda."

During the forum Adam Schroadter said that he was running as a pro-business candidate. He mentioned oyster farming, relaxing restrictions on home beer brewing and supporting the Polish Club in town as examples of his record. Sounds good, right?

But both he and Josh Davenport failed to mention their voting records on social issues.

So we get more oysters and home brewed beer in exchange for limited access to health care, dismantling women's rights, diverting money from public schools to private and religious schools, an expansion of the death penalty, guns in the Statehouse, legalized discrimination, a cumbersome and unnecessary voter ID law, guns on college campuses and a repeal of universal kindergarten. 

It's not just Newmarket. Ovide Lamontagne opposes gay marriage, opposes legal abortion, opposes funding for planned parenthood, supports turning Medicare into a voucher system, supports privatizing public education and supports abolishing the Department of Education while running as someone who will improve the state economy.

And it's even more obvious on the national stage--when my Republican friends tell me that they are socially liberal but are voting for Romney because of the economy they're basically saying lowering my taxes is more important than my GLBT friends, women's control over their own bodies or how we educate our kids. But he's a business guy, so it's ok?

What's hard for me to reconcile is that it's not like it's all or nothing with the economy--I hear people say that the recovery just hasn't happened fast enough or been strong enough or taxes aren't low enough. 

We can debate how much we should pay in taxes. I get that. 

But I'm not willing to debate what I can do with my body. Or what you can do with yours.

All candidates are pro-business. It's what they are "anti" that we can't ignore.