The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act of 2009 passed in the Senate this afternoon by a healthy 61-36 vote. The law corrects a lousy Supreme Court decision and strengthens women’s rights to sue when they face discrimination in pay. What’s interesting is that every Republican woman in the Senate voted for it and every Republican man in the Senate (except Arlen Specter) voted against it. All Democrats voted for the bill except Teddy Kennedy (who is recovering from the seizure he suffered on Tuesday), Al Franken (who still has not been allowed to take his seat), and whoever is going to replace Hillary Clinton.
If you are a semi-apathetic citizen that isn’t all that familiar with the ideologies of the two main American political parties, what do you take away from a vote like this? The Democrats unanimously support protecting women from wage discrimination. All the women in the Republican caucus agree. But only one Republican man out of the 37 that serve in the Senate supports protecting women from wage discrimination. What does that tell you?
And would it surprise you that every single one of those 37 men (except Arlen Specter) also opposes letting a woman have the right to choose whether or not to carry a pregnancy to term, most of them without any regard to health considerations?
It would appear to me that the Republican Party is dominated by patriarchal assholes. Any casual observer would likely agree.
