Hoosiers

Saw this via Lindsay Beyerstein, and I must say, it do not suu-prize me:

"Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant 'by means other than sexual intercourse.'

"According to a draft of the recommended change in state law, every woman in Indiana seeking to become a mother through assisted reproduction therapy such as in vitro fertilization, sperm donation, and egg donation, must first file for a 'petition for parentage' in their local county probate court."

Now, I don't know how much legal traction this proposed legislation will have, but I'm sure there's plenty of political/religious support for it. We're talking Indiana, after all.

For years relatives asked me, sometimes defensively, why I left Indiana to live in New York City. I always tried to be diplomatic and gentle, for voicing the honest bottom line reason for my exile would doubtless hurt their feelings. But I suspect they knew all along.

Looking back to my teens and the years just before I fled, Indiana had some open pockets, places where you didn't have to be a reactionary in order to pass. Of course, this was just before Ronald Reagan's first term, when the concept of cultural diversity wasn't seen as an insidious commie plot. From 1980 on, however, Hoosier rightists took control and pulled the state in their direction. And judging from the election results over the past 25 years, a majority of Hoosiers went happily along, God bless 'em.

So, if you like endless strip malls, fundamentalist Christians and the rightwing of the Republican Party, you might be a Hoosier.