In which The Gay Recluse questions the kind of man who berates a 75-year old woman for being pro-choice.

Our mother — who lives near Pittsburgh in the “swing-state” of Pennsylvania — has been going to physical therapy lately because she hurt her foot.

She goes during the day, when a lot of the other clients are old Republican assholes who have somehow managed not to die of heart attacks yet.

Last week this one guy was saying: “McCain made a smart move: now all those Hillary women are going to vote for Palin!”

Our mother couldn’t resist yelling from across the room: “Here’s one woman who voted for Hillary Clinton who won’t be voting for Sarah Palin.”

A little while later, he came over to her and said: “I want to tell you something: when my wife was younger she was diagnosed with cancer and had to get chemotherapy. It turned out that she was also pregnant at the time, and her doctor recommended getting an abortion, but she didn’t. And I just want you to know that that child — my son — was perfectly healthy.”

Our mother said: “Aren’t you glad she had the choice?”

But of course he didn’t understand what our mother was trying to say.

Somehow this guy thinks because a doctor once recommended that his wife get an abortion — and was ultimately wrong about the health of the baby — that no woman anywhere should ever have one.

This is obvs what John McCain and Sarah Palin believe, too.

We think of people like our mother who have spent decades and decades fighting for the right to make basic decisions about their bodies.

Which is basically the same thing the gays want.

And how frustrating it must be to read about the election, where these issues — i.e., abortion, gay marriage — become nothing more than markers in a sporting event.

And how demoralizing it must be to see everything they fought for eroding away.

All because people are fundamentally miserable.

And refuse to admit it.