If you look to the upper right of this page, you will see that we are fighting against the use of the R-Word. For those who don’t know, that word is “retard” and it is offensive to those of us who love someone with a mental disability. Back in August, White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel used the word to refer to liberals he didn’t like. He called them “fucking retards”. Last month, what he said was revealed and Sarah Palin immediately jumped up and demanded that Emanuel be fired. Mr. Emanuel immediately apologized and took the pledge to not use the word. He also promised to help the Special Olympics in their fight to end the use of the word.

Meanwhile, Rush Limbaugh used the word on his radio show. “Our political correct society is acting like some giant insults taken place by calling a bunch of people who are retards, retards… I think the big news is he [Emanuel] is out there calling Obama’s number one supporters f’ing retards. So now there’s going to be a meeting. There’s going to be a retard summit at the White House.” Sarah Palin’s response was that this was satire and was OK. And over in the Texas gubernatorial race, a consultant for the Republican governor Rick Perry admitted that he repeatedly used the word in a conference call. Palin’s response was to have a spokesman say that it was disrespectful. But there was no call for the consultant to be fired. So it appears that in Sarah Palin’s world it’s OK to refer to people using the R-Word as long as you are a Republican. In other words, she is using something that we are all fighting to stop for her own political gain.

So among the people who have used the word in public, only Mr. Emanuel has taken the vow to stop using the word and has promised to help the Special Olympics fight against the word, but he is the only one who Sarah Palin has publicly spoken out against and demand be fired. But that isn’t the end…

The show Family Guy on Sunday night featured the character Chris Griffin dating a young lady with Down syndrome. Palin was in an uproar insisting that the show made fun of her son. But in the show, the young lady is the tough one. She is fully empowered and bossy. She acts like a regular person not the stereotype of a person with a disability. Chris drops the young lady after she bosses him around. “I used to hear that people with Down syndrome were different from the rest of us but you’re not. You’re not different at all. You’re just a bunch of [bleep] like everyone else.” Yep, just like everyone else.

By the way, the young lady with Down syndrome, was voiced by Andrea Fay Friedman, an actress who has Down syndrome.