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OBITUARIES: Sally Ride (1951-2012)

Republibot 1.0's picture
Mon, 07/23/2012 - 20:12 — Republibot 1.0

Sally Ride, the first American woman in space (And the third woman overall) passed away earlier today following an 18-month battle with pancreatic cancer. It's an awful, horrible way to die for an American hero.

Lots of people will say lots of things about how inspirational she was and how much she affected the lives of an entire generation of women. That's undoubtedly true, and I'm not going to pretend I have anything to add to that. Some people are going to talk trash about her. Some of that may be true as well, but as R3 said to me earlier today:

"She strapped a rocket to her ass and rode fire. She's deserving of my respect."

Our prayers go out for her soul, and for her family.

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Thu, 07/26/2012 - 19:19
#1
10000li
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Why Sally Ride's preferences matter

First, I want to define terms in relation to the points I am about to make:

Natural: Attraction to others of the same gender is natural. It's basis is in the activity of the brain, which, of course, is set up by one's genes.

Choice: How one behaves, whether they act on their attractions or not, is a matter of choice.

Sally Ride made the choice to keep her love-life private. I do think it is important to know that she preferred to love other women because it shows younger women that if they are lesbians, they can still make amazing lives for themselves.

Sally Ride chose to show herself as a female astronaut, rather than a lesbian, female astronaut, because she probably figured "female" in front of "astronaut" was already a lot for most people (men) to handle.

Maybe she also decided to live in the future, where the only thing that mattered to her job was the word:

Astronaut

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Wed, 07/25/2012 - 10:48
#2
neorandomizer
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Very Classy

She did what many of us should learn to do keep our private life private I know Hollywood could use this advise.

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Wed, 07/25/2012 - 10:31
#3
Republibot 4.0
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One Classy Lady

I must confess that it was a little...confusing...to find out that Sally Ride was bisexual, and was able to maintain her "secret" for 27 years while still being in the public eye. Still, she went about her private life with the sort of decorum and class that should serve as a model for the LGBT community.

I should hope that her scientific legacy will be remembered long past her obituary.

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