As the mother of a child with Down syndrome, what angers me is not that Obama used this letter. No, what infuriates me is that so many people are angry that he did. And I’m sad to report that many of those people are conservative bloggers, like me. …

I hate to have to defend Obama here. I hate it. (I hate it more than mayonnaise!) But I have to… because they did nothing wrong.

If a girl named Brittany had written in a letter saying all of the same things, but had erased the part where she said she had Down syndrome, would there be any uproar at all? No, there wouldn’t be. And there are plenty of people without disabilities who do say exactly those same sort of things, who call themselves members of Mitt Romney’s 47%. Do I agree with them? No, but they say it and that’s fine. We can argue back with facts.

However, simply because this girl has Down syndrome, her voice apparently shouldn’t be heard. At least, that’s what all of these conservatives are basically saying. Because she has an extra chromosome, her letter shouldn’t be posted for the world to see. It’s “exploitative”.

And that, my friends, is so damn demeaning, condescending, and insulting to people with Down syndrome that it makes me sick.