Republicans now oppose rights of disabled. Shameful.

Just when I thought the Republican Party couldn't get any crazier, their political insanity ratchets up another notch. 

I can almost understand why the not-so Grand Old Party disdains minorities, the poor, homosexuals, abortion rights advocates, secular humanists, and other people who don't fit in the small confines of who modern day Republicans consider to be morally acceptable.

But disabled people? That's a new low.

Which was reached yesterday when the Senate failed to ratify a United Nations treaty that protected the rights of disabled people — including disabled American veterans who, along with Sen. John McCain, strongly favored the treaty.

Led by Republican opposition, the Senate on Tuesday rejected a United Nations treaty on the rights of the disabled that is modeled after the landmark Americans with Disabilities Act.

…The treaty, already signed by 155 nations and ratified by 126 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, China and Russia, states that nations should strive to assure that the disabled enjoy the same rights and fundamental freedoms as their fellow citizens. 

…He and other opponents were not swayed by support for the treaty from some of the GOP’s prominent veterans, including the 89-year-old Dole, who was disabled during World War II; Sen. John McCain, who also suffered disabling injuries in Vietnam; Sen. Dick Lugar, the top Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee; and former Attorney General Dick Thornburgh. Eight Republicans voted to approve the treaty.

The treaty also was widely backed by the disabilities community and veterans groups.

So Republicans now have added the disabled to their ever-growing list of "We don't give a shit about you" groups of citizens.

If you're a registered Republican, this is what your party has come to: uncaring and untruthful. If you're not ashamed of what the GOP stands for, you have completely lost touch with your moral compass.

Driving home this evening, on satellite radio I heard a journalist based in Washington describe his reporting of this story. He quoted a Senate aide who told him that in his many years in political work he's never seen anything as shameful as this Republican kick in the face of the disabled community.

The reporter said that disabled veterans and others were crying in the Senate gallery after the vote. They couldn't believe that so many Republican senators changed their votes after Glenn Beck, Rick Santorum, and other crazies incited their followers with lies about what the treaty supposedly would do.

Actually, it wouldn't have affected U.S. law at all.

It had nothing to do with abortion, home schooling, or the rights of parents. But Tea Party wackos hate the United Nations so much, they preferred to trample on disabled people in their misguided effort to reject the treaty, rather than expand the rights of disabled people around the world.

Now, the reporter said, disabled veterans and other disabled people who travel in other countries, or want to live in other countries, can't expect to enjoy the same wheelchair ramps, handicapped bathrooms, and other aids to independent living that are required under our country's Americans With Disabilities Act.

Screw the disabled, said a clear majority of Senate Republicans. 

I've never been prouder to be a Democrat. 

(Read Gail Collins' "Santorum Strikes Again" for more evidence of how shamefully heartless and lie-obsessed the Republican Party has become.)