Great column at First Things

Another Coloradoan, Suann Therese Maier, has a great column on the First Things "On the Square" blog today. It is entitled "A Vote for Sarah Palin." A great snip:

I will vote for Sarah Palin because she is intelligent, tenacious and talented. Nobody made her rise easy, and no one is making it easy now. And—is it only moms who notice this?—unlike Senator Biden, she does seem to act consistently on her beliefs about the sanctity of life, at considerable personal cost.

FYI: Suann Maier has a slightly higher profile than the bio on First Things would lead you to believe. In 2005, she and her husband Francis received "induction into the papal knightly Order of St. Gregory the Great as dames and knights," according to the January 26, 2005 issue of The Denver Catholic Register. Here is what that same article had to say about them:

The Maiers
Both 56 and married 34 years, Suann and Francis Maier are the parents of four children, one adopted and one with Down syndrome. Archbishop Chaput described them as “a model of Catholic family love for children with special needs.”
A teacher for 24 years, 20 in Catholic schools, Suann has been active in Catholic and public service volunteer causes for decades as a catechist, coach, board president of a school for children with special needs and a pro-life activist, the archbishop indicated. She has served as an emergency pregnancy counselor, raised the funds for and helped found pro-life clinics, recruited pro-life volunteers, and served in a variety of pro-life leadership positions, including president of the Right to Life League of Southern California, one of the largest pro-life education and service provider networks in the nation.
Currently archdiocesan chancellor and special assistant to the archbishop, Francis X. Maier has served the Denver Archdiocese for 11 years, beginning as communications secretary for Archbishop, now Cardinal, J. Francis Stafford. Former editor of the National Catholic Register, he has provided extensive policy counsel and support to the bishops and vicars general of the archdiocese since 1993, the archbishop indicated. He was the primary staff support in the development of the 1998 U.S. bishops’ pastoral letter, “Living the Gospel of Life.”
Suann Maier recalled that she was dismissing her fourth-graders from a parish school in Manhattan when a parent told her abortion on demand had been made legal. Pregnant with her first child at the time, she said she immediately understood that “abortion was going to be one of the gravest evils of our time, that God was asking us to walk the talk, and that this would be a defining work of our marriage.”
“To get an honor like this is beyond what we could ever have expected or hoped for,” she said. “It’s a beautiful recognition that our contribution is valuable.”