Gay ally Molly Ivins dies after long battle with breast cancer

The GLBT community has had fewer advocates more outspoken than columnist Molly Ivins. Sadly, she died yesterday at the far too young age of sixty two. Even though she was born in California, Molly was a Texas girl through and through, and one of the things that made her columns so much fun to read was that she lets her Texas vernacular shine bright and proud. Her prose was sprinkled with homilies and down home sayings such as "You got to dance with them whut brung you." She's the one who nicknamed Bush "Shrub" and once referred to Ross Perot as "a runt with attitude." I think my favorite word of hers was "womperjawed". She was also hysterically funny, no matter how dire the topic at hand whether it be George Bush's mental faculties, the war in Iraq, or losing her own breasts to cancer. Here is what she had to say in a Time Magazine article back in 2002:

Having breast cancer is massive amounts of no fun. First they mutilate you; then they poison you; then they burn you. I have been on blind dates better than that.

Molly spoke out repeatedly against those of the "religious right" who attacked us again and again over the years. Living and writing as she did from her home in Texas she had no shortage of opportunities to come to our defense. We're going to miss you, Molly.