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When we ask conservative Republicans running for office this year where they stand on important social issues like gun control and abortion, we typically get a canned response that goes like this:

"Golly, when I knock on doors and talk to the voters, they just don't care about that stuff. All they want to talk about is jobs."

There is truth to that. The bad economy is foremost on the mind of most voters.

But that response is also a transparent dodge, a way to divert attention from what can be extreme, even dangerous, views.

In Illinois, nobody has played dodgeball harder than state Sen. Bill Brady, the GOP nominee for governor. And nobody has had better reason. Brady's deeply conservative views on many social issues, if widely known, would appall the more moderate Republican and independent voters he needs to win.

Let's review the record:

Gun control. Brady favors allowing ordinary people, with a state license, to walk around with hidden guns -- in their purses and pockets, tucked in their boots -- like in a Quentin Tarantino movie. Good luck with that the next time a rider on the CTA grows testy.

Brady opposes all further restrictions on guns, including a ban on assault weapons. And he has no problem with unlicensed gun dealers selling weapons -- even at your neighborhood garage sale -- without doing a background check on the purchaser.

Brady has opposed legislation to increase penalties for the unlawful use of a weapon near a school, and he has backed a law to allow gun shop owners to destroy purchase records after just 90 days instead of the current 10 years. That would make it far more difficult for police to identify the owner of a gun used in a crime.

Creationism. Brady believes it would be perfectly fine if our public schools taught that cavemen rode around on dinosaurs. He would not object -- that's their business -- if a school district decided to teach the pseudo-science of creationism, which purports that the Bible is literally true and God created the world in six days. Brady says he personally believes in both the literal truth of the Bible and the theory of evolution, which is simply impossible. One negates the other.

Abortion. Brady opposes abortion even in cases of rape or incest or to protect the health of a woman. He makes only one sliver of an exception -- to save a woman's life.

Birth control. Brady favors a law that would allow pharmacists to refuse to fill prescriptions for birth control, emergency contraception, HIV or any other purpose to which they have a moral or religious objection. As a state senator, Brady voted against requiring insurance companies to pay for prescription contraceptive drugs, even when the same companies cover male sexual performance drugs such as Viagra.

Gay rights. Lots of folks in Illinois oppose gay marriage and, to a lesser degree, civil unions. But Brady takes the most extreme view, going so far as to oppose a law that banned discrimination against gays in housing and employment.

As governor, Brady would have more say over some of these social issues than others, but he'd be free to use his bully pulpit to push his whole deeply conservative agenda. Perhaps more troubling, Brady's ideologically driven views reveal a man with little patience for serious analysis.

Nobody should be surprised that his solution to the state's budget crisis is an empty slogan -- "Cut a dime on a dollar."

We agree with those who say that a vote for Bill Brady is a vote to take back our state and country.

Back to about 1890.