Letters to the Editor
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Oversimplify Much?
You don't seem to appreciate the nuance of these issues, and furthermore you tend to be arguing in philosophical ideals, not practical realities. You say religious freedom in schools is no prayer in schools- you support freedom with restrictions?? He supports limited prayer in schools because he doesn't believe that ANY student groups should be automatically excluded, especially where the constitutional basis for that exclusion is itself 'wishy-washy'.
As for the homosexual issues- he has his beliefs, which he is entitled to. How he acts on those beleifs is all that you can criticize, and I think that if you factored in the political realities of those situations where he 'supports some of the most virulently anti-homosexual bigots in the black community' you would realize he didn't have much choice. And I would appreciate any direct quotes from him against the queer community. Also, when it comes to marriage, are you talking about the rights-and-privileges that would be covered under civil unions, or the word?
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If you're addressing me, SR
I don't doubt that liberals carry their own version of racism- one can't have lived in this country without some of its history rubbing off- we all have to deal with our own feelings and experiences and influences, but you can't really compare it to full out, hateful, unapologetic racism, either.
As for anti-Jewish sentiment, well, lets just say that it is really more pro-American than anti-Israel. See, most Americans today experience the holocaust through history, not visceral reality. As such, they are less easily swayed in support of a nation they view in the same light as they view the Palestinian plight. That is where Jews have a mental block in understanding why Carter calls it apartheid, or Salon LW's fiercely support US interests over Israeli interests. One funny thing about the Carter controversy: CNN.com reported that 14 members of the Carter Foundation quit in indignant protest of the Presidents position in his new book. The funny part? Instead of just saying "All 14 members are of Jewish Heritage" (that would be racist!), they go on to list all 14 names, first and last . Of course all the last names were Jewish. I know that word count doesn't matter as much online as in broadsheet print, but editors still aim for concise reporting and that was just too much to ignore.
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Either you're equal or you aren't
And I would appreciate any direct quotes from him against the queer community. Also, when it comes to marriage, are you talking about the rights-and-privileges that would be covered under civil unions, or the word?
If civil unions are the same thing as marriages, I assume you'd have no problem with you or your heterosexual loved ones being forced to get one instead of marriage, Ktwdawg? And if the only problem really was "the word" -- and "the word", apparently, is so meaningless that LGBT people shouldn't require it -- then how childish is it of bigots to want to keep it from others? It's just a word, after all, right? So who are the people in that scenario who really need to grow up and get over it?
Here's a quote, which is included in an insightful article by the Reverend Irene Monroe on advocate.com:
“I was reminded that it is my obligation not only as an elected official in a pluralistic society, but also as a Christian, to remain open to the possibility that my unwillingness to support gay marriage is misguided,” Obama wrote in his recent memoir, The Audacity of Hope.
But Obama’s audacity is not only his unwillingness to support the issue, but also his misunderstanding and misuse of the term “gay marriage.” The terminology “gay marriage” not only stigmatizes and stymies our efforts for marriage equality, but it also suggests that LGBT people’s marriages are or would be wholly different from those of heterosexuals, thus altering its landscape, if not annihilating the institution of marriage entirely.
But Obama’s remarks in a recent interview with Tim Russert on NBC’s Meet the Press spoke somewhat encouragingly about granting LGBTQ couples not marriage equality but certainly civil union rights.
However, having lived outside of America during its turbulent decades of the Jim Crow era and legal segregation, Obama may not know on a visceral and lived experienced level what those decades had been like for African-Americans.
But he ought to know, as a civil rights attorney, that granting LGBTQ Americans only the right to civil unions violates our full constitutional right as well as reinstitutionalizes the 1896 U.S. Supreme Court decision Plessy v. Ferguson. As a result of that decision, the “separate but equal” doctrine became the rule of law until it was struck down in the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision.
However, Obama doesn’t understand that regardless of one’s gender expression or sexual orientation, we want equal status to be institutionalized within our marriages as well.
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Hillary and Barack on One Ticket
Am I the only person who thinks it just might work?
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The only two issues that really matter
Our next president has two main tasks:
The War in Iraq, and how to withdraw without causing World War III.
Global Warming.
I think most will agree that Iraq is a mess, and we need some very savvy *adults* in charge who have experience with internation issues and diplomacy, who will act rationally and with forethought. Here I don't mean the Iraq Study Group, or anyone who still defends the Iraq war.
Solving the Iraq War issue is crucial to our national security, and to keeping the Middle East and who knows where else from going up in flames.
ALL OF THIS PALES in comparison to the crisis of global warning. Review "An Inconvenient Truth" if you still don't get this. I am frightened by a potential president who thinks *coal* could be the answer to our "energy problems". The glaciers, North Pole and Antarctic continue to melt while we fret over same sex marriage and prayer in the schools. I am writing this from northern Europe where we are enjoying 50 degrees Fahrenheit in January, and there is hardly any snow this winter in the Alps. Global warning is happening now, not in the distant future or some alternate universe. We need a president who will make this our top priority as a nation. Paging Al Gore ....