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How Should We Support The New President?
By Colin Hanna, For The Bulletin
Everywhere I go I hear people saying that those of us who opposed Barack Obama the candidate ought now to support him uncritically as our new president. From Chris Matthews (“I want to do everything I can to make this … new presidency work … It is my job.”) to President George W. Bush himself, the refrain is clear: All Americans should set aside our differences, come together and hope that the Obama presidency is “successful.” But should we really?
Yes — and no.
We can admire his eloquence. We ought to champion his almost Reaganesque spirit of optimism and hope. We endorse his obvious commitment to his family. And we should hope that he is successful in defending our country from attack.
But should we want him to be successful in overseeing the greatest increase in the size of the federal budget deficit in our history?
Should we support his egregious goal to strip workers of their right to a secret ballot in union organizing elections? Should we support him when he encourages the passage of bad legislation such as the deceptively-named Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)?
That bill, if passed in the form that President Obama says he supports, would have the effect of invalidating every state statute limiting abortion, including such widely-supported restrictions as parental notification. The same act could also force physicians to violate their consciences by compelling some of them to perform abortions against their will and contrary to deeply held beliefs.
Finally, it could result in the closing of many Catholic hospitals whose administrators and church sponsors are opposed to performing abortions as a matter of constitutionally protected freedom of religion.
This new president, who once lectured on constitutional law, seems not to see the right to life as the most fundamental of all rights. His denial of the right to life of every unborn baby does not come out of his scholarship, it comes out of his political ideology.
The persistent stain of racism, which many have rightly called the “original sin of America,” was diminished considerably by the inauguration of our first African-American president.
For more than half a century, our nation tolerated human slavery. Slaves were counted as only three-fifths of a person, even though the reason for that gruesome compromise was to reduce the political power of states that permitted slavery. Mathematically reducing one human to less than a full human was a moral disgrace from which we must still repent, and nothing signifies our acceptance of the full personhood of African-Americans more powerfully than seeing one take office as president.
What a terrible tragedy it would be, then, for this man of history to close his eyes to the personhood of the unborn, arguably the most vulnerable lives among us.
Let us all as Americans embrace our new president, but let us do so with clear thinking that distinguishes between the man and the policies he promotes.
Colin Hanna is president of Let Freedom Ring.
Yes — and no.
We can admire his eloquence. We ought to champion his almost Reaganesque spirit of optimism and hope. We endorse his obvious commitment to his family. And we should hope that he is successful in defending our country from attack.
But should we want him to be successful in overseeing the greatest increase in the size of the federal budget deficit in our history?
Should we support his egregious goal to strip workers of their right to a secret ballot in union organizing elections? Should we support him when he encourages the passage of bad legislation such as the deceptively-named Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA)?
That bill, if passed in the form that President Obama says he supports, would have the effect of invalidating every state statute limiting abortion, including such widely-supported restrictions as parental notification. The same act could also force physicians to violate their consciences by compelling some of them to perform abortions against their will and contrary to deeply held beliefs.
Finally, it could result in the closing of many Catholic hospitals whose administrators and church sponsors are opposed to performing abortions as a matter of constitutionally protected freedom of religion.
This new president, who once lectured on constitutional law, seems not to see the right to life as the most fundamental of all rights. His denial of the right to life of every unborn baby does not come out of his scholarship, it comes out of his political ideology.
The persistent stain of racism, which many have rightly called the “original sin of America,” was diminished considerably by the inauguration of our first African-American president.
For more than half a century, our nation tolerated human slavery. Slaves were counted as only three-fifths of a person, even though the reason for that gruesome compromise was to reduce the political power of states that permitted slavery. Mathematically reducing one human to less than a full human was a moral disgrace from which we must still repent, and nothing signifies our acceptance of the full personhood of African-Americans more powerfully than seeing one take office as president.
What a terrible tragedy it would be, then, for this man of history to close his eyes to the personhood of the unborn, arguably the most vulnerable lives among us.
Let us all as Americans embrace our new president, but let us do so with clear thinking that distinguishes between the man and the policies he promotes.
Colin Hanna is president of Let Freedom Ring.
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