John Kerry may be deemed a "flip-flopper" by some,...and perhaps they have his voting record to back this statement up. But something he said in the debate tonight was a great summary of how I feel about church and state. Kerry begins his statements by responding to Bob Schaffer's question about whether or not homosexuality is a choice.
KERRY: We're all God's children, Bob. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice. I've met people who struggled with this for years, people who were in a marriage because they were living a sort of convention, and they struggled with it. And I've met wives who are supportive of their husbands or vice versa when they finally sort of broke out and allowed themselves to live who they were, who they felt God had made them.
I think we have to respect that. The president and I share the belief that marriage is between a man and a woman. I believe that. I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. But I also believe that because we are the United States of America, we're a country with a great, unbelievable Constitution, with rights that we afford people, that you can't discriminate in the workplace. You can't discriminate in the rights that you afford people. You can't disallow someone the right to visit their partner in a hospital. You have to allow people to transfer property, which is why I'm for partnership rights and so forth….
…Now, with respect to religion, you know, as I said, I grew up a Catholic. I was an altar boy. I know that throughout my life this has made a difference to me. And as President Kennedy said when he ran for president, he said, I'm not running to be a Catholic president. I'm running to be a president who happens to be Catholic….And I think that everything you do in public life has to be guided by your faith, affected by your faith, but without transferring it in any official way to other people.
That's why I fight against poverty. That's why I fight to clean up the environment and protect this earth. That's why I fight for equality and justice. All of those things come out of that fundamental teaching and belief of faith…”
I believe in everything that he said here - especially how our public life should be guided by our faith, but WITHOUT transferring it in any offical way to other people. Then he immediately stated that that is why he fights against poverty. Poverty is a gigantic problem that concerns me a great deal, one that I don't think the republicans care much about. And that's why I'm a democrat.
3 comments:
...our public life should be guided by our faith, but WITHOUT transferring it in any offical way to other people. A lot of people espouse this belief...although I can not think of one single example of it occurring in the real world.
The decisions that a president or a senator make affect the lives of millions of people. How can faith guide their "public life" without it affecting any of their decisions? It can't.
Bush's faith obviously plays a role in his policy decisions, hence in his public life.
Kerry either has no faith, or he does not let it play a role in his decisions. Hence, his faith is absent from his public life.
As a side note, it is humorous that right after his "faith shouldn't shape policy" monologue, he goes on to list a bunch of policies that he supports because of his faith.
- doug (too lazy to register...)
i think republicans care about poverty. for example, most members of the lds church vote republican, and we are known for being highly concerned about the temporal welfare of all of god's children. president bush has opened up a new program to allow religious service organizations to receive funding for their poverty, education, and welfare programs. you may disagree with him for this, perhaps calling it an inappropriate mix of church and state, but these organizations are MANY times more efficient than government programs, and thus better able to assist the needy.
secondly, the democrats' vision of a high minimum wage is fantasy. it taxes small businesses by decreasing the number of employees they can hire. this has been shown to cause skyrocketing unemployment rates among minorities. george bush talked about education and training when he was asked about jobs. this is because he believes the safest solution for sucess in an ever-changing economy is providing skills and an education. low-end jobs will always be lost to outsourcing, illegal immigrants, and/or machines. but if you have this "human capital" that george bush is talking about, you will never be laid off for very long. that's the difference between president bush and john kerry: george is committed to improving the economy for the long term. mr. kerry is promising you a lucrative $15/hr dream job at mcdonalds...if you'll only help him get elected.
a third example where the democratic agenda hurts minorities is abortion. legalizing abortion has more devastated the black population percentage-wise than any other ethnic group. it has been called "the answer to the white man's ghetto problem". the bigots couldn't set up full-on nazi-style extermination camps for blacks, but since abortion became legal, they haven't had to!
which brings me to #4. did you know that the vote for the 1964 civil rights act was carried through to law with more republican than democrat support? and i quote:
Congressional Quarterly reported that, in the House of Representatives, 61% of Democrats (152 for, 96 against) voted for the [1964] Civil Rights Act as opposed to 80% of Republicans (138 for, 38 against). In the Senate, 69% of Democrats (46 for, 21 against) voted for the Act while 82% of Republicans did (27 for, 6 against). All southern Democrats voted against the Act.In his remarks upon signing the Civil Rights Act, President Lyndon Johnson praised Republicans for their "overwhelming majority." [source]
it would be surprising to me that any blacks vote democrat, except i know how savvy politicians manipulate innocent citizens. doug has an excellent post noting the democrats' plans for exploiting the black vote this november, via fraud. http://newswire.indymedia.org/en/newswire/2004/10/811922.shtmlfinally, i recommend doug's cousin's post on why he is voting for george bush this year: http://www.conservativevoice.com/archives/000038.htmlrespectfully,
your bro
Hotchie Motchie. I have decided to vote for Kerry. THere are a number of reeasons why, but the easiesy one for me to argue is his concern, real concern with the environment. He filabustered on 3 seperate occasions to allow environmental laws to be passed, or prevent the passing of laws decreasing national park lands. "But George Bush is a mountain biker scott" you may very well say. To that I say: he owns a mountain bike and rides it around his fat ranch, basta cosi. I don't think that Bush is, or would continue to be a bad president, but in taking Mom's (and Clarke Howard's) advice, I made a list, a very extensive one, about pros and cons about each opponent, and Kerry came out the winner, and not by too much. I also like to look at their views and actions regarding less popular issues. Popular being respectively: Abortion, gay marriage, tax cuts, healthcare. While thos things can't be ignored by any stretch, I alos feel that the candidates are far too manipulated by these major decisions. I liked Kerry's argument for not putting titles on everything and instead having plans and actions to make changes. Kerry is also more attractive and that is what is really important, right?
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