Posted on 06/15/2008 6:49:26 PM PDT by blam
Barack Obama asks fathers to take responsibility
By Alex Spillius in Washington
Last Updated: 12:51AM BST 16/06/2008
Senator Barack Obama has called on black American men to accept their responsibilities as fathers and to stop "acting like boys instead of men".
Barack Obama speaking at the Apostolic Church of God
In a Father's Day speech at a black church in his home city of Chicago, the Democratic presidential nominee listed the disadvantages faced by single parent families in the community, and urged men to realise that their responsibility as a father does not end at conception.
"If we are honest with ourselves, we'll admit that too many fathers are missing. You and I know how true this is in the African-American community," said the father of two.
"We know the statistics – that children who grow up without a father are five times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime, nine times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison.
"The foundations of our community are weaker because of it.
"We need them to realise that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child – it's the courage to raise one."
Women who were working, looking after children and cleaning the house were performing "heroics", he said, but needed the support of another parent.
It was the first time Mr Obama has appeared at a Chicago church since he left the congregation of the Trinity Church of Christ, whose former pastor, the Rev Jeremiah Wright, mired himin controversy with his race-tinged criticism of America.
Although campaign aides said he has not yet decided on a permanent new church, his decision to speak at the Apostolic Church of God indicated that he will play it safe in future.
Bishop Arthur Brazier, the recently retired Bishop at the Pentecostal church, has said that he views politics in the pulpit as inappropriate, and is widely admired as a civil rights contemporary of Martin Luther King.
With a congregation of 20,000, the church has a powerful base in Chicago's South Side, and has bought up large portions of land where it has built affordable housing.
Though Mr Obama's message was delivered to the African American community, his belief in the family will not do him any harm in his efforts to court the religious Right and wavering Republicans for November's election.
His speech also contained strong elements of the confessional so popular in US politics.
The senator recalled how his own father, a student from Kenya, had left his mother when he was two.
He saw his mother, and grandparents, struggle with bills and to fill the void. Mr Obama, whose girls are aged six and nine, said: "I resolved many years ago that it was my obligation to break the cycle – that if I could be anything in life, I would be a good father to my girls; that if I could give them anything, I would give them that rock – that foundation – on which to build their lives."
This? or He? is another farce.
I really have a sick feeling about the next 8 years.
Obama claims he will serve two terms.
I dont dislike Obama as a Man but as the possible next leader of our Country I detest him.
Turd has been tossed around alot this election to describe our choices.
So if OBA does get elected does POTUS change to POS?
: )
But said it to pander their knocked up shorties.
This might tick some people off, but in Muslim countries the father has the last word when it comes to children. If madame is unhappy in her marriage, no problem, she can leave, but the children stay with the father. The responsibility for the children weighs heavily on the average Muslim dad (not the bodybombing, religious bearded nutjobs) and they take it seriously. They think that children are too important to be left to women. Haha. In the west men have NO say in the rearing of children any longer, it’s been left to the flight of fancy of women.
Obama says to men, “Just send money and shut up”!
I say give them the power to do something constructive.
Just wait, we ain’t seen nothing yet. If BHO makes it to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave I fear The World As We Know It has come to an abrupt end.
Correct in one!
Partial Birth Abortion was developed in conjunction with a ruling about when a child was born. A child was deemed to be born after its head exited the birth canal. Killing the child before that was abortion, and could be a thereputic event (if the delivery was breach, and the birth canal was too small/head too large, the woman’s life could be saved, with the option to have another child.) Killing the child after that was infanticide, and treated as murder.
I know of the loony linguistics of partial birth. Your point?
Partial birth abortion, an ethical problem, occurs in response to the definition of the difference between abortion and infanticide. This definition was developed in response to a legal ambiguity.
I had some vague observation that the problems of each generation are due to the solutions provided by the previous generation. Hardly ever are previous solutions revisited.
Not the best example. Sorry if it detracted from your day.
My understanding is the definition of abortion was written back in the 1850s. Long before anyone was harvesting brain tissue for embyonic stem cell research.
The early partial birth abortions were performed long ago when a child was delivered “breach” with a head too large for the birth canal. The alternative was to split open the woman’s pelvis, normally a death sentence.
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