Posted on 05/21/2009 10:11:09 AM PDT by presidio9
When Notre Dame, the nation's best-known Catholic university, asked resolutely pro-choice President Barack Obama to receive an honorary degree and deliver the commencement address this year, it caused intense controversy in Catholic circles. About 50 U.S. bishops publicly opposed the president's planned appearance, which violated their 2004 directive that Catholic universities "should not honor those who act in defiance of our fundamental moral principles."
On Sunday, graduation day came to Notre Dame, and so did Obama - who was overwhelmingly welcomed. In a warm, conciliatory speech, he didn't shy away from abortion, saying that the two sides' views are fundamentally "irreconcilable." Yet he also said that both sides must respect each other and should work together to reduce the number of abortions.
Once again, this president displayed his gift for making his most strident opponents marginalize themselves. He comes across as the kind of politician who genuinely sees those who disagree with him as opponents, not enemies. When a strong abortion-rights supporter like Obama is not only honored at the nation's most important Catholic university (in terms of cultural symbolism), but enthusiastically embraced, times are changing.
In his Sunday speech, Obama implicitly recognized that most Americans - including American Catholics, a majority of whom voted for him - do not place abortion at the center of their political identities. It may defy logic and irritate activists on both sides, but on abortion, a broad majority of Americans are in the mushy middle.
Americans are weary of this fight, which is no doubt partly why Senate Republicans signaled over the weekend that they would not stage a fierce abortion battle over Obama's forthcoming Supreme Court nominee. But Americans are more uncomfortable with abortion. A new Gallup poll finds that for the first time, a majority (51 percent) describes itself as "pro-life." Other polls show that young Americans, in particular, are not only increasingly pro-gay but also increasingly anti-abortion.
Abortion is not the defining political issue it once was. Religious Right old-guard stalwart James Dobson told his followers last week to forget dealing with this White House. By contrast, younger religious conservative leaders, like Pastor Rick Warren, remain opposed to abortion but work with Obama and other liberals on issues of mutual concern - and the White House is planning a more formal outreach effort to abortion opponents this summer.
These are positive developments. As a newspaper that supports a woman's right to choose, we are pleased that America has a president committed to preserving that right. We also are pleased that America has a president who sees abortion opponents as fellow citizens worth approaching with "open hearts, open minds (and) fair-minded words."
No matter which side of the issue you're on, that's change we can all believe in.
I see. If we only respected and worked with Hitler and weren’t so opinionated about those pesky Jews our differences would melt away.
Your comment is so great, it NAILS it, I have to repeat it and share.
May I?
The power structure of Notre Dame clearly assisted President Obama in his strategy of deception: saying one thing and doing another.
In his Notre Dame speech, Obama endorsed "sensible conscience clauses"--- yet his HHS has abandoned their enforcement of the conscience clauses already passed by Congress (the Church Amendments, Coats Amendment, and the Hyde/Weldon Amendment). Isn't it "sensible" to enforce the conscience measures our elected representatives have approved over the past 35 years? What's wrong here?
In his Notre Dame speech, Obama said we must respect others' convictions, whether they are for or against abortion: yet he will compel pro-life citizens to become accomplices to abortion by requiring us to finance, through our tax dollars, the very thing we find morally intolerable.
We respect Obama, and he kills babies. He respects us, and he makes us pay for it. What's wrong here?
Again in his Notre Dame speech, Obama said opponents of embryonic stem cell research may be upholding the sacredness of life, "but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved."
He didn't mention that it is adult stem cells which, in laboratory trials involving animals, have shown repeated success at reversing diabetes, and have even produced functioning, insulin-producing islet cells in humans; while embryonic stem cells have shown no such success.
And at Notre Dame, he used one of the world's most prestigious Catholic podiums to broadcast his self-serving, factually deficient arguments, and nobody got an equivalent opportunity to rebut him by supplying the missing facts. This is "dialog"? This is "exposure to challenging ideas"? What's wrong here?
Where are the Conservative speakers at universities abd colleges?
He sets off the enemy by their constant provocations and then points at them and says "they're crazy," when they try to fight back.
The classic pattern of psychosis. He's going to destroy this country and all the while he'll fool everyone.
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