Brave Humans

If you ever take a drive through the heartland of America on Interstate 70 you will eventually come across the Effingham Cross, near Effingham, IL. This 200ft structure is located just a few hundred feet off the highway, surrounded by ten large plaques, each listing one of the Ten Commandments. A chapel is adjacent to the structure.

It is currently the world’s largest cross. Even if you are just passing through, you can’t miss it.

Welcome to God’s Country.

The Effingham Cross is not simply a religious statement, it is also a political one. Its purpose is to be seen by the nearly 50,000 people who travel past every day. For many Americans such a blatant symbol of Christianity is seen as an image of hope. Perhaps even a reassuring stance against the growing secularist movement in this country. For others, such a large Christian structure so close to a major public highway is seen as the perfect symbol of the threat of theocracy facing this country. Therein lies the great and growing divide in America. How we deal with this divide will determine the future of our country.

There is a growing movement in this country of a Richard Dawkins style of secularism. This movement labels religiosity not only as false, but as dangerous and indicative of insanity or ignorance. It places those who are led by their faith to pacifism and tolerance on the same footing as those who strap bombs to themselves in the name of God. It seems to be the fastest growing variant of secularism in the country. It is certainly the loudest.

The problem with the Dawkins approach as I see it is that it is not so much pro-secular as it is anti-religion. Dawkins himself sees enlightened secularism as a kind of utopia. Thus the purpose of this movement is to achieve a freedom FROM religion, since only a secular society can be truly just. Religious faith must therefore be classified as a thought crime, something that should not be tolerated. At the very least it should not show itself in public.

In Dawkins’ utopia Martin Luther King would have been derided as mentally insane because he believed in an imaginary sky pixie. Clearly anyone who says things such as

When we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!

must be delusional.

On the other hand, atheists such as Captain Awesome would be viewed as fully sane and rational creatures, perhaps even lauded for his writings, such as:

You see, there is only one way to explain it to you guys: I’m better then you. I’m so much better then you, asking me to respect your religion is like asking you to respect the drunken homeless guy passed out in his own vomit. In terms of theology, all religions are like that drunken homeless guy. The differences are insignificant, sort of like if the guy barfed up Boone’s farm or Jim Bean onto himself. I don’t give a shit, I’m just going to steal his alcohol and then piss on him.

By the way, if you are reading this Captain, the correct phrase is “better THAN you.”

The obvious flaw in the Dawkins approach is that secularism doesn’t foster justice. What fosters justice is equality. Labeling religious faith as a delusion or implying religion is the root of all evil isn’t a path toward utopia, no matter how finely worded the argument.

Of course the problem with equality is that everyone supports the idea until someone with whom you disagree demands it.

Going back to Effingham, imagine what would happen if Muslims built a mosque on the other side of the highway. One with a 200 ft minaret, and just as close to the road. Perhaps looking something like this:

Do you think the community there would welcome the mosque with open arms, or do you think they would start holding pig races on Fridays? If you see the Effingham Cross as an image of hope, would you see the mosque in the same way? Or would you see the mosque as a threat of theocracy?

You can’t have it both ways.

If freedom FROM religion is the wrong path for America, then equality demands freedom OF religion. Which means mosques need to be embraced in a community as openly as churches and synagogs. It means the nativity scene in the town square may sit next to a wiccan Yule display. What is acceptable for Christianity must also be acceptable for any religion, no matter how strange or false you may think it to be.

We don’t live in God’s country anymore, we live in Gods’ country. Plural. Every one of us has our own God or gods as we see them, even if that god is an ancient and false fairy tale. Freedom OF religion means that each of our gods have an equal right to be seen and heard, out in the open, with the government treating all with equal reverence.

Credits: Original mosque picture from wikipedia.

Guantanamo Bay is in Cuba I believe, but by a wonderful legalist sleight of hand it is not Cuban national territory. While it is totally controlled by the US it is not US territory either. It is a kind of convenient ‘no mans land’ that the current administration has been using to hold various suspects for the past five years while it wrestles with the problems of how to find them guilty while appearing to offer legal justice. (Sorry! lost my objectivity there!)

Guantanamo Bay has become famous in Australia because two Australians have been held there. One was released after three years with no charges, while the other is still there, to the increasing embarrassment of our Government. Despite being very cosy with George Bush, our Government is now facing a ground swell of mass action demanding that David Hicks be released. The fundamental principles of Habeas Corpus (i.e. you must not hold a person without charge) have been violated, and ALL Australians, even the most conservative groups (like Veterans associations) have lost trust the US military legal system and want David Hicks brought home.

The shining star to emerge from this mess is Major Michael Mori, the US Marine Corps lawyer who was appointed by some military commission to represent David Hicks in the Tribunal Court that was dreamed up to deal with the Guantanamo Bay cases. Since his appointment, he has spoken out forcefully against the legality of the proposed court and he was instrumental in the sequence of events that resulted in the US Supreme Court declaring it unconstitutional (or illegal or something). So it was back to the drawing board in the mission to appear to see justice done. Some new court has been set up and I believe its legality is also being questioned.

After five years, charges have finally been laid against David Hicks and the best they could come up with was ‘conspiring to aid the enemy’. Ummm… five years in solitary confinement before charges are laid and this is the best they come up with? I think someone is doing some face-saving, hoping he will plea-bargain and they won’t have to go through the farce of a trial without credible evidence of anything much.

This is such a high-profile case here that Major Michael Mori has become highly recognised here in Australia. In the paper today, I read that he recently attended a rugby match here. It turns out that he is a rugby buff. He played rugby in college and also for the Marine team, no small achievement. (Perhaps I need to review my impression of the limitations of US football literacy!)

The journalist who accompanied him to the game (Mike Carlton) noted:

“The game was dead ordinary, a dull draw but everything else went off like a house on fire. The truly startling thing was the reception Mori got. Even though he was dressed in the anonymity of jeans and a sweat shirt, he was recognised and greeted like a superstar.

“Not to put too fine a point on it, your average rugby crowd is more likely than not to stand on the right-hand side of the political spectrum, but as we battled through the throng to get to our seats, there were shouts of welcome, friendly waves, thumbs up signals and pats on the back. Four young blokes with zippy undercuts begged to shake his hand, and an elderley rugger gent rushed right up to us “Look after the Aussie,” he gasped. Most Australians want to see justice done for David Hicks, even if this wretched Government doesn’t. ”

So, what questions arise from this situation? A key one for me is “How effectively does our system ensure that real justice is done?” By ‘our system’, I mean the broad institutions of democracy with the three elements — government responsible to electorate, judicial system that is independent from the government and a free press. Any thoughts?

Oh, and as this is an issue that has united both sides of politics, I thought that both red and blue BraveHumans might find an entry point to the discussion.

One of Stephen Colbert’s funnier interviews must be the one with Debra Dickerson, author of The End of Blackness. In typical Colbertian fashion, he skewers her belief that Barack Obama is not “black”. Seeing it reminded me again of how strange it has been to find myself living in Montgomery, Alabama, even though I have now been here a little over three years.

I grew up in Florida but after I left for grad school in Iowa at 22, I never returned. Most of my adult life has been split between two very white New England states and Iowa. I never expected to leave New England.

Life, had different ideas. An attractive job offer brought me to a state that I had always regarded with the special horror that those of us who grew up in the 60s learned while watching George Wallace grandstanding against integration. Montgomery, Selma, Birmingham– those names were seared into our imaginations, as we watched the evening news. Like so many children, I was a romantic and a fervent supporter of integration.

I remember when my junior high school was integrated. On the first day of school hordes of reporters, parents and police stood milling at the front door while federal marshals drove up and deposited one rather small black girl. My friends and I had already decided that we would befriend her and protect her but, as I recall, no heroics were necessary. Well, after all, Florida was not Alabama.

I hadn’t had much chance to observe day-to-day interactions between the races during the twenty five years I lived in states in which it was possible to count the number of black families in most cities and towns on one hand. So I did not know what to expect, especially since southerners are still routinely held up as moronic racists in too many “liberal” venues.

Not too long after I arrived in Montgomery, I needed to attend a meeting in Birmingham of a professional association in which I had become an officer. Two of the other board members live in this area and we decided to go together. Not too far from Birmingham we were passed by a highway patrol car. That’s when the unthinkable happened.

The patrolman didn’t look at us twice. He just went on his way. He was uninterested in me and my two black colleagues. It hit me then how things had changed, since the 60s. Then, I couldn’t have been seen in a car with a black man (even though a black woman was also present) without the police stopping us. Now, it didn’t rate a second look. On the way back, we stopped at a restaurant for lunch. The place was full but I don’t recall seeing many single race tables.

I was filled with a peculiar kind of joy. This was my childhood dream fulfilled– white and black together and it was normal! I live in a nice middle class neighborhood that is almost half and half black and white. African Americans make up a good 30% of the student body at the university at which I am employed.

So, why do we still have a race problem? How can a black writer say that Barack Obama is not black? What is the problem?

The other day, my five-year-old said to me, “Mom, wouldn’t it be awful if we could all do everything perfectly?” Having spent the day sorting through a mass (mess?) of data for my dissertation, I was thinking, “Actually, honey, no, I’d like everything to go smoothly.”

But I knew where she was coming from. She’s just starting to learn to skate, and she’s having the time of her life. On her initial outing to the rink, I thought we’d last about 5 minutes; she was slip-sliding all over the place, falling on her face, on her knees, on her bottom, again and again…then after about 10 minutes, she didn’t want to hold hands anymore. By the end of an hour, she could skate half the length of the rink without falling. Now, a few visits later, and she can skate the circumference of the rink without falling. Well, sometimes.

But she LOVES the process of learning to skate. Every time she falls, she has a big grin and scrambles back up. She’s seeing her progress, and it’s rewarding. She loves what she’s doing. Each time she does it, she gets better, and it’s totally internal motivation. Neither my husband nor I am permitted to verbally reinforce her, because she’s identified a jinx; every time we say “good job,” she falls. (No kidding. Every time.) Therefore, it’s all her…

There’s a lot of things my daughter loves. School, for instance. I remember growing up in the northeast and being ecstatic when there’d be a snowstorm, and we’d get a day off from school. Now I can’t even enjoy that vicariously… she’s actually disappointed when there’s a snow day. “Oh, darn, I love my school.” Not that she’s bored at home… there are Barbies, and paint, and the computer, and, oh, yeah, did I mention ice skating? But my child wants to be in school.

I do have a point here, other than “my daughter is amazing.” In the February 12 issue of Time magazine there was an interview with Bill Gates. In response to a question about “better learning through technology,” Gates downplayed the role of technology and replied, “Learning is mostly about creating a context for motivation.”

Now, I’m writing this on a Macintosh, so Bill Gates does not pop up on my radar screen very often. I think his views on education, however, are dead-on. For children to engage in any meaningful learning, they need to be motivated in some way. It’d be wonderful if, in school, children wanted to learn for the sake of learning. Realistically, though, that’s often not going to happen in traditional schools. Still, that doesn’t mean that educators shouldn’t try to cue in to what motivates students. It can vary greatly, and it isn’t always obvious to us (sometimes, actually, it’s quite obscure).

The following anecdote is rather interrupts lengthy, but I really want to include it because it’s a terrific illustration of how motivation can be highly personal. (It also, unfortunately, makes me look like a dunce. Oh, well.) I was teaching second grade; the practice in that school was to keep students in at playtime if their daily work was not done. I was not comfortable doing that, but who was I to rock the boat? Anyway, I had one student who regularly would not complete his work by playtime. Yet he placidly sat in the classroom, working, while his peers whooped it up outside. Finally, one day, out of frustration, I said, “Why don’t you just get your work done on time? Wouldn’t you rather be outside?” (I mean, this was a no-brainer. Kids LOVE recess.) The boy looked at me and answered, “No. Playtime is boring. There’s nothing to do.”

I may have stopped breathing at this point, because such a great truth was revealed to me: PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT! For whatever reason, this child did not want playtime (even though he should have been outside, getting fresh air…etc.). Consequences that would work with almost any other child on the face of the planet made no impression on this youngster. That incident made me turn over a new leaf in my classroom…

That was the last day any child in my class stayed in at playtime. (School practice be damned! I was the teacher of these kids, that’s who I was!) From then on, everyone was responsible for getting his or her assignments done by recess, however that worked for the individual. The choice was up to each child. Some children chose to come in and start working first thing in the morning while others were having choice time. Some took work to lunch to finish up after they’d eaten. Most children just followed the typical daily schedule and had no problem finishing. The responsibility was out of my hands and in theirs. I was no longer policing them. I expected them to finish within a certain time; it was up to them to determine how that was done. I know it sounds too good to be true, but this policy worked so well I seldom had to deal with a student who had incomplete work.

So…back to Bill Gates and his “context for motivation.” Why might a child want to learn something if the learning is not intrinsically motivated? Well… maybe a seventeen-year- old just wants to graduate and will put up with homework and exams if he can keep that goal in mind. Maybe working on a computer will help a reluctant mathematician. Perhaps a struggling writer will benefit from nontraditional forms of writing, such as journals or cartoons. The list goes on and on… and should, because PEOPLE ARE DIFFERENT.

I know this is an overwhelming task for the public school system; trust me, I’ve been there both as a teacher and as a researcher. I know the responsibilities, limitations, and challenges. But I also know from experience that there’s no “one size fits all” educational system, especially if we want learning that’s going to stick around past an exam. This is a huge challenge for the public school system. I seriously question whether it’s possible without an overhaul of the entire system. Until that revolution comes, I’d like teachers and parents to help children discover their goals, motivations, and passions and learn how to harness them.

This topic brings to mind Grant’s reaction piece to Murray’s views on education and IQ.

Nowhere in Murray’s proposal does he suggest how we’re supposed to get students to agree to their placement, whether in vocational school or in an elite academy. Even top students must want to learn; it’s not just underachievers who struggle with motivation. All of us can use a boost when there’s something difficult or uninteresting for us to learn. For me it was calculus; I never did learn to care about it during university, and I have the grades to prove it. What was it for you?

Be brave. Be human.
Susan

Mitt Romney, candidate for the Republican nominate for president, was recently criticized at an event for being Mormon.

When I first heard this clip, I thought, I can’t stand religious intolerance. This is America and should be open to all religious faiths (or lack thereof).

My second thought was, Would I vote for Romney? Well, maybe not.

Wait a minute here. What am I saying? Could I be prejudiced against someone because of his religion? No! I can’t be… religious bigots are those who have all the answers or are sure if “you’re not for us, you’re against us.” Or they are completely against religion. That’s not me. I’m a liberal. I’m tolerant.

Only I’m not. I am prejudiced. In day to day life, I couldn’t care less if someone belongs to a religion other than mine, or no religion at all, for that matter. Heck, some of my best friends are pagans. But I’m apparently applying a different standard when I consider voting for someone.

There are aspects of some religions I find irrational and illogical, and I have trouble trusting and respecting someone who’s a member. I can’t even claim this comes from ignorance on my part; I’ve learned a fair bit about religions over the years. Nope, this is intolerance based on information…it’s not a gut reaction….it’s a choice.

I talked to my family about this at dinner. My daughter said, “Don’t you judge people based on what they do?”

“Well, no, honey. This is about religion.”

“But you should decide about people based on what they do.” Great. Here I am, a bigot, raising a lefty. How did that happen?

My husband thought about it and decided that he agreed with me. He considers religion just one more criterion used to evaluate politicians. He thinks it’s reasonable because lately many issues are societal/political/religious. OK, I can see that. So why does my reaction bother me so much?

I had to think about this quite a while. Then it hit me…

What if Romney were Jewish? Would I have a problem? Well, no.

Presbyterian? No

Episcopalian? Nope.

Atheist? No

Islamic? Uh-uh

Fundamentalist Christian? Well….maybe…

Scientologist? Well, probably…

I’m not questioning how someone’s beliefs would affect his behavior in office. I’m assuming there’s something wrong with a candidate simply because he belongs to a particular church. And I’m not consistent; for instance, I had no problem with John Kerry being Catholic, even though (as a former Catholic) I have grave reservations about that religion. But being Catholic is not a strike against him, as Mormonism is in Romney’s case. I’m not being uniform in applying this standard.

BraveHumans was devised as a forum for discussing differing viewpoints. We hope that people who come here will be open-minded, civil, willing to consider new ideas, and open to change. Well, time for me to change. I don’t want to be so biased.

This is not about Mormonism or Scientology, or fundamentalism. This is about me. I’m not perfect. (My husband will be so glad to hear that; it’s been a great burden for him to bear all these years.) Not only am I not perfect, but I’ve got some pretty ugly bigotry going on here. And I never even realized it until just recently.

Judging candidates by their platforms, past performance, participation in debates, party affiliations…all these make sense to me. Perhaps it’s even reasonable to consider religion, if that criterion is applied across the board.

I probably wouldn’t even have given this issue a second thought a few months ago. Lately, however, I’m always hunting for an idea for an intriguing post. So when religious intolerance raised its ugly head, I was there. I just didn’t know how close to home it was going to be. I guess I have BraveHumans to thank for it. Ultimately, I imagine this will result in personal growth…but right now feels downright yucky.

Be brave. Be human. (Boy, am I human)
Susan

I would like to thank Grant for providing me with the material for this post.

Let’s say it is true, that abortion is not the greatest idea in the world, and that a majority of Americans want to reduce abortion to the greatest extent possible. After all, looking at the stats provided by the CDC (go to the embedded link for this info), several things are painfully obvious:

1. An overwhelming majority of abortions – almost 80% - occur out of wedlock.
2. Among those 19 years and under, abortion is decreasing significantly; however, almost 50% of all women having abortions are over 25. In other words, they are likely not women who didn’t know better. They weren’t drunk at a college dorm, getting high behind the high school, or anything like that; they were already integrated into the responsible, adult world.
3. An underwhelming percentage occurred after 21 weeks of gestation.
4. The change in percentage of abortions by race says that, yes, abortion among black women is increasing, but white women are by no means absolved from the problem.

These numbers can’t be false, they come from the government. Can they?

These numbers are generally accepted, and they point out a huge number of societal, economic, and political issues.

THIS IS HUGE! It’s obvious that, whether we have a consensus opinion or not, it’s worth spending time and money to make sure the problem doesn’t get any worse. We know the facts – they really aren’t even up for discussion. We know the impact – look at the broken homes, stigma to society, and loss of life. We know the resolution, but we’re not doing enough about it.

Sexual expression is the start and end of the biggest cause of abortion: conception.

Conception is the new Global Warning. Consensus says conception is wrong. Consensus says we MUST act, even if the stats and forecasts are askew. Consensus says our world will fall apart if we don’t fix it. The media say it disproportionately affects the poor. Critics aren’t really arguing about it that much. Even Hillary Clinton wants to minimize the rate of abortion, which can only be done by minimizing conception.

Conception is the new Global Warming…but only if you’re willing to pass out condoms. There is no need for behavior modification, even though it would reduce medical costs and alleviate societal issues, let alone stop freaking out every adult female who is three days late.

So, why do we want to put all the taxpayers’ money behind every potential cure for global warming, when we won’t know for years whether the potential cures will work, but won’t pursue every avenue with conception, when we know what the results will be?

Recently Ann Coulter called John Edwards a faggot while addressing the Conservative Political Action Conference. Several prominent conservatives were in the audience, including Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney.

It’s Coulter, it’s offensive, and it’s not surprising.

It’s also not the point of my post today.

I mention the incident because it was brought to my attention through an e-mail from the Edwards campaign. (Honesty side-note: I’m not a Democrat, and I’m on the mailing list of several candidates of various persuasions.) They mentioned the incident, linked to the video clip, and then rallied the troops with this:

This is just a taste of the filth that the right-wing machine is gearing up to throw at us. And now that it’s begun, we have a choice: Do we sit back, or do we fight back?

I say we fight. Help us raise $100,000 in “Coulter Cash” this week to show every would-be Republican mouthpiece that their bigoted attacks will not intimidate this campaign.

And then I got really offended. What outraged me was not that they asked for money, but that they only asked for money. The Edwards campaign could have asked people to write Romney and ask whether he agrees with Coulter and accepts her support. They could have urged people to contact the CPAC and urge them to ensure Coulter isn’t invited to speak anymore. Instead, they simply said send us money. Don’t get involved. Let us handle it.

In the grand scheme of things, $100,000 is chump change. But for a Presidential hopeful even chump change is more valuable than, say, 30,000 bloggers. Apparently for all our efforts and discussions, BraveHumans and every other weblog on the planet isn’t worth the price of Starbuck’s coffee. Their attitude ticks me off, and yet I wonder if they might be right.

Which brings me to the real point of this post.

Rick at QuipSpot, Carol at My View of It and I have decided to try a little experiment. We want to see if we can gather 30,000 bloggers to act as a single voice for one moment in time. We want to see if such a thing is possible, and if so just how loud we can get. Think Horton Hears a Who.

Here is the proposal from Rick’s site:

Here’s how it works:

1. Send an email to brian@bravehumans.com with the subject: Yop!
2. In the body of the email list the name of your weblog, and the URL.
3. Your weblog will be added to the list of participating weblogs.
4. Tell your friends who blog about it, and urge them to send in their weblog as well.
5. When the list reaches 30,000, a date and a word will be listed on the page. On that date, every weblog on the list agrees to make a single post with the word as the title. The content of the post should be about what you want for the world, whatever that may be. The purpose is not to make a particular political statement, but simply to make a noise. If 30,000 weblogs all post the same unusual word, it WILL be heard.

Have you ever wanted to shout to the world? Here’s your chance.

Yes, I am asking for 30,000 e-mails. I will be checking that each site submitted is actually a weblog, and I will be adding the sites to the list by hand. I realize this is a profoundly crazy idea. I’m willing to put a great deal of effort into this because I truly want to see if such a thing is possible. If we succeed we will have demonstrated the profound power of grassroots blogging. If we fail then we will have demonstrated that blogging is still largely reactionary and driven from the top down. As the Edwards campaign demonstrates, politicians still fundamentally believe the latter. I would very much like to prove it is the former.

The 30,000 number was chosen because it represents the original number of citizens in a congressional district. On one hand it seems like such a large number. You may have heard about the 2000 bloggers website. We are looking for 15x that number. On the other hand, 30,000 is quite a small number. It represents about 1/20th of a modern congressional district. It is the tiniest fraction of the more than 57 million weblogs currently tracked by Technorati.

As I post this 10 bloggers have already signed on to this idea. I’m sure for a few of you reading this, I had you at Yop!

What about the rest of you? Why should you participate? Why should you get excited about this, write about this on your blog, and tell your MySpace friends or everyone in your MyBlogLog community?

I don’t know. I’ve told you why I want to do this. Rick and Carol have stated their reasons on their websites. Find your own reasons. What would you tell the world if you had the voice of 30,000 bloggers? What would you like it to achieve? The worst that can happen is we never reach 30,000. The best that can happen is we change the world.

Which outcome would you like?

The cover story of a recent Time magazine concerns one new version of anti-abortion/right to life advocacy. It focuses on compassion rather than condemnation for pregnant women seeking abortions in the U.S. The process is to set up women’s health clinics that strongly promote a woman carrying her child to term. These centers often provide both money and support for (at least) several months after a child is born. They are strongly religiously (Christian) grounded and receive funding and support from several sources on that basis.

Reading this article got me thinking. Independently of whatever my own views on abortion may be, these clinics seem like a (small?) step toward middle ground. Those who staff such centers firmly believe that their job is not only to stop abortion, but also to provide real aid and compassion to often scared and sometimes desperate women who may have few other options. Although I claim no authority on the subject, this change in emphasis seems profoundly Christian to me in the best sense of the term.

On the other side of the divide, staunch supporters of abortion rights/a woman’s right to choose are now moving a bit more toward the middle in their own right. In 2005 Hillary Clinton stated, “I believe we can all recognize that abortion in many ways represents a sad, even tragic choice to many, many women.” And she was talking to family planning providers in New York State. And they didn’t throw things at her.

The Time article closes with a story concerning the staff of a family planning clinic (i.e., provides abortions and birth control) meeting with staff of one of the new pro-life clinics. They talk about women, babies and abortion. Oddly enough the sky has yet to fall and friendships have developed. Sounds a bit Brave Humans, which brings me to my point.

One additional quote in the article really struck me. In reference to birth control one staff member of the pro-life clinics stated that they will not provide or discuss birth control because “ Most of our clients are unmarried and the Bible clearly states that sex outside of marriage is against God’s will for our lives.”

This quote points out that these new compassionate Christian centers are trying to serve two goals that are at fundamental cross-purposes. On the one hand they view abortion as murder and are utterly committed to stopping it entirely if at all possible. On the other hand they are also committed to a separate social agenda that views non-marital sex as a sin that they cannot condone. The conflict here is one that pro-choice advocates have been yelling about for years. If the unmarried women that come to the pro-life centers had used birth control effectively, this would have prevented their pregnancy and any possibility of abortion. The traditional Christian response is that access to birth control promotes non-martial sex and they therefore cannot condone or promote birth control in any way.

I am by FAR not the first person to notice this conflict, but maybe this is the time to do something about it. Both sides have meaningfully softened their positions on abortion. Could they come a bit farther and make real progress? The idea is a simple one: Could both sides agree to legislation that a) significantly limits access to abortion and b) promotes both the acceptability and availability of reliable birth control? BOTH sides give a great deal here AND abortions significantly decline. I’m not even going to try and sketch out what this legislative Nirvana would look like, and it would likely take years to work out, but I would profoundly respect those individuals within the conflict who would sit down and start talking about it in some serious manner. Talk about a Brave Humans sort of moment.

On separate notes, I’d love to hear what our friends outside the US think about this, and here’s a link to U.S. abortion stats for anyone who’s interested.

Be Brave. Be Human.
-Grant

Here’s my confession: although I’m an Independent and usually vote Democrat, I seriously would have considered voting for John McCain if he’d gotten the Republican nomination in 2000. McCain appeared intelligent, open-minded, principled, and moderate. Then G. W. Bush was nominated, and, almost overnight, McCain started saying supportive, complimentary things about a man for whom he had recently clearly had contempt. Politics as usual, I thought; McCain is still hoping that someday he’ll be president, so he’s not burning his bridges. Speaking hypocritically, perhaps, but not starting any fires.

Skip forward several years, and John McCain is again seeking the Republican presidential nomination. In order to make his stance clear on the Iraq war, McCain recently clarified his position: “I think that Donald Rumsfeld will go down in history as one of the worst secretaries of defense in history.”

Ok, some would agree with that, but others would not. Others, say, like… John McCain. On Donald Rumsfeld’s resignation last November, McCain said, “While Secretary Rumsfeld and I have had our differences, he deserves Americans’ respect and gratitude for his many years of public service,”

So…. McCain believes that Rumsfeld deserves our respect and gratitude for being one of the worst secretaries of defense? I’m having trouble buying that. Or has the situation in Iraq changed so much in the last three months that Rumsfeld, in retrospect, appears dangerously inept? Not from what I’ve seen; pretty much status quo over there…

Or is John McCain once again making speeches based not on his values but on what he thinks will get him elected?

When I was a kid, the I felt the worst thing my parents could say to me was,” I’m disappointed in you.” Believing that I’d let them down when they trusted me mattered more than any lecture or punishment they could give. So…

John, John, John…. I’m so disappointed in you.

Be brave. Be human.
Susan

Just a quick note.

As you can see, the layout of the site has changed a bit. I’ve tried to give the site a more efficient use of space, while keeping it easy to read and use. Let me know what you like, don’t like or about any bugs you find in the comments.