I was happy to see that, for the most part, President Obama was received with open arms at Notre Dame’s Commencement over the weekend.  However, the controversy surrounding Obama’s visit has prompted a number of questions, not only about abortion rights but about the value of speech and the value of tolerance.

Speech

Speech is extremely essential to any society.  The right to free speech is one of the most celebrated and long-lasting rights in America.  The First Amendment explicitly prevents the government from abridging our right to free speech.  Additionally, society generally shuns private individuals (who are not obligated to observe the 1st Amendment) who try to censor speech.

The purpose behind this celebrated right is that we recognize that humans are fallible, and that the government is not all-knowing.  We recognize that no single person or group of persons can always be right about everything.  Rather, we recognize that new, unpopular ideas may turn out to be correct.  See Galileo.  Simply because an overwhelming majority of scientists believe that climate change is man-made does not mean that we should censor the dissenters.  A belief of a large crowd can often be wrong, and if we refuse to believe that we could ever be wrong, then we risk severe harm to human civilization.

Additionally, speech is often the vehicle by which people can come to optimal solutions.  Theoretically, when we debate important ideas, and we allow many people to speak, the best ideas will rise to the top as more and more individuals become convinced.  Furthermore, speech can help us strengthen our convictions in our own beliefs.  If we learn the best and most convincing arguments of people that believe differently from us, but we can rationally reject those ideas, then presumably we must reject them because we believe our views are even more convincing.  We could not realize our own views’ strength if we did not compare them to those of others.

Although Notre Dame is not the government, and does not need to obey the 1st Amendment, Notre Dame should have been shunned if it decided to keep Obama away purely because some students do not like his views on one issue.  Keeping him away would be asserting a kind of infallibility in both the school and in the students themselves.  It would encourage students to believe that they do not need to recognize that any beliefs other than their own, and it would encourage students to shelter themselves only with those that believe the same things they do.  It would prevent the students from learning other ideas that could either strengthen their own convictions or change their mind.

Obama was not at Notre Dame to convince Catholics that killing babies was a good idea.  Primarily, he was there to say congratulations for graduation.  As a secondary matter, he was there to respond to the protests at Notre Dame, and say that although perhaps pro-lifers and pro-choicers will never agree on the issue of abortion, they still have to live with one another and be able to speak with one another.  Moreover, if there is ever to be any serious abortion-related legislation, both sides are going to have to work with each other.  If you never speak to the other side, that will never happen, and neither side will ever be able to compromise.

Tolerance

Obama’s visit also raised questions about tolerance in society.  By tolerance I do not mean that Catholics should believe that Obama’s pro-choice view is just as correct as their pro-life view.  Rather, they need to accept him as a human being despite having conflicting views with their religion.  I am a recently-confirmed Catholic.  One of the most important lessons that I learned in the Bible is that Jesus did not only associate with saints, but sinners as well.  Jesus did not fight with other people; he turned the other cheek.  Jesus loved his neighbor, and he loved his enemies.

Catholics who responded to Obama’s visit by handing out hateful pictures of aborted fetuses and calling Obama a murderer did not act the way Jesus wanted people to act.  Instead, they shut their minds and showered Obama with hatred.  The Golden Rule that not only Christians but many persons claim to obey is “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”  Would a Catholic who had an opportunity to speak at a school that was very pro-choice have wanted to be showered with this type of hatred?

Conclusion

Those that are pro-life and pro-choice need to put down their weapons.  First, abortion is not the most important policy issue going on right now in the world.  Both sides are going to have to work together to deal with a number of other important issues.  If they refuse to talk to one another because of abortion, that will be a shame, and more important things will not get done.  Secondly, humans are not infallible.  Assuming that one is all-knowing is extremely foolish and risks a “Galileo situation.”  Finally, Catholics who treat others with hate, even those who are their greatest enemies, are contradicting Jesus’s teachings.  It sounds tacky to say this, but: can’t we all just get along?

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Apparently, one of Barack Obama’s largest political liabilities is that 15% of voters think he is a Muslim, and do not feel comfortable voting for a Muslim (AP-Yahoo Poll Conducted April 2-14) (some polls say 10%).  Notwithstanding that it is a bit crazy to think someone who just publicly dealt with his connections to a crazy Christian pastor is Muslim, it disturbs me that 15% of the country would not vote for a candidate because he is a Muslim.  Isn’t it racist to not vote for someone because he practices a particular religion?  I do not see any other way to describe these attitudes.  Isn’t the Jim Crow era over?  Haven’t we moved on?  Apparently not, for 15% of the country.

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This morning I read an interesting article in the Washington Post entitled “When the Rules Run Up Against Faith.”  Essentially, the article was about an excellent female high school cross country and track runner, who was a practicing Muslim and was thus forbidden from showing skin except for her hands and face.  Thus, at track meets, she was wearing a unitard that covered her arms and legs, and was equipped with hood to cover everything but her face, which she wore under her team’s uniform.

Everything was fine for the past three years, in which she raced in that uniform at many track meets.  However, at a recent meet, and one that was very important to her, a meet director told her that her uniform was unacceptable and she was disqualified.   Essentially, his argument was that technically, her uniform violated the rules (his argument is wishy-washy to begin with), so she has to be disqualified.

Assuming that the meet director was entirely correct when he said that her uniform violated the rules, he is still wrong in disqualifying her, because he is ignoring the entire purpose behind the rules.  As far as I can see, there are three purposes behind the rules: (1) to prevent an unfair advantage; (2) to make team uniforms the same to differentiate one team from another; and (3) to prevent athletes from wearing something obscene.

First off, wearing a full body-covering unitard under a uniform is not an unfair advantage.  When I run races, I do so in the lightest and coolest clothing possible.  I don’t want to sweat more than I have to, or carry around extra weight.  She was disqualified at an indoor track meet, where heat is a huge factor – it is very stuffy on an indoor track – so if anything her uniform was a disadvantage.

Secondly, her unitard UNDER her school’s uniform did not make it impossible to differentiate one school from another.  If you want to tell what school she went to – just look at her uniform!  Additionally, many sprinters wear speedsuits at track meets, which essentially look identical to her uniform except without a hood.  Why aren’t they disqualified?

Thirdly, her unitard is far from obscene.  In fact, it’s the opposite – she’s covering up.  The super-PC attitude in high schools today should love this.

The meet director that suspended this young track athlete was following the letter, but not the spirit of the rules.  Sometimes we have to realize that the rules are there for a purpose, not merely to be followed blindly.

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If you’ve paid attention to the news recently, you’ll have noticed that Insight Magazine (owned by Washington Times) attempted to smear Barack Obama by claiming he spent time in an Islamic Madrassa school as a child, and thus was taught extremist Islam thought.  This story was debunked recently, but before it was, Fox News repeated all of the allegations and claimed them as truth, without doing any fact checking.

Barack Obama’s office responded by sending out a memo, which can be found over at “The Horse’s Mouth.”  A quote from that excerpt follows:

To be clear, Senator Obama has never been a Muslim, was not raised a Muslim, and is a committed Christian who attends the United Church of Christ in Chicago. Furthermore, the Indonesian school Obama attended in Jakarta is a public school that is not and never has been a Madrassa.

I think it’s completely ridiculous that any major news source would publish a front-page story without fact checking.  That’s wrong, and it shouldn’t be done.  However, why can’t we have an Muslim president?  Why does Obama have to emphasize that he is not and was not a Muslim?  I understand that many terrorists happen to be Muslim, but most Muslims are not terrorists.  Why does Obama have to say that he is “a committed Christian?”  I understand that Obama is trying to set the facts straight, but I kind of feel that what he did is a slight insult to Islam in general.

But then again, politically, in the US, being portrayed as anything but a Christian is suicide to a presidential campaign.  Unfortunately.

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Anti-gay marriage amendments have been quite successful in various states.  I’ve never understood why… that is, until now.  The Top 10 Reasons Gay Marriage Should be Illegal explains it all.  My favorite reason was:

05) Straight marriage will be less meaningful if gay marriage were allowed; the sanctity of marriages like Britney Spears’ 55-hour just-for-fun marriage would be destroyed.

In all seriousness, I’m still waiting for someone to send a guest article to gimme-five justifying an anti-gay marriage stance.  Please send something to george AT gimme-five DOT COM so we can have some debate about the issue.  Anyone?

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