Merit-bound Alley

There has been a certain amount of controversy regarding Pastor Rick Warren’s invitation offered to Senator Barack Obama to speak at the Saddleback Church’s second annual AIDS conference. It seems, although the conference has nothing to do with it, Sen. Obama’s pro-life views make him unqualified to speak on AIDS according to some of the fundamentalist Christians of the church. However, it is notable that Pastor Warren and Sen. Obama were able to see past this irrelevant difference in perspective to focus on the topic at hand: AIDS awareness.

To me, this sets a very important precedent in the war between the left and the right. Warren could have easily bent to the brainless masses and excluded Obama due to his views on abortion. Likewise, Obama could have avoided the conference and possible saved himself some grief. However, neither took the easy path, and a little bit of the wall between the left and the right has crumbled.

The one thing that frustrates me most about the people in power and the loudest citizens is the all-or-nothing divisiveness that halts at every level the process of running this country. Maybe the standard that Warren and Obama have set will be the beginning of more nonpartisan efforts in this country. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to no longer hear words and phrases like “cut and run”, “wingut”, or my favorite piece of drivel, “drinking the koolaid”? Wouldn’t it be great if, instead of blind partisanship and veiled insults, our public servants would be able to let some disagreements go in order to work together running this country?

I know there will never be broad agreement on every issue, at least not in my lifetime. It would be a pretty boring world if that were the case. What I would like to see is a process that isn’t halted by the petty disagreements that the two sides have. The division in this country has ceased to serve a purpose, if it ever did in the first place.

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 3rd, 2006 at 9:07 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.