The Lost Art of Disagreement

We sorely test our ability to live together if we readily question each other’s integrity.  It may be harder to restrain our feelings when moral principles are at stake, for they go to the deepest wellsprings of our being.  But the more our feelings diverge, the more deeply felt they are, the greater is our obligation to grant the sincerity and essential decency of our fellow citizens on the other side. – Senator Edward Kennedy, October 3, 1983

During my second year of law school, I read with mild amusement in The Washington Post that then-Senator Ted Kennedy had accepted an invitation to speak at Liberty Baptist College (now Liberty University) in Lynchburg, Virginia.  Liberty Baptist was established by the Reverend Jerry Falwell, the arch-conservative founder of the Moral Majority, an organization many credit with the rise of the Christian Right in American politics.  To Falwell and most of the students at Liberty Baptist, Ted Kennedy represented everything wrong with American society.  A liberal Democrat and symbol of the American Left, Kennedy was on opposite sides of the Moral Majority on almost every conceivable issue.  Kennedy supported abortion rights and the Equal Rights Amendment, opposed prayer and the teaching of creationism in public schools; he was instrumental in helping to enact federal civil rights laws, which many southerners believed undermined states’ rights and local control.  Kennedy was a passionate advocate for national health care and government’s role in alleviating poverty, pollution, and discrimination.  Even his support for a nuclear freeze offended the anti-Communist, Cold Warrior Falwell.  A Catholic from secular leaning Massachusetts, Kennedy’s world view did not fit well on a college campus that embraced Falwell’s social and political conservatism and belief in biblical literalism and fundamentalist Christian theology.  To many students at Liberty Baptist, Kennedy was a modern-day Devil.  I had difficulty imagining how a Kennedy speech in Falwell territory could possibly go well.

I was wrong.  On October 3, 1983, Kennedy appeared before a packed house and gave one of the best speeches of his career.  Kennedy mixed humor with insight and spoke from the heart.  He joked that many people in Washington were surprised that he was invited to speak at such a conservative school, and even more surprised that he had accepted.  “They seem to think that it’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a Kennedy to come to the campus of Liberty Baptist College.”  But Kennedy understood the importance of dialogue and respect for opposing views:

I have come here to discuss my beliefs about faith and country, tolerance and truth in America.  I know we begin with certain disagreements; I strongly suspect that at the end of the evening some of our disagreements will remain.  But I also hope that tonight and in the months and years ahead, we will always respect the right of others to differ, that we will never lose sight of our own fallibility, that we will view ourselves with a sense of perspective and a sense of humor.

Kennedy reminded this mostly conservative Baptist audience that, as a Catholic American, he too loved his country and treasured his faith.  But he warned of the perils of absolutism and self-righteous certitude.  “I do not assume that my conception of patriotism or policy is invariably correct, or that my convictions about religion should command any greater respect than any other faith in this pluralistic society.”  He noted that the nation’s founders were men of varying faiths and that, while the United States shared a history of religious pluralism and tolerance, it also had experienced periods of prejudice and discrimination.  “Let us never forget:  Today’s Moral Majority could become tomorrow’s persecuted minority.”

It is doubtful Kennedy changed many minds that day, but his willingness to address the students and faculty at Liberty Baptist College, and the polite, respectful reception provided him, helped promote, if not agreement on the substantive issues, at least mutual understanding.  Falwell had personally extended the invitation because, he said later, although most of the students opposed Kennedy’s politics, it was important that they hear and consider opposing views.  That Falwell and Kennedy could share the same podium served as witness to the importance of civil discourse and the exchange of ideas.  It demonstrated that, while liberals and conservatives may disagree on matters of policy, they share many of the same values and, as Americans who love their country and wish to make it better, differ only on how to make it so.  If we wish for a vibrant, healthy democracy, Kennedy said, “We must respect the motives of those who exercise their right to disagree.”

Philosophically and politically, Kennedy and Falwell were diametrically opposed all their lives.  But they remained on friendly terms with each other.  When Falwell’s son applied for admission to the University of Virginia Law School (Kennedy’s alma mater), Kennedy volunteered to write a letter of recommendation and later invited the entire Falwell family to dinner at Kennedy’s house in McLean, Virginia.  Years later, when Rose Kennedy was in failing health, Kennedy invited Falwell, who at the time was in south Florida, to stop by the Kennedy compound in Palm Beach and pray with the family.  In 2005, when Falwell was hospitalized with severe pulmonary edema, he received a kind and encouraging letter from Kennedy, wishing him a quick recovery.  As Jerry Falwell, Jr., later reflected, “Both of these men understood that they could disagree without being disagreeable.  They were both lightning rods for their respective causes, but they treated each other with civility and respect.”

I note the Kennedy-Falwell story because it seems nowadays we have a diminished ability to engage in appropriate political discourse and disagreement, that we have lost a spirit of mutual respect, are less open to differing points of view, and rarely acknowledge our common humanity and good faith.

It may simply be that we are in the midst of a presidential election campaign, where every four years the airwaves are filled with out-of-context sound bites and false and misleading campaign ads (from both sides).  Democracy is a messy business.  It is why I am more comfortable with the world of ideas and policy than with the day-to-day clash of politics.

We live in an increasingly polarized world.  The rise of online news and the proliferation of cable news channels have made the world a more ideologically-entrenched place, less open to rational, civil discourse.  The American political scene operates increasingly on a mix of emotion and insecurity.  Our political leanings are reinforced, and not challenged, by the ascent of intentionally-biased news outlets, from Fox to MSNBC, and by ideologically-inspired blogs and websites.  Acerbic commentators and demagogues, mostly but not exclusively on the right (e.g., Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Anne Coulter, Ed Schultz) demonize anyone who disagrees with them and successfully energize large swaths of sheep-like followers to view Democrats, or the Obamas, or whoever needs to be attacked that day, as the enemy.  

I understand that politics, religion, and similar human endeavors do not always lend themselves to easy conclusions and reasonable disagreements.  But there are ways to discuss differences that promote honest, good faith debate, where each side has the opportunity to learn from and be challenged by the other.  Consider the days when William Buckley Jr. debated the likes of John Kenneth Galbraith and other liberal intellectuals on Firing Line. Reasoned dialogue cannot occur, however, when people absolutely convinced of the rightness of their cause begin demonizing their perceived enemies. I see it almost every day on Facebook, where a small group of “friends” post angry, bitter, ad hominem attacks (“Obama is a liar” or “Obama’s a socialist out to destroy America”), and discussion stoppers (“If you hate this country so much, why don’t you leave”). 

Name calling serves only to suppress genuine debate and disserves the democratic process.  When language is used as a weapon, it closes down debate.  Take an emotionally charged issue like abortion.  If I am called a “baby killer” or am told that to be pro-choice is to favor a new Holocaust, there is no room for reasoned discussion.  Perhaps if my pro-life friend understands that I do not think he is a woman-hating fascist, and if he accepts that I am not in favor of infanticide, we can try to reach some common ground.  Tone down the rhetoric and my opponent may learn that I, too, believe abortion is morally wrong in most cases and that, as a society we should attempt to find reasonable ways to reduce the total number of abortions.  I will never agree that abortions should be outlawed, but we may find other areas of common ground.  Perhaps if we start from a position of mutual respect, my pro-life friend will learn that I understand the intensity of his feelings and agree that abortion is indeed about the termination of a human life.  We will not need to debate the philosophical issue of when life begins.  But perhaps I can show through statistical studies that abstinence is ineffective and that prohibiting abortions will not eliminate them, but only make them unsafe and threaten our civil liberties. 

If we can acknowledge the good faith of the other, perhaps we can agree that improved sex education and access to birth control more effectively prevents unwanted pregnancies, thereby reducing abortions.  Even if we cannot agree, at least we can acknowledge that the issue is not only about the morality of abortion – no one is actually “pro-abortion” – but its legality.  At issue is not the sanctity of life, a subject on which we both agree, but whether the government has the right to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term simply because she and her partner made a mistake (yes, human beings are flawed), or their birth control failed, or she was raped.  The issue is not whether abortion is morally good or morally bad, or whether one of us is “pro-life” and the other “anti-life”.  No, the issue is who gets to decide?  And when does the Government have the right to force a woman, or a teenage girl, to carry an unwanted pregnancy to full term?

I understand that, on some issues, like health care, liberals and conservatives disagree about the fundamental values at stake.  Liberals believe that health care is a right and that a compassionate society should ensure basic health care for all its citizens.  Conservatives believe that health care is no different than any other commodity, that only those who work and earn sufficient pay are entitled to buy health care services in the free market, and that society’s only obligation is to provide emergency hospital services to those who have no other option (such as the victim of a shooting or a car accident).  In today’s political environment, such disagreements take on the dimension of a moral crusade – compassion vs. freedom; socialism vs. free enterprise.  But perhaps we can agree on certain objectives.  Can we agree that an appropriate societal goal is to develop a system that will maximize the number of people who can afford health care without undermining advances in medicine?  Can we agree that increased preventive care is an effective means of reducing health care costs?  With respectful dialogue, we can at least define common objectives and find a basis for compromise.  But this can only occur when mutual respect and good faith prevail.  It is when America works best. 

“Honest disagreement is often a good sign of progress,” said Mahatma Gandhi.  Liberals and conservatives, Democrats and Republicans, will continue to disagree on many issues.  But if our disagreements do not once again become civil and respectful; if we refuse to acknowledge the inherent goodness of the other and proceed with humility, recognizing that none of us has all the answers and that good ideas exist on both sides, we will no longer progress as a democratic society or find a common basis for our citizenship.  And then our democracy will be troubled.  As Senator Kennedy told the students at Liberty Baptist College nearly thirty years ago, “[T]he choice lies within us; as fellow citizens, let us live peaceable with each other; as fellow human beings, let us strive to live peaceably with men and women everywhere.”

Lessons from Aurora: A Search for Common Ground

It is on days like this that we are reminded of how much more alike than different we are, when we see that tears have no color, when ideologies melt into a common heart broken by sorrow. – Charles Blow, The New York Times, July 20, 2012

Columbine.  Virginia Tech.  Tucson.  Aurora.  The meaning of each place was forever altered by the random violence of troubled people. When news of a mass shooting first breaks, we are immediately confronted with images of guns, death, and violence, the blood of victims, and the tears of friends and family.  As a parent, I know that but for the grace of God have I not received that frightening call, to learn that my child is the victim of a random, senseless shooting, at a school, a college campus, a political event, a movie theater. In Aurora, as elsewhere, memorials will be built, foundations established, and vigils held.  “Where there is sorrow there is holy ground,” wrote Oscar Wilde. 

I wish I could write that these events are a relatively new phenomena in the United States, or that however tragic, are exceedingly rare.  We are America, after all, the home of the free and the land of the brave. But it takes very little searching to realize that this simply is not so. Sadly, tragically, indiscriminate shootings occur all too frequently within our borders.  According to Time magazine, the United States averages nearly 20 shootings every year in which four or more people die.  Aurora is only the latest example.  The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence has compiled a 62-page list of over 400 mass shootings that have occurred since 2005.  They seem almost routine:

• On July 17, three days before the Aurora shooting, a gunman stood outside of a crowded bar in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and opened fire, injuring seventeen people.
• On July 9, in Dover, Delaware, gunfire erupted at a weekend soccer tournament, killing three people and wounding two more.
• Over Memorial Day weekend, Chicago experienced 40 shootings and ten murders.
• On April 2, seven people were killed and three wounded during a shooting rampage at a religious vocational school in Oakland, California.
• On March 30, fourteen people were shot when three men opened fire on rival gang members.
• On March 8, a gunman opened fire in the lobby of a psychiatric hospital in Pittsburgh, killing one person and wounding seven more, including a police officer.
• On March 3, in Tempe, Arizona, fourteen people were shot when three men opened fire on rival gang members.
• On February 27, in Chardon, Ohio, a disturbed student randomly opened fire at a group of high school students sitting at a table.  Three teenage students were killed and two seriously wounded.
• On February 26, in Jackson, Tennessee, 20 people were wounded and one killed during a shooting at a nightclub.

It is a list without end.  The truth is made worse by the reality that virtually no one in American political life has the guts or courage to speak out against the insanity of an American-bred culture of guns and violence that serves only to breed guns and violence. 

“The bitterest tears shed over graves,” admonished Harriet Beecher Stowe, “are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”  It is time for the nation to search its soul, to come together and develop solutions to an all too American problem.

They say that “guns don’t kill people – people kill people.”  But when we equate liberty with the right of gun dealers and manufacturers to sell their death-molding instruments to as many people as possible; when we equate freedom with the right to buy as many weapons and bullets as one desires, we cannot be surprised when people use these instruments in destructive ways. 

We live in a nation with an historical link and emotional connection to guns; in some circles, the right to bear arms is more sacred than the freedom of speech or the right of assembly, the separation of church and state or the right to privacy.  Politicians fear the gun lobby.  Money talks and the gun lobby is loaded with money.  American democracy and public safety have become collateral damage of a nation with a warped sense of the common good.  “The fault,” said Shakespeare, “is not in our stars, but in ourselves.”

We are nation of 300 million guns and few restrictions.  There are nearly nine privately-owned guns for every ten American citizens.  In most states, it is easier to obtain a license to carry a concealed weapon than it is to get a driver’s license; easier to buy a gun, or two or three, than to buy a car or open a bank account. Toy guns are more highly regulated than real ones.  Is it any wonder, then, that 30,000 Americans die every year from gun related deaths, while 100,000 of us are assaulted by guns?  What does it say about us as a people that, since the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy in 1968, over one million Americans have died from gunshot wounds? 

When 24-year-old James Holmes walked into a packed Aurora movie theater last week, he had in his possession two pistols, a shotgun, and a military-style AR-15 with a 100-round clip.  He had legally purchased all of his weaponry, along with a cache of 6,000-bullets.  For much of his arsenal, Holmes needed only a credit card and an internet connection.  And yet, after he opened fire, killing twelve innocent people and wounding 58 more, we acted shocked and surprised and talked about not politicizing the tragedy.  A few days later, we went about business as usual. 

For the survivors of Aurora, and the families and friends of those who perished for no reason other than that they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, the tears and sorrow will linger for a lifetime.  “As we do when confronted by moments of darkness and challenge,” offered President Obama after the tragic shooting, “we must now come together as one American family.”

In the end, this is mostly an American problem.  We must develop our own solutions.  “The world is full of suffering,” said Helen Keller, “it is also full of overcoming it.”  It is time for common sense to prevail; to start a national conversation on everything from gun safety to the adequacy of our mental health system. 

Gun proponents must accept the need for reasonable restrictions on gun ownership.  They must stop treating every attempt to restrict the unlimited sale of assault weapons and easy access to guns and ammunition as a threat to freedom.  Guns are not toys; they are instruments of death.  If we are going to allow ordinary citizens to own them, as a society we should be permitted to place a substantial burden on the individual to establish that he or she can be trusted with a gun.  Conversely, advocates of gun control must accept that there exists a long history and tradition of gun ownership in this country.  We must find a way to communicate in a manner that understands an individual’s constitutional right to bear arms and recognizes that there are many safe, responsible gun owners; and that laws alone will not prevent a determined, mentally disturbed person from accessing and using a firearm.  But we should not make it easy for him.

Among the victims in Aurora was Veronica Moser Sullivan, a six year-old girl with a beautiful smile; three men in their mid-twenties, each of whom died while shielding and saving the lives of their girlfriends; a 24 year-old woman who was an aspiring journalist; a 27 year-old Navy technician; a 51 year-old father who had accompanied his two teenage children to the movie; a 32 year-old mother of two; a 29 year-old Air Force reservist; an 18 year-old recent high school graduate; a 23 year-old woman who had saved her money and planned to travel abroad; and a 27 year-old man who died on his birthday, days before his first wedding anniversary.  “In the night of death, hope sees a star,” wrote Robert Ingersoll, “and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.”  It is time to find common ground, to set aside partisan differences and develop ways to prevent another Aurora.  We owe it to the victims of the Aurora shootings.  We owe it to their families.  We owe it to each other.

Is America Possible? A Mid-Summer Reflection

A spirit of harmony can only survive if each of us remembers, when bitterness and self-interest seem to prevail, that we share a common destiny. – Barbara Jordan

The Fourth of July came and went this year in the midst of a summer heat wave. During a mid-week flash of high temperatures and humidity, the sweltering sun and oppressive air lingered deep into the evening twilight hours. The large oak trees surrounding our house in Jenkintown politely offered a gentle shade but little relief from temperatures exceeding 100 degrees over much of the country. I decided a new grill could wait.

Within a few days began major league baseball’s annual mid-Summer break, a brief solace from the long, daily grind of the 162-game season that is America’s pastime. As I watched on television these elite ballplayers, the best of the best, compete in this year’s All-Star game, I was struck by the amicable diversity that is baseball today; whites, Latinos, blacks, and Asians, some hailing from far-off lands and speaking the languages of their native tongues, playing an American-born game in a uniquely American setting; a medley of cultures and personalities bonded by the common language of baseball. It is America at its best, a socially harmonious meritocracy, where the competition is fair, the grass and dirt between the foul lines lacking prejudged barriers. It was not always so, but for most of the past sixty-five years, ever since Jackie Robinson and Larry Doby broke baseball’s color barriers in the National and American Leagues, baseball has helped America become a better reflection of itself.

We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal . . . The Declaration of Independence, authored by Thomas Jefferson and signed 236 years ago by 56 of our revolutionary forefathers, remains a powerful reminder of the possibility of America. These words continue to resonate, and speak to us, for they inspired a new nation and laid the foundation for sweeping social movements, for the end of slavery and the embrace of civil rights, to create a recognizably modern United States.

Still, there remains a lingering sense of dissatisfaction. The Declaration embodies an ideal of what the nation could someday be, but has not yet achieved. “I, too, sing America,” reminded the poet Langston Hughes in 1931. “I am the darker brother. They send me to eat in the kitchen.” For 175 years before our declared independence, and for the first seventy years of our national existence, nearly one of every eight people on the American continent, many brought here by whips and chains, were treated as chattel, recognized neither as citizens nor persons. “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” asked Frederick Douglass in 1852. It is, he answered, “a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.”

By 1860, nearly four million people in the United States (out of a total population of 31 million) were the property of slave owners. In Mississippi and Louisiana, the number of slaves exceeded the number of free citizens; in Alabama, Georgia, and Florida, close to half of the population was enslaved. It took a violent and bloody civil war that cost the lives of 618,000 Union and Confederate soldiers to finally abolish slavery on the American continent. It took another hundred years before America’s promise could become possible with the defeat of Jim Crow and the end of legalized segregation. Even then, from the descendants of slaves and the sons and daughters of sharecroppers and cotton pickers could be heard Hughes’ cry, “America has never been America to me.” For many of the black underclass in our inner cities today, the poetry of Hughes continues to hit home: “O, let America be America again – The land that never has been yet – And yet must be – the land where every man is free.”

In the annals of history, no nation on Earth can boast of a perfectly just society. That America sought “to form a more perfect Union” as set forth in the Preamble to our Constitution, is a testament to our high aspirations, the uniqueness of the American ideal, and our peoples’ willingness to engage in an historic struggle to better humankind; to open minds and mend hearts. But to fulfill a national promise and pursue an ideal takes time. Advances come slowly.

When I was nine years old, I read From Ghetto to Glory (Popular Library, 1968), an autobiographical account of the life of St. Louis Cardinals pitching great, Bob Gibson. Born in the slums of Omaha, Nebraska, the youngest of seven children, Gibson described what it was like to grow up poor and black in America, before Brown v. Board of Education and the civil rights advances of the 1960’s, when segregation and racism prevailed throughout much of the country. This one book, about a childhood hero of mine, did as much to influence in positive ways my sense of racial justice as almost anything else in my life at that time. It is often the little things, a book (To Kill a Mockingbird), a movie (The Help, The Great Debaters), or a play (A Raisin in the Sun) that permits a nation to develop the empathy and understanding needed to slowly transform hearts and minds.

. . . that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Perhaps no phrase better personifies the American Dream than the right of Americans to the “Pursuit of Happiness.” To choose one’s profession or occupation, buy a home, educate our children, and enjoy the fruits of our land’s abundant resources are what drive American optimism and middle-class dreams of a bright future. But here, too, we have disappointed. In too many aspects of life, in matters of economics, politics, and finance, housing and health care, education and opportunities for advancement, money and wealth matter to an unhealthy degree. Not since the eve of the Great Depression has inequality and the concentration of wealth in the hands of a small few been greater than it is today. When the top 1% of income earners boasts of more net worth than the bottom 90%, and the top 0.01% of households (about 14,000) receives more income than the poorest 25 million households; when corporate money maintains undue influence over our political life and public purse, and the Supreme Court fails to distinguish between free speech and unfettered corporate power, the idea of America remains unfulfilled.

“If a free society cannot help the many who are poor,” said John F. Kennedy on a cold, bright January day in 1961, “it cannot save the few who are rich.” Only when homelessness and large-scale poverty are things of the past; when good jobs are guaranteed to all who want to work; when health care is a right and not a privilege and our public education is among the best in the world; when racial and ethnic disparities are eliminated and children of all backgrounds have a fighting chance to succeed on equal terms with everyone else; only then, will America truly be America.

Is America possible? In some areas of American life – in sports, art, and music; in public accommodations; in the ethnic and racial makeup of our elected leaders in many of America’s largest cities – the idea and promise of America has taken root. African Americans today are listed among the ranks of CEO’s and Congressmen, news anchors and police chiefs, military generals and big city mayors. Four years ago, we elected our first African American president. We are, indeed, a land of opportunity, where class and race and prejudice can be overcome through hard work, education, and a little luck. But as I walk the streets of Philadelphia, I see another, darker side of America; an America where the mentally ill homeless wander the streets, beg for food and sleep on park benches; where pockets of extreme poverty and despair exist on the outskirts of high-priced condominiums and four-star restaurants, hidden from tourists and commuters. Black unemployment in our major cities is more than double the national average, fueling the scourge of drugs, crime, and violence that has plagued us for decades. For the forgotten underclass, America has not yet arrived.

I love America and its boundless energy, the diversity of its people, its natural beauty and abundant resources, its creativity and ingenuity. For me, a white man with a middle-class upbringing, a loving and supportive family, and a good education, America has been everything it promised, a land of free choices that allows the individual to pursue happiness and struggle with disappointment on his or her own terms. But some people seem to love a country that never existed and despise the country we have become. For those willing to impose a higher, more honest standard, we must acknowledge that the promise of equality in the Declaration of Independence, our aspirations “to form a more perfect Union” in the Constitution, our dreams of “liberty and justice for all” in the Pledge of Allegiance, have at times fallen short. To express genuine love for one’s country requires not uncritical praise, but an honest dialogue with a true friend. We should celebrate our accomplishments and appreciate our history. We must also recognize our failings and press for change.

When we work together and embrace our common destiny, we can do great things. Like a good baseball team, we do best when we strive to achieve our individual potential while supporting, backing up, and recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of our teammates, regardless of ethnic and racial differences. Together, we have created a rich and vibrant democracy, with a spirited and noisy public square; we have developed some of the world’s greatest universities, museums, research centers, newspapers, and public institutions; we have a dynamic and innovative economy and a strong work ethic; we are a land of diversity and beauty and energy. But we must never lose sight of our aspirations. “We have flown the air like birds and swum the sea like fishes,” said Martin Luther King, “but have yet to learn the simple act of walking the earth like brothers.

A Few Thoughts on Health Care

What we face is above all a moral issue; that at stake are not just the details of policy, but fundamental principles of social justice and the character of our country. – Edward M. Kennedy

In upholding the Affordable Care Act, the Supreme Court has settled for now the Constitutional authority of the President and the Congress to move the nation one step closer to universal health insurance for all. We still have a long way to go; more than 15 million people remain uncovered under the President’s health reform law and, because of the Court’s ruling, the proposed expansion of Medicaid is in some jeopardy, particularly in states like Texas and Louisiana, which seem determined to undermine the law. We still have the most expensive and least universal system of medical care in the developed world. But despite an entrenched and recalcitrant opposition, a Republican Party that has abandoned any attempt at responsible opposition and is instead interested only in the President’s defeat and which offers no reasonable alternatives to repeal, we have in place now a more just, more fair, and more universal health care system. No longer will medical care be restricted to only those who qualify for Medicare; or who are fortunate enough (like me) to work for a company or organization that provides good health benefits; or who work for the government, the military, or Congress. We are today a better, more egalitarian country.

With the Supreme Court’s affirmation, President Obama has achieved what no President before him accomplished. Starting with Theodore Roosevelt, who called for a national health system in 1912, in the past century we have witnessed Presidents repeatedly try and fail to enact some form of national health insurance. Harry Truman wrote in his memoirs that among his most “bitter disappointments as president,” what “has troubled me most, in a personal way, has been the failure to defeat the organized opposition to a national compulsory health insurance program.” John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson (who succeeded in enacting Medicare), Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton each tried and failed to enact comprehensive health care reform and universal coverage for all Americans. And while Obama’s plan does not quite accomplish the broad-based, universal national health plans contemplated by Roosevelt and Truman, it is nevertheless a singular achievement in American history.

With all the focus lately on the Supreme Court and the political impact of its decision, it is easy to forget why the issue of health care is so paramount. The need for expanded access to affordable health care is a matter that directly impacts the lives, and the economic and physical survival, of millions of Americans. For those with diabetes, Crohn’s disease, severe allergies or sinus conditions, cancer, heart disease, chronic pain, or the many other illnesses and ailments that cause humans to suffer and fear for the wellbeing of their families, the ability to obtain and pay for health care is a very personal matter. No one in this country should ever be faced with the choice between economic ruin and needed medical treatment. “Death and taxes aren’t the only certain things in life,” writes Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic. “Accident, illness, and injury are too. They’ve plunged the lives of plenty of Americans, even those who thought they had good insurance, into financial and physical chaos.”

Consuming nearly one-fifth of our economic resources, the United States has the most expensive health care system in the world. We spend per capita nearly twice as much as other industrialized nations. And yet, we don’t get better results. Compared to most countries with universal health coverage, Americans have lower life expectancies, higher infant mortality rates, and lower immunization rates. It should not be this way. Canadians spend about one-half of what we do on health care and enjoy excellent medical care. According to the World Health Organization, the U.S. health care system ranks 37th in the world. American Exceptionalism? Clearly not exceptional or acceptable.

Before passage of the Affordable Care Act, 42 million Americans had no health insurance at all, and millions more were substantially underinsured. Disproportionately represented among the uninsured are the poor, the sick, and racial minorities. Many families are one illness or one layoff away from bankruptcy. The Act does not solve all of our problems, but it means that an insurance company can no longer refuse to cover someone with a pre-existing condition, or drop someone from their policy who becomes sick; and that parents can, if necessary, continue to insure their sons and daughters until the age of 26. It expands health insurance coverage to nearly 30 million people who were previously without any insurance, thus reducing the burdens and cost inefficiencies of the nation’s emergency rooms. Over the next couple of years, the Obama reforms will begin implementing new incentives for hospitals to deliver more efficient care and for more physicians to practice primary care. And it stops insurance companies from cherry-picking the people they cover.

We have been fighting over health care for most of my lifetime. Why does the United States, alone among all of the industrialized countries of the world, fail to guarantee health care to all of its citizens? Why are we so resistant to change the way we finance and administer health care in this country? Perhaps it is because we have always treated medical care as a market commodity instead of a social service. Except for those eligible under Medicare (the elderly) and Medicaid (the very poor), health care is regarded in this country as a privilege available only to those who can afford to pay for it. For the 60% of Americans that can afford it, or have been provided by their employers with comprehensive health insurance, the system works just fine. But tens of millions of others are one sick child away from homelessness. This is unacceptable in a country as rich and powerful as the United States.

I believe that basic health care is a right, not a privilege. “[Q]uality care shouldn’t depend on your financial resources, or the type of job you have, or the medical condition you face,” Ted Kennedy often reminded us during his lifelong quest for national health insurance. “Every American should be able to get the same treatment that U.S. senators are entitled to.” While most of us rely on employer provided health plans, not all employers offer benefits, and some offer less comprehensive benefits than others. When unemployment rises and employers have less need to attract workers, the health benefits they offer are often reduced or eliminated. It is the nature of a capitalist economy. As one of my law professors said to my first-year class at George Washington University in 1982, “If you are concerned about morality and the public good, Divinity School is across the street.”

The Affordable Care Act is far from perfect and only begins to address some of our most fundamental problems. I would prefer a single-payer, national health insurance system based on the many superior models that exist, including in Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Switzerland, Australia, and many other capitalist-based democracies. Whatever flaws exist in those systems, and none are perfect, no one has to fear bankruptcy when they are sick. All citizens have equal access to quality medical care and can freely choose their doctors. Ask anyone from Canada and Europe about the U.S. health care system, and you are likely to receive, at best, a polite stare.

How can any informed person who is not wealthy think that a system based on private insurance is better than public health care? How can we look at per capita spending on health care in the United States, the bankruptcies, the unnecessary deaths, and the comparably weak health outcomes, and possibly defend our system against those of Europe, Canada, Israel, and Australia? Americans need to open themselves to the possibility that not everything we do is always the best. As Mark Twain once said, “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.”

While markets are effective for many goods and services, they are not the proper model for preventive medicine, hospital care, and medical services. When we treat health care as a commodity distributed according to one’s ability to pay, rather than a service provided according to medical need, we wind up with insurance companies and for-profit care providers trying to avoid risky, unprofitable patients and shifting costs back to patients. We should not blame the insurance companies for this reality. Investor-owned, for-profit entities exist to make money for their shareholders and equity owners, not to provide its services to as many people as possible. As Dr. Marcia Angell, former editor of The New England Journal of Medicine, said in 2003, “We are the only nation in the world with a health care system based on dodging sick people.”

Our nation has always been too afraid and paranoid to enact a national health plan. We pride ourselves on individualism and resist community-based, government-led efforts to provide for all. The Affordable Care Act does not change these basic values. It is a private-based-insurance-company-led law that merely expands coverage to a portion of citizens previously uncovered. Politics is the art of the possible, and perhaps this was the best that could be accomplished in today’s political environment. There is simply too much money at stake, too many lobbyists representing powerful industries, too much media hype and misunderstanding to address the needs of the least powerful members of society. Someday, I hope, we will expand coverage further and enact truly universal, national health insurance, so that none of us will be at the mercy of an insurance company for our life and death needs. For now, I am grateful that we have moved one step closer to a more socially just health care system.

Turning the Page

The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. – Sloan Wilson

When my oldest daughter Jennifer was seven years old, I taught her how to ride a bicycle. With a large, round, bright red helmet securely placed on her small head and training wheels affixed to the rear tire, I stood behind her as she peddled up and down the driveway, and then along the sidewalk. Slowly but surely, she learned to balance, brake, and steer her bicycle. This went on for two months or so, until one day, it was time to remove the training wheels. On a bright, sunny Saturday afternoon, I stood next to her, then behind her, as she gradually gained the confidence to ride on her own. She soon developed the hang of it and peddled with authority, her small bicycle rolling along the sidewalk as she turned the corner. I ran as fast as I could to keep up with her, yelling instructions and encouragement along the way. I could sense her excitement as she experienced a taste of independence, the freedom to ride on her own, no longer in need of training wheels and a father’s protective glare.

As she proceeded further around the bend, the block commenced a slight downward tilt. Suddenly, her bike picked up speed and I soon realized she was moving too fast. “Slow down!” I shouted. “Use your brakes.” She didn’t hear me and seemed oblivious to the dangers lurking around the next corner, where a telephone pole and stop sign awaited her. I continued to run after her, but she moved further ahead, and I watched with increasing anxiety as she tried to maneuver the next street corner. Unable to gauge her need to slow down before making a turn, she braked too late and lost control. Her bike abruptly slammed into the telephone pole. Jenny flew from her bike and fell to the ground, hitting her head and badly scraping her knees on the concrete surface. I caught up to her, hugged her, and helped her to her feet, as tears streamed down her cheeks. Thankfully, she was alright, if a little beat up and emotionally scarred. It was a scary moment for both of us, one of life’s momentary setbacks, a lesson in the harsh realities of taking chances and moving to the next level.

Naturally, it was a while before young Jenny regained the courage to get back on her bike. But eventually we tried it again, this time with the benefit of experience. Jen now mastered the use of her brakes and better understood the laws of physics and centrifugal forces. She would develop into a very good, if more cautious, bike rider, and would later ride horses as well. Despite the occasional fall, she mustered the courage to jump and even compete in a few horse shows. When it was time to give younger sister Hannah bike lessons, I knew to start her on a flat surface with no inclines. When her training wheels came off, we bypassed the hilly sidewalk and took her bike to the school parking lot, thus dodging past mistakes. Such is the education of life.

“The guys who fear becoming fathers,” wrote Frank Pittman, “don't understand that fathering is not something perfect men do, but something that perfects the man.” I understood this sentiment only when I had children of my own. When my daughters were born in the early 1990’s, I became more aware of my surroundings, more sensitive to the risks and dangers lurking around each corner. My life became a little less about me and more about the little people who so much depended on me, who needed my presence, guidance, and protection.

When my kids were little, the quickest way for me to gain their attention was to sit down and look comfortable. Raising children is difficult, a grinding, time consuming process that requires sacrifices and compromises. It was not always easy trying to balance my desire to be a good father while also pursuing a career as a federal prosecutor. Trial prep sometimes took a back seat to an Indian Princess gathering or a weekend soccer tournament; whenever I accompanied one of the girls to Camp Canadensis, where sleep was at a premium and sweat and bug spray a constant companion, I dreaded the pile of work awaiting me on Monday morning. Between Saturday morning horse lessons, the commitments of travel soccer, helping with homework and papers, and providing rides to birthday parties and bat mitzvahs, raising kids and remaining involved in their lives while also pursuing a highly-charged career, with a lawyer spouse – and later as a divorced Dad – was at times difficult. And yet, there is no more important task of a parent than to raise their children to be kind, compassionate, responsible people and to prepare them for the world they will eventually confront on their own.

Among the happiest and most content moments of my life have been the days spent with my kids, taking them to ballgames, spending a week together at Disney, traveling 12 hours in the car to visit their grandparents, or just hanging out. Now that they are older and more independent, I would not change a day in the time spent with my children these past 22 years. I only wish now I could have some of those moments back.

* * * *

These past four weeks have been an emotional and exhilarating time, of milestones and awards, life accomplishments and dreams of a bright future. Now that Jen has grown up and graduated college, and Hannah high school, they are no longer in need of training wheels, less dependent upon my protective embrace. It is time to turn the page.

All the young and beautiful faces among their graduating classes reminded me of a more innocent and hopeful time, when life was full of promise and adventure, the opportunities limited only by one’s imagination and effort. “You are the best of what we were,” declared Michael Pladus, a wonderfully talented and compassionate school superintendent, at Hannah’s high school ceremony this past week. Eyeing the wide expanse of the football field, I could sense that these young men and women in their caps and gowns and smiles represent everything we once were and everything we hoped our children would become. They are younger versions of us, a reminder of our more idealistic, creative, and hopeful selves.

“It is indeed ironic,” wrote Isabel Waxman, “that we spend our school days yearning to graduate and our remaining days waxing nostalgic about our school days.” I long, as we all do, to remain forever young. But as time passes by, as my body ages, as life’s demands accumulate, the wonder years of my school days recede ever so distantly into the past. It is the memories, if not the experiences, that stay with me forever. So too, I hope, for my children. This is the gift of youth.

Graduations are important, for they allow a moment of reflection on the journeys traveled and the roads yet taken. And though I am filled with pride, I understand it is sheer luck that I was blessed with such responsible, self-assured daughters, grounded and down to earth, who possess a balanced sense of work and play, of obligations, responsibilities, and the fragility of life. They know who they are. But I sense now the realization that, for my daughters and for me, it is time to begin new chapters in the ever rapid expedition of our lives.

As I glance towards the horizon and look to the future, I pray that my girls will find their place in life. I take comfort in knowing that Jen is ready to pursue a career in graphic design; that she has developed a sense of self-confidence and knows she can compete with the best and the brightest. Before Jen went off for college, I feared she would live on macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. Now she regularly buys organic produce and experiments with exotic vegetarian and ethnic cuisines. She works hard, has really nice friends, and has matured into a wonderful young woman.

Hannah, too, is ready to find her way, to discover her passions and pursue her dreams. It seems like only yesterday when we worried if she would ever outgrow pigtails. And although her diet is still too dependent on chicken tenders, she has become an accomplished writer, a lover of animals, and an academic superstar. Through the years, I have watched Hannah and Jen develop into mature, responsible adults, independent young women ready to take on the world. I rejoice and worry at the same time.

Our children experience change and turbulence in ways never before seen in human history. When Hannah first entered high school four years ago, there was no iPad, Facebook was in its infancy, and Twitter was something only hummingbirds and nervous Chihuahuas did. Since Jen finished middle school nearly a decade ago, Google has become a verb and the internet has revolutionized the universe. The last four years have seen even more rapid advances in technology. We live now in a Digital Age. Change and anxiety are ever present.

Young people today are free to create their own future, to invent new technologies and transform the global economy. A lucky few can turn dreams into reality. But life is messy, a mixture of chaos and exuberance, misery and opportunity. Unemployment among recent college graduates is uncomfortably high. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever, and the burdens on working families and those who do not have the benefit of inherited wealth must struggle more than in years past to survive in today’s economy.

Jen and Hannah have each completed this chapter in their lives and are turning the page to begin new ones. As their father, I want them to be financially independent, to pursue their dreams, to find a life partner who will love and respect them for who they are, and to experience a life of fulfillment and purpose. But I know they will confront a cold, competitive world with many obstacles along the way. I want always to be there for them, to protect them from harm and the pain of life. I now realize, however, that it is no longer my role. “It is one thing to show your child the way,” said Robert Brault, “and a harder thing to then stand out of it.” Whatever paths they choose, whatever rivers they cross, the only certainty is that life will have its ups and downs, excitements and disappointments. Through the successes and the stumbles, I can offer them only unconditional love, the knowledge that I will always be pulling for them, and the wise counsel of Susan B. Anthony:

Sooner or later we all discover that the important moments in life are not the advertised ones, not the birthdays, the graduations, the weddings, not the great goals achieved. The real milestones are less prepossessing. They come to the door of memory unannounced, stray dogs that amble in, sniff around a bit and simply never leave. Our lives are measured by these.

May my girls lead lives filled with passion and compassion, respect and integrity, love and laughter.

"Attention Must Be Paid": The Continued Relevance of Death of a Salesman

I don't say he's a great man. Willy Loman never made a lot of money. His name was never in the paper. He's not the finest character that ever lived. But he's a human being, and a terrible thing is happening to him. So attention must be paid. He's not to be allowed to fall in his grave like an old dog. Attention, attention must finally be paid to such a person. – Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller

The Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman has once again brought to light the hopes, dreams, and frustrations of Willy Loman, Arthur Miller’s representation of middle-class life in postwar America and the harsh things that can happen to ordinary, under-achieving Americans. It is a critical story about what can happen to those who buy into the American dream without considering the cold realities of competition. Willy was a lifelong salesman who had sold himself on the American dream and the need to be “somebody”; yet he was blinded to reality and the characteristics needed to achieve that dream. He was filled with false hope and unwarranted optimism, a belief in the future with no basis in fact. He believed that success in life came with being well-liked and popular, and he deluded himself into thinking that all of the people to whom he had sold and tried to sell liked and respected him back.

The play, which Andrea and I saw in New York on Saturday (a spectacular production starring Philip Seymour Hoffman as Loman), is in part an indictment of the harsh realities of capitalism, and in part an expose on the false hopes and dreams of the American middle class. In Death of a Salesman, Miller exposes the perils of embracing a romantic, mythical notion of the American dream. Willy devoted 36 years of his life to one company, traveled thousands of miles and worked long days and nights, only to be fired when he got older and frailer and could not endure the burdens of incessant travel. He no longer met his quota and, rather than find a place for him in the home office, he was regarded as an unneeded drag on its success. His devotion and loyalty were in the end not reciprocated.

But Miller’s play also recognizes that much of the fault for Willy’s predicament is his own. In contrast to Willy is his friend, Charley, a successful businessman and the father of Bernard, a childhood friend of Biff’s who becomes a prominent lawyer. When Bernard was young, Willy mocked and ridiculed him as a studious nerd. Bernard was a good student, responsible, and often helped Biff with his homework, but he was not the well liked, popular football star that was Biff. To Willy, Bernard was not made for success. Later in the play, when Willy must sheepishly approach Charley for yet another loan to help him make ends meet, Willy runs into Bernard, who is preparing to argue a case before the Supreme Court. Willy asks Bernard what his secret is, and why things didn’t work out for Biff. Even then, Willy failed to see that education and intellectual achievement could keep the American dream from being a complete illusion. It is in the complex recognition of why some succeed while others fail that makes Death of a Salesman such a remarkable and enduring American classic.

Willy is a man of contradictions. He is exceedingly optimistic about the future, despite his muddled track record and his consuming nostalgia for the past. He repeatedly boasts about the days when his sons, Biff and Happy, breezed through life on their good looks and athleticism, and were the adored stars of their high school football team. But it becomes clear that Willy’s sons peaked at 17 and, though well into their thirties, had yet to find their place in life. Although Happy bought into the same delusional dream as Willy, he putters along as an assistant to an assistant buyer and seems unlikely to ever achieve the mythical success he imagines is possible. Biff, who never held a steady job, finally attempts to address the deception and lies on which his family’s life was grounded. He recognizes his father as a fraud and blames Willy for always making Biff believe that he was better than everyone – Biff Loman, the well-liked, good looking football star. This is why, Biff reasons, he is unable to play second fiddle to anyone and cannot hold a job.

But Willy loved his sons and believed in his country. He was devoted to his company and the life of a salesman. When he finally realized in the end that the dream was a lie, that his firm did not return the loyalty and devotion; that he was not as well-liked as he had led himself to believe; that he actually had no friends, and that 36 years of smiles and bluster in trying to make a sale had amounted to little substance or meaning in his life, he commits suicide. Although he talked of how every town he visited on sales trips welcomed and opened doors for him, in the end no one attended his funeral, save for his wife, sons, and Charley. His deceptions and lies had finally caught up with him. He died the death of a salesman.

There is, of course, much about Death of a Salesman that is disconnected from today’s realities. The American middle class, for one, is nothing like that which existed when the play first appeared on stage in 1949. The American industrial base no longer dominates the world economy, the ravages of competition having gone global. We now compete on a world stage and contend with cheap labor in India and China, the technological efficiency of Korea and Japan, and the engineering prowess of Germany. But as was clear on the afternoon we attended, audiences continue to respond to the emotional power of Death of a Salesman. For all his flaws, we identify with Willy’s search for humanity in an unfair world, his quest for an ounce of love and respect in his profit-driven job.

Willy is a lot like us. He talks a big game about his plans for success, but longs for a quiet life in the country, where he can grow some vegetables and raise some chickens, a life far removed from his confined, populated Brooklyn neighborhood and the competitive environs of the American workplace. The story surrounding Willy Loman and his sons resonates as well, I think, because most of us feel we are unable to control our fate and are destined to a life on the hamster wheel. As Biff explains to his brother Happy early in the play:

Well, I spent six or seven years after high school trying to work myself up. Shipping clerk, salesman, business of one kind or another. And it’s a measly manner of existence. To get on that subway on the hot mornings in summer. To devote your whole life to keeping stock, or making phone calls, or selling or buying. To suffer fifty weeks of the year for the sake of a two week vacation, when all you really desire is to be outdoors with your shirt off. And always to have to get ahead of the next fella. And still – that’s how you build a future.

Contrast the struggles of the Loman family with the rise of today’s private equity firms and investment banks, which buy and sell companies, firing workers and gutting their pensions along the way, as they reap enormous profits. Those who are left behind and trampled are the Willy Lomans of today, while a small few are rewarded to excess. It is why some people do not trust Mitt Romney and his Bain Capital comrades, who believe that once upon a time the golden boys of finance rescued a languishing American economy and imposed financial discipline, resulting in a great economic revival that benefitted everyone. Unfortunately, the imagined productivity surge never occurred, the financial whiz kids did nothing to improve the economy, and the benefits of their massive wealth did not trickle down. Indeed, the only wonder is why, exactly, these paper capitalists made so much money when the results of their wheeling and dealing were so ambiguous.

Lost in most discussions of business and economics are notions of kindness, fairness, and a recognition that the lives of everyday people are affected and hurt deeply by the growing inequalities of American life. Theologian and author John Thatamanil, a professor at Union Theological Seminary in New York, has contended that “we get what we deserve when we configure public life as a value-free realm in which the unfettered pursuit of profit, power and private interest are invited to reign without regulation.” When the market is left alone and society neglects its collective responsibility for those left behind by a ruthlessly competitive economic system, Thatamanil says, the results are alienation, despair, and injustice. “The poor go hungry, children live on the streets or in our subway tunnels and the fabric of our common life is torn asunder. The very idea that the citizens of a country might owe each other anything at all, that there may be priceless public goods that cannot be rendered into marketable commodities, is regarded as tantamount to socialism.”

The tragic plight of Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman reminds us that we are all vulnerable and exceedingly fragile. When societal systems and institutions have no humanity, no heart, and no accountability, the results are often unfair and cruel. Such is the reality of the modern marketplace. Paternalistic companies of the mid-20th century, when the middle class thrived in this country, once had lifetime workers, pensions, and loyal consumers. These same companies tended to engage in long-term planning, investing large amounts of money into research and development and the welfare of their workers. Today’s private equity investors, by contrast, are interested only in short-term gains and rising stock prices; notions of employee satisfaction, the fair distribution of compensation, and intangible quality of life issues are meaningless and, indeed, often run counter to the near-sighted pursuit of short-term profits.

Willy’s notion of the American dream, that one can attain dignity through work, is a distant remnant of a nostalgic past. Today’s hedge fund managers and speculators care nothing about the people who actually do the work that make their companies profitable; their interest lies solely in a growing bottom line and an upward surge in the stock price to match their five-year plan, which often means more productivity from fewer workers. Traditional middle class aspirations of working hard for a modest income and secure benefits to attain a comfortable existence, is virtually non-existent in our fast-paced, short-term economy. Everyone, it seems, wants immediate pleasure and excessive wealth.

Through the struggles and conflicts of the Loman family, Arthur Miller wished to expose the inhumanity of a capitalist system that mangled the spirit and suffocated the dreams of its willing participants. By exposing Willy and Happy as delusional dreamers, Miller attempted to bring some perspective to the American tendency to think that things will always work out in the end. Willy’s dreams of success and a bright future, even when all the evidence pointed to the contrary, made him a deluded loser, the victim of a system that, while offering riches and success for some, can be harsh and cruel to others. But like all of us, Willy at heart was a decent person who wished to leave something behind and dreamed of his children’s bright future. His contradictions and failings in the face of his un-abiding belief in America as the land of unlimited opportunities, allows us to recognize ourselves in him; to hope that someday we will collectively find a way to restore humanity and kindness to our social and economic structures.

Fairness, Equality, and the Evolution of a Family Man

I had hesitated on gay marriage – in part, because I thought civil unions would be sufficient. . . . But I have to tell you that over the course of several years, as I talk to friends and family and neighbors; when I think about members of my own staff who are incredibly committed, in monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together; when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that don’t Ask, Don’t Tell is gone, because they’re not able to commit themselves in a marriage. At a certain point . . . it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same-sex couples should be able to get married. – President Barack Obama, May 9, 2012.

In openly affirming his support for gay marriage, President Obama has put the prestige of the White House behind marriage equality as a fundamental human right. It is a watershed moment in American history, a symbolically important statement by the leader of the free world. It is the first time in American history when a president of the United States has looked into a camera and declared that gays and lesbians should be treated equally under the law. Although nothing the President said during his interview with Robin Roberts of ABC News has any legal effect, the significance of his statement should not be underestimated. For many young people who are struggling with their sexual identity, or gays and lesbians in life-long committed relationships who want the same rights taken for granted by the rest of us, it is no small moment when the President of the United States expressly declares his support for equality and fairness.

Some have criticized President Obama for taking so long to evolve on this issue, suggesting that perhaps his conversion is now politically calculated or that his prior hesitations to support gay marriage indicates a lack of courage or moral strength. I disagree. This is not a Democratic or Republican issue. It is an issue of civil and human rights, of basic fairness, and concerns how our society lives up to its founding ideals. Just as it took political courage for Harry Truman to desegregate the armed forces in 1948, and for Lyndon Johnson to risk his presidency on a historic civil rights bill in 1964, so too it took courage for President Obama to declare his support for marriage equality. There are times when it is simply necessary to do what is right and just.

It is far from certain that the president’s expressions of support for gay marriage will help him in the coming election. North Carolina, a key swing state, just became the 30th state in the country to ban gay marriage as a matter of law. Nationally, polls show the country evenly split over the right of gays and lesbians to marry, although the trend is clearly in favor as young people overwhelmingly favor gay marriage; as the president said of Malia and Sasha, to them “it’s no big deal”. But we remain years away from a solid majority of the voting public to unequivocally embrace the right of gays and lesbians to marry. The impact of the issue in November is anybody’s guess, especially in states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, each of which have strong conservative elements that will mobilize their forces on this issue.

I do not doubt the president’s sincerity in describing his change of position as a “personal journey.” It requires insight and maturity to recognize that we do not always have immediate answers on matters as personal and intimate as love, faith, and sexuality. When I first entered college in 1977, I knew nothing of the concept of gay rights and had no idea what emotional and personal conflicts that gays and lesbians experienced as a result of societal taboos on homosexuality. Having never had to struggle with my own sexual identity, it simply did not occur to me that there were those who suffered in silence as they confronted a collective lack of acceptance and understanding, and society’s belief that they were abnormal, social deviants, and needed to be “cured” or “fixed”.

During the spring of my freshman year, my sociology professor invited four openly gay students to speak to our class about what it was like for them to be gay. They discussed how it was they discovered and came to accept their sexuality, the prejudice they confronted on a daily basis, and their hopes for a world that could accept them as they are and allow them to lead lives of honesty and integrity. Wittenberg was a socially conservative campus with a strong emphasis on sports and Greek life, Midwestern values and conventional views of sexuality. To be openly gay at Wittenberg in the 1970’s meant that one was automatically on the fringes of campus life. I was immediately impressed with the courage of these students, how comfortable they were with their own identities, and how non-threatening they were to my own identity as a straight male.

I grew personally that day into a better, more informed member of the human race. I could no longer ignore the hurtfulness and bigotry that gays and lesbians confront every day, the personal conflicts they each wrestle with in reconciling their sexual identity with society’s expectations, their desire not to disappoint family members, and their fear of how friends and family members may react to their coming out.

I admit that I was not sensitive to this issue when I first attended Wittenberg, for it was not “my issue”. Like the president, I required personal growth, education, and an “evolution” of my own. But personal growth inspires us to look beyond ourselves and deal compassionately with those who are different from us, to provide a supportive and nurturing environment for all of our brothers and sisters, including those who happen to be gay or lesbian.

That the president has evolved, and is continuing to evolve as a conscious, thoughtful human being, is something for which we should all be grateful. It can only benefit the country. All of us are, or should be, evolving on the issues confronting gays and lesbians in American society, as we should be on many other issues. As a society, we should do everything to applaud and support those who choose to live openly and honestly in committed relationships, who seek the support of their family, friends, and the communities in which they live.

Much of the opposition to gay marriage, of course, stems from the religious right, which continues to believe that homosexuality violates God’s will. Franklin Graham went so far as to say that God is weeping because of the president’s statements. This simply makes no sense. To commit a sin requires an affirmative, voluntary act that is contrary to God’s desires for us as human beings. Choosing to pollute the air or water, being mean-spirited and self-centered, doing harm to others – this is sinful behavior. We do not choose our sexual orientation, a matter that for most people is biologically and genetically predetermined. I did not choose to be heterosexual – I just am. It is how I was born. That most of us were created by God to be heterosexual, however, does not mean that God erred when he created five to ten percent of his children as gay or lesbian.

I simply cannot believe that God weeps when two people choose to love each other and commit to a life together. God weeps when innocent people are killed in unjust wars, when oil companies destroy our oceans, and when rich and powerful nations show indifference to the plight of the poor and the hungry. God rejoices when people show love for one another. Perhaps Franklin Graham and his ilk need a refresher course in their own religion. The president recognized that, as a Christian, the imperative of his faith is to embrace the golden rule, to treat others as you would want to be treated, and that the love of Christ overpowers the forces of intolerance and hate. His simple words in support of gay marriage recognized that, as a society, we should affirm and uplift everyone, and that to be intolerant of anyone, male or female, black or white, gay or straight, is to reject the life-affirming beauty of God.

In 1967, the Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia said that no state could prohibit mixed-race marriages because “marriage is one of the ‘basic civil rights of man.’” The ruling came at a time when many states and large numbers of Americans believed that blacks should not be allowed to marry whites, that it somehow violated God’s will and was a crime against nature. Fortunately, the nation evolved and today most Americans accept without question the right of people to marry the person of their choice, regardless of race. Recently, a federal judge in California held that a ban on same-sex marriage violates the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Although the legal battles are likely to rage for many years to come, I believe it only a matter of time that the nation evolves on this matter as well.

In the meantime, the president has moved the country a step closer to the ideals set forth in the Declaration of Independence, recognizing that in a fair and just society, the rights of some are the rights of all, that the nation is stronger when all are treated with equal dignity and respect. It is time for the United States as a symbol of freedom and liberty to recognize that our civil and human rights are too precious and fragile to be torn asunder by the winds of partisan politics. The President’s words have allowed us to stand a little taller as a nation and have affirmed the principles upon which our constitution is founded. I am proud of our president for his willingness to openly and honestly discuss the evolution of his thinking. If all of us can do the same, we will be that much closer to becoming a nation that truly embraces liberty and justice for all.