what's so exciting about the compassion forum? it's giving democrats a chance to speak about faith since cheney and his sidekick bush hijacked faith and made it something ugly. they used it as a wedge to divide people.
perhaps there is hope that eventually the loud and harsh voices of rush limbaugh and his lot and the right wing extremists will begin to diminish in favor of a middle ground. the same on the liberal end. there has to be more meeting up in the middle.
i didn't catch it all but here is some of what obama had to say at the compassion forum. i'll post video as it comes available.
since obama's faith is part of who he is and he spoke naturally.
on the question of faith-based initiatives, he said they should targeted at alleviating poverty.
he was asked about torture: “we do not torture. period”
that will be my position as president. we don’t farm out torture. we don’t subcontract torture.
“we are going to lead with out values and our ideas.”
on the issue of of church and state.
“we’ve fallen into a false debate.”
all of us come to the public square with our values and our ideas. people have the right to come with their religious faith. imagine dr. king scrubbing his religious references. we need to translate our respective religious language into a universal language that can appeal to everybody. we are not just a christian nation. we are all different religions and atheist.
we can't kill the debate by saying that god tells me i’m right. the biggest danger is self-righteousness. you may have a direct line to god. but the public square is not the place to empower ourselves.
hallelujah
here's a partial transcript at nyt
obama on the working class
part 2
part 3
part 4
part 5
