Saddleback Church Civil Forum Notes

There were many people who didn’t want Obama to attend the Saddleback Civil Forum. They felt he was pandering to the religious right by doing so. From a political point of view, both needed to come here. McCain has problems with Evangelicals, which are a Republican mainstay. Obama still has people who think he’s a Muslim, even though his Reverend spent nearly 4 weeks in the news. Reaching out to religious voters was what they both wanted. What I don’t think anyone would have expected was that the questions, while maybe a little more faith based, were more hard hitting than the ones George Stephanaplous asked during the Obama-Clinton debate. This forum gave you a good view of who these candidates really were.

Now as to who did better, I recommend you go online and find the video for yourself. To quote Obama Girl, “I’m in love with Obama”. I love to hear him speak. He’s thoughtful, articulate, intellectual and I feel he’s actually trying to answer a question as opposed to just telling me what I want to hear. I say this in general, but it was more apparent in this forum, where John McCain seemed to use each question to launch into his talking points. Oh, and mention his service and POW record. Now, I don’t want to diminish the great sacrifice he made for our country. For that matter, let me be clear that I respected John McCain for many years. In 2000, if he had been running against Al Gore…well, I still wouldn’t have voted for him, but I would have felt o.k. had he won. He had integrity. I say had, because you can’t tell it from his current campaign. He says whatever he thinks you want to hear. He panders. He’s abandoned everything he once stood for. McCain-Feingold was legislation he cosponsored that was supposed to reform campaign finance. And now that he’s running for President, he’s using loopholes in his own bill and has a staff filled with lobbyists. But this is a huge digression, back to the Civil Forum.

As I was saying, McCain seemed like he was pandering. Every question asked had an obvious, “this crowd will love it” answer. For instance, if you were asked what your favorite city is, the answer is always the city you’re in. Rick Warren didn’t ask one this simple, but they were close. Abortion, stem cell research, funding faith based programs: these are no-brainers. Mr. Maverick answered each of these exactly as you would expect a politician who abandoned his principles to answer: Abortion-no, stem cell research-no, funding faith based programs-yes. You’re such a maverick!

How did Obama answer? Well, first he answered with nuance. Which means he’ll get creamed in the pundit world. On abortion he did state he was Pro-choice. He actually said “pro-choice”. I almost cheered. No politician ever uses those words, they always skirt around the issue with they’re “against abortion”(these are sarcastic quotes, since they’re really pro-choice) “unless it would endanger the health of the mother, or in instances of rape” These are the only two times politicians will say they are o.k. with abortion. Not Obama, he said that women don’t make this decision lightly and that if we want to reduce abortions, why don’t we do more to help women. How about better health care, health insurance, better jobs, make it easier for women if they want to put the child up for adoption. He didn’t mention better sex education and access to birth control, but I’ll forgive him that. Still his was a tough answer to give when talking to a Minister who phrased the question, when does a baby have rights?

On the issue of marriage, Obama did disappoint me by saying marriage is defined as between one man and one woman, and then bringing up civil unions. I’ve mentioned before that I think it’s ridiculous to use the term civil union, since I can get married and I’m an atheist. My catholic church wouldn’t recognize my marriage(back when I was catholic), because it was done by a justice of the peace. But the state did. That’s all that matters. If a church doesn’t want to recognize gay marriages, they don’t have to. But until atheist marriages are called civil unions, gay marriages should be called marriages. And the church has no say in what the state or federal government decides to call a marriage. Unless we want to consider all divorced couples who remarry civil unions (since the catholic church doesn’t allow divorce) we should allow the people to decide what marriage is.

Aside from that one issue, I think Obama did a great job. When talking about religious persecution (esp., China), he mentioned that we have a difficult time talking tough to China, since we owe them so much money. He also mentioned that we have ceded the moral high ground a little since we aren’t following the rule of law and have used torture. Essentially saying that the world would view us as hypocrites if we were to demand another country stop violating Human rights or international law, since we are doing that very thing.

Finally, in a question that was loaded and obviously tilted against him, he didn’t back down and go for the easy answer. “Do you believe there is evil, and would you…confront it, negotiate with it, or defeat it?” Negotiate with it? If this wasn’t a jab at Obama, I don’t know what is. But Obama answered it beautifully. He said he believed there was evil, but that he believed we must show humility in dealing with it. He warned that too many run the risk of doing evil things in their efforts to combat evil. My mind immediately went to the horrors of Guantanamo Bay and the poor innocent people whose rights we’ve violated all in the name of keeping our country safe. Whose lives are forever shattered by our misguided attempts to deal with terrorism. I don’t know if this is what he meant to invoke or if he was speaking more generally of things like the Inquisition, the Salem Witch trials, or even Al-Qaeda. But that’s what it evoked for me. Yes, Obama believes there is evil in the world, and that we should combat it, but we must make sure that when trying to destroy a monster, we don’t become monsters ourselves.

He said what he believed in a forum where it wouldn’t be popular. I believe that’s the mark of a leader. This is the man I want as President of the United States.