Thursday, April 09, 2009

War in South Bend/Notre Dame

President Obama has been invited to speak at Notre Dame graduation, and it has started a raging controversy as to whether this should be allowed at a "premier Catholic university." The headline in day's South Bend Tribune is , "Foe of Obama Visit Ratchets Up Fight." The first sentence of the article says, "Pro-life activist Randall Terry vows to create a 'political mud pit' over President Barack Obama's scheduled May 17 commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame, making the situation so uncomfortable that the president's advisers persuade him to cancel the visit."

The Tribune is full of letters both pro and con. Here is an excerpt from one of my favorites:
[These anti-abortion protestors] should take one week and ask absolutely everyone they come in contact with “are you pro-choice?” Then remove them from their lives.

I don’t believe in abortion, but I honor the choice of other people. If we didn’t, we’d have very few choices of friends, doctors, lawyers, insurance salesmen, etc.

1 comment:

Chris said...

I think the controversy, at least for the vast majority of protesters, is not over whether President Obama should be "allowed" at Notre Dame, but over whether he should be singled out for two rather prestigious honors: the commencement speaking slot and, more importantly, an honorary doctorate. There's a significant difference that the letter writer you quoted apparently didn't understand. Does he/she think that we ought either to give people awards or else "remove those people from our lives"?