Visual source: Newseum
First, President Obama's Mother's Day Proclamation:
Mothers raise children under an array of circumstances, and many work long hours inside and outside the home balancing myriad demands. Mothers are leaders and trailblazers in every part of our society -- from classrooms to boardrooms, at home and overseas, on the beat and on the bench. We celebrate the efforts of all our Nation's mothers, and we recognize that when more households are relying on women as primary or co-breadwinners, the success of women in our economy is essential to the success of our families, our communities, and our country. That is why I created the White House Council on Women and Girls as one of my first acts in office -- to ensure we integrate the needs of women and girls into every decision we make. I was proud to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which continues to help women secure equal pay for equal work, and my Administration continues to promote workplace flexibility so no mother has to choose between her job and her child. And because of the Affordable Care Act, women finally have more power to make choices about their health care, and they have expanded access to a wide variety of preventive services such as mammograms at no additional cost.From the White House archives, take a look back and visit the Meet the Presidential Moms Gallery.Today, let us pay respect to mothers across America by embracing the women who continue to guide and inspire us, and by holding fast to the memories of those who live on in our hearts.
Now, on to the punditry...
Lisa Miller at The Washington Post:
This Mother's Day, Obama's declaration [of support for gay marriage] gives gay and lesbian couples, as well as interracial couples, infertile couples and single parents ' as well as every mother who fears she's not doing it right ' a reason to rejoice. [...]Meanwhile, at Liberty University...
Today, 40 percent of births are to unmarried women and a third of children live in single-parent homes. Single-mother households, like the kind in which Obama grew up, may not be biblically approved, but they are increasingly the rule, not the exception.The Bible's wisdom may be eternal and its stories and teachings eternally mined for broad lessons about God's justice and love. Together, the Hebrew Bible and the gospels emphasize family love and respect, fidelity in marriage and to God. The Scriptures teach about welcoming strangers and caring for the 'widows and orphans,' the weakest members of society.
Obama's faith and his moral compass have pointed him to the inevitable conclusion: On the specifics of what constitutes a 'good' or 'right' kind of family, the Scriptures offer no guidance at all.
Mitt Romney reaffirmed his opposition to same-sex marriage yesterday in a commencement address at an evangelical Christian university aimed at energizing core Republican Party activists.At The Los Angeles Times, Nilmini Gunaratne Rubin writes of a dark chapter in our nation's history:'Marriage is a relationship between one man and one woman,' he told cheering, standing graduates of Lynchburg, Virginia-based Liberty University, a regular campaign stop for Republican presidential candidates since President Ronald Reagan visited it a month before Election Day in 1980. [...]
Romney senior strategist Eric Fehrnstrom said the speech was 'not a policy speech' and was meant to focus on the universal themes of family and faith.
During her pregnancy, at age 30, [my mother] received care from one of Pullman's few obstetricians. She endured labor without drugs, and I was born healthy in 1972. Because fathers weren't allowed in the maternity ward overnight, my dad went back to their apartment when I was a few hours old.On a different topic, and also at The Los Angeles Times, Doyle McManus looks at political ad spending:As soon as he left, the doctor cut out my mom's uterus.
He didn't ask permission to perform the hysterectomy. In fact, he ignored her pleas. "There are too many colored babies already," he told her. Exhausted from labor, my mom was too weak to resist as she was wheeled into the operating room and put under anesthesia. On her medical record, the doctor wrote "exploratory" as the reason for the operation. The real reason, of course, was eugenics, the racist pseudoscience of human breeding.
My mom was not alone in her anguish. According to historian Mark Largent, more than 63,000 people were forcibly sterilized under eugenics-inspired official state programs in the U.S. between 1907 and 1980. [...] It was a horrifying exercise in genetic engineering. The intent was to strengthen the gene pool and reduce welfare rolls. The victims were usually women, including African Americans, Asians, Jews, Latinos, Native Americans, alcoholics, the disabled, epileptics, illiterates, the mentally ill, petty criminals, the poor, the promiscuous, rape victims and "anyone else who did not resemble the blond and blue-eyed Nordic ideal the eugenics movement glorified," as Edwin Black noted in his book "War Against the Weak."
I sent messages to the Koch brothers and all four directors last week asking if they were willing to disclose their contributions. The only reply came from a Koch Industries spokeswoman, who confirmed that David Koch and his company support AFP but offered no details.Joshua Stockley at The News Star:To its credit, though, the organization's staff responded energetically ' and vigorously defended every allegation in their advertising.[...]
Not surprisingly, he disagreed with my contention that his donors' anonymity made it easier for the organization to play fast and loose with the facts. "The more incendiary and wild an ad is, the less credible," he said. "We didn't call President Obama a bad man."
And he said identifying his donors by name would "definitely have a chilling effect" on their freedom of speech, because they'd instantly become targets of anger from the left.
[North Carolina's ban on civil unions and gay marriage] amendment could be used to strip child custody and visitation rights, property rights, end-of-life rights (wills, trusts, power of attorney), and health benefits to any unmarried partner relationship ' gay or straight. The hypocrisy is obvious. Republicans claim to be the party of small government, but the reality is that they're the party of using government when they see fit. When dealing with religious beliefs, Republicans talk about government staying out of the way. When it comes to personal choices dealing with relationships, what religion others follow, or choices about a women's body, small government rhetoric is pushed aside and intrusive government arrives with a vengeance.
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