MiriamSingsLoud

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080523/ap_on_el_pr/clinton

Talking heads are all over Hillary. In response to the suggestion that she quit the race, Clinton enumerated previous Democratic contests that had lasted through June: including the 1968 contest that ended with the assassination of Bobby Kennedy.

It was a stupid thing to say, but she clearly didn't mean to suggest that someone should assassinate Obama. She's already apologized. Can we move on now? Clinton's fifteen minutes of fame should have ended long ago.

Recently, there has been a great emphasis on the faith of presidential candidates. Evangelical Christian voters have Romney’s Mormonism under a microscope. Advocates for the separation of church and state are mortified that Huckabee, a Baptist preacher, is gaining ground. Hillary Clinton has written an entire book about her faith.

Fellow Christians, if we choose our president based merely on his or her beliefs, we will be making a serious mistake. James 2:19-20 says “You believe there is one God. Good! Even the demons believe that- and shudder. You foolish man, do you want evidence that faith without deeds is useless?” In electing a president, we have to go beyond the dogma and theology, and look at the specific beliefs that influence deeds.

This is not to say that faith and deeds operate independently. The Christian faith obviously has an important moral component. However, good deeds can arise from beliefs other than Christianity. They can even result from such worldly, fleeting impulses as the desire to impress others.

So, how do we elect a president who will consistently do good? Such a president cannot be influenced purely by temporary motives, like wanting to be re-elected or having sympathy for a particular group. Moral behavior will end when its motivation ends. Therefore, we need a president with an everlasting motivation. He or she must be held eternally accountable.

Christianity is an excellent example of a belief system that features eternal accountability. However, it is not the only such system. Mormonism also has an eternal scope, in which those who are faithful in this life will be rewarded in the life to come. The same is true of Judaism. Even an atheist or agnostic president may operate under eternal accountability; perhaps by always bearing in mind his or her legacy on earth when making ethical decisions.

We should not be asking if Mormons are polytheistic. We should not be asking what Baptists believe about salvation. Instead, we should be asking candidates, what are your moral beliefs, and, most importantly, why do they matter? In this way, we can separate those candidates with an eternal ethical perspective from those without it.

I just returned to my dorm after watching tonight's Republican candidate forum on Univision. The live broadcast was translated into Spanish for millions of Hispanic viewers.

Several candidates were asked, if they were to become president of the United States, how they would handle Hugo Chavez. It wasn't a particularly hard question. Most of the candidates responded beautifully- Huckabee tied in the need for energy independence, and Giuliani alluded to the king of Spain's "why don't you just shut up" attitude. But Ron Paul? His answer was, in a nutshell, "I think we should talk to Chavez- and to Castro, too!"

Now, Cuban policy is not a make-it-or-break-it issue for me. But to make that kind of comment in Miami, and in front of a television audience that includes millions of Cuban Americans, demonstrates incredibly poor judgment. I like Paul, but after tonight, I am no longer willing to put him in the White House.

An independent political group, the Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America, has shown its support for John McCain by- get this- airing campaign advertisements which exploit a loophole in the campaign finance laws that McCain sponsored. (To his credit, McCain is trying to get them to stop.)

http://tinyurl.com/2rgz5l

At first glance, the idea that a region where machismo and male authority are so entrenched would have geater gender equality than the good old Land of the Free seems absurd. But the statistics bear it out. In Latin America, women earn 90 cents on a man's dollar- compare that to 77 in the USA. Politically, a quarter of Cabinet members are women, but American women only make up 16% of Congress.

A lot of people get on my case for being feminist and pro-life. When I say I'm feminist, this is the kind of thing that I'm talking about. Equal wages, political and community involvement, and domestic violence are not closed cases! I have nothing against Latin America, to be sure- but just based on how long we've been participating in the democratic experiment, we should be embarrassed at how little progress has been made.

Article the statistics came from: http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcclatchy/20071022/wl_mcclatchy/20071022latinwomenday1_attn_national_foreign_editors_ytop

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071017/ap_on_re_us/abortion_charges

Phil Kline charges that Planned Parenthood is illegally aborting viable fetuses; PP says they don't do abortions after 22 weeks. My guess is that they're both right- PP probably doesn't intentionally go after 22 weeks (it's not like they WANT to be sued), but miscalculations happen, especially when a woman doesn't remember when her last period was. Plus, the Amillia Taylor case proved that it's possible for a fetus to be viable before 22 weeks.

Naturally though, I expect that the actual facts of the case will be overlooked, and the media will instead focus on who is pro-life, who is pro-legal abortion, and so on and so forth. Another opportunity to actually educate people about the issue, squandered.

There's been a lot of animosity between Clinton and Obama lately. This comes as no real surprise, as they're fighting neck-and-neck for the Democratic nomination. However, I know many people who would like to see a Clinton-Obama ticket. When one gets the nomination, will she or he offer the vice presidency to the other? Or is the mudslinging getting too personal for that to happen?

I know it's a little early to be asking. But this is a great opportunity to guess, and if you're right, you can use your post as evidence of your amazing predictive power.

In spite of China's persistent bullying, the White House will host the Dalai Lama and award him a Congressional Gold Medal. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071016/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_dalai_lama

There are very few things that Bush and I agree on, but this is one of them. Our economic interests with China will NOT override America's commitment to religious freedom and diversity. Well done!

On Friday, the Guttmacher Institute released a report stating that abortion laws make no diffence in abortion rates. (View a summary here- http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5ghY5K8c58vHmJROxAIbLI6Kr73zA)

Once upon a time pre-Roe, NARAL claimed that 5,000-10,000 American women died each year from illegal abortions. In 1979, NARAL co-founder Bernard Nathanson admitted that the statistic was, in his own words, "totally false" (B. Nathanson, Aborting America, Doubleday, 1979, p. 193). Time will tell whether or not the latest Guttmacher statistics are reliable. For now, let us give them the benefit of the doubt and assume that the raw numbers are true. How can we interpret those numbers?

The article states: "In eastern Europe, there are more abortions than live births: 105 abortions for every 100 live births, the research found. In Western Europe, there are 23 abortions for every 100 live births. In North America, there are 33 abortions for every 100 live births, while in Africa, where abortion is illegal in most countries, there are 17 abortions for every 100 live births."

The numbers show that, contrary to virtually every implication of the report, pregnant women living where abortion is illegal are much more likely to carry to term than are pregnant women living where abortion is legal. In other words, abortion bans DO make a difference! (This information is conveniently located at the very end of the article. Does nobody read past the first paragraph anymore?)

The report goes on to claim that illegality of abortion makes abortion unsafe. A sister report on maternal mortality revealed that childbirth in African countries is very dangerous (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21272668/). Childbirth being legal in Africa, the researchers had to settle for an alternative explanation- namely, that the deaths are the result of poor health care and unsanitary conditions. Doesn't that also account for the high rate of abortion complications?

This report is incredibly biased. Shame on the researchers, and shame on the media for giving them the publicity they were looking for!