I watched the Compassion Forum this weekend. It was interesting even to someone who wouldn't consider themselves extremely religious. Obama and Clinton talked separately about issues such as abortion, euthanasia, pverty, aids and other issues. Both candidates were asked about abortion and I have to say their answers were pretty much the same. They both said they thought that we should focus more on preventing teen pregnancies. I mean what else are you going to say to an audience of Pro-Lifers when you are adamantly Pro-Choice. Obama mentioned that he wanted to support single or poor mothers more so that they had more options- I think Clinton said something similar. It was interesting to me that the audience seemed to be much more responsive to Obama's answers than Clinton's. They clapped for him several times whereas they didn't clap at all, as I remember, for Clinton. This struck me as odd since I thought Clinton answered arguable as well. Obama discussed his positive experience with Islam in Indonesia. He described it as a "tolerant faith" in a society of multi-religions where woman had freedom. I thought these were important comments seeing as all mentions of Islam these days is accompanied by the work terrorism. I feel this is a step towards looking past that stereotype and we need a president who can do so and create a productive relationship with Islam since it is now the largest religion in the world, recently surpassing Christianity and continuing to grow.
Obama also spoke about his faith teaching him to act out of hope instead of fear which hits home to me who sees the Bush administration instill fear in the public in order to gain power. I really enjoyed Obama's discussion about science and religion not clashing.
Overall, it was a great forum and both candidates did well. If you missed it I am sure CNN is still palying it, over and over.
5 comments:
Hi kate. nice bloggerini...
You really point out how close the candidates are in their opinions and what a difficult choice it is for so many people. And why this is dragging on for so long. Also why Clinton feels she has to harp on non-issues like Obama's relationship with his former pastor instead of "what are we going to do about the economy", because the two of them feel the same way about most things!
Im glad they are debating on issues that are worth discussing. I am getting a little annoyed with the personal attacks they were throwing at one another. I wanna know what they plan on doing that will get us out of all the trouble our lovely president has caused for us in the last 8 years!
Hi there Kate... This is Sina.. Long time no see... you always send interesting stuff... Your blog is cool, very American... All I can comment on is the fact that as an Iranian now back home, I hope this time America elects a Democrat.. The thing is it is gonna give my country a bit more time and me a longer time to arrange my leave to Canada... To be perfectly honest I think the American foreign policy is not going to change much in the long run but minor shifts of focus may occur. The thin is the industry is still pretty much completely oil based and sooner or later the American government will need to go for another was to secure the resources... Let's hope we can make a campaign then that will stop things form getting nastier than they already are in the Middle East... Write me back... and wish you luck in your class...
I love how Obama is taking steps to reduce the fear and increase the understanding between Islam and the US...its about time someone did!
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