Todd on Notre Dame

It was a balmy morning in May when the President of the United States visited America’s prestigious Catholic University, Notre Dame. The crowds turned out in massive numbers to welcome their Commander in Chief. He was there to speak to the graduating seniors who are leaving the college because they are graduating. The President of the United States, who was once a distinguished community worker who went on to be an outstanding and internationally known motivational speaker, was given an honorary Doctor of Laws degree. In addition to his other achievements, Dr. Obama was also a law professor in his own right, and so it is good that he was given this honorary degree of doctorate of Law.

Unfortunately the day was marred by a few radical, right wing protestors who were anti-freedom of choice. These Catholic fundamentalist extremists heckled the president during his speech and held an alternative ‘prayer service’ during the commencement. They claimed to be followers of the Pope in Rome, but the Pope said nothing about the Notre Dame commencement, and many Catholics claim quite rightly that he does not have a problem with it. These are people who want to deprive women the right to choose what happens to their own bodies, and they will stop at nothing in their mania for suppressing women’s rights.

I am not a religious man myself, but I respect those who are sincere believers. What I don’t respect is when they try to impose their own beliefs on others by force. They are free to believe that abortion is a crime, but just because they believe it is a crime doesn’t make it a crime. The law of the land makes something a crime or not, and the law of our land says that abortion is okay. It is freedom of choice. These people want to take away freedom of choice. It was re-assuring that our law enforcement officers made sure they were silenced, and therefore upheld our sacred freedoms in this country.

Our President spoke eloquently about the need to find ‘common ground’ on the issue of abortion. These are wise and eloquent ideas. This is the sort of leadership we need. We need to find people who will not compromise on the need for compromise. The President is right. The people who are against abortion and the people who are in favor of abortion need to find common ground. The only way for this to happen is for people who are opposed to abortion to change their minds and realize that the only civilized route is for people to have a choice whether they terminate the life of their ‘child’ or not. I put ‘child’ in quotes because they go against every fact of science and claim what is only a little blob of tissue in a woman’s body is actually a little baby. These people need to find common ground with the people they disagree with.

This is what happened over one hundred years ago over the issue of slavery for instance. The famous Dred Scott decision allowed freedom of choice. It was a very American thing to do. Many people were opposed to slavery. Many other people said they should have the choice to have slaves or not, and it was the choice to have slaves which was the right thing to do because eventually they changed their minds, but they were not forced to change their mind and the two sides found common ground on which to fight, and that ground was at Antietam and Gettysburg and other places and Obama is like a new Lincoln who also gave everyone choice. I think he is a lot like JFK too, who helped black people to be free and have more choice because we all stand for freedom and that is our common ground.

Many people found the President’s words and ideas profound and inspiring and hopeful for the future. I am not myself a religious person, but if there were any religious leader who spoke as eloquently and profoundly as our President I would join his church, and I know many other people feel the same as I do. Although there were some Catholics who protested, many more are sensible, ordinary, patriotic Americans. They are ashamed of their lunatic fringe, and support the President. I have a friend who is a devout Catholic who is lapsed. He told me very plainly that he would clearly rather follow President Obama than the Pope in Rome. My friend called the Pope in Rome ‘Nazi Ratzi.’ It was a funny joke, but of course it is not one which I would want to repeat.