culture of life

Social conservatives cannot complain that their issues have not been heard in the 2008 campaign, in exactly the fashion they wanted.

We must decide whether our democracy will be stronger moving forward articulating values where government remains neutral, ensuring rights, safety and providing reliably accurate information based on facts; or by putting the full force of the federal government behind one narrow interpretation of one religious ideology.

We all view life as sacred. We all view love and sexuality as sacred. We all know and respect the importance of transitions at birth and death. We rejoice in each, as we rejoice in each other. We celebrate life. We want it to be better for everyone. So if we agree on so many goals, maybe the only choice in this election are the tactics and strategies we think will best help us reach them.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of this mind-bendingly historic election cycle is that so many conservative Republicans are standing up to say they have had enough. They “aren’t leaving their party,” to paraphrase Ronald Reagan when he supported Barry Goldwater’s conservative movement, “their party is leaving them.”

Is Culture Peace breaking out? Did Pat Buchanan just call Obama's speech "centrist"? Can we take up the call for respect, and individual as well as mutual responsibility?

Senator Sam Brownback does not believe abortion should be legal in any circumstances - not even for victims of rape or incest. But this time he's introduced a bill that has some folks scratching their heads.

This Memorial Day we remember 25 million souls lost to 25 years of AIDS. Motivated by the death of the love of my early life in 1996 from AIDS, I started thinking about death politically. Carl died just months before medications the developed world takes for granted became available, and months after the US Navy denied him compassionate access to those meds after a five-year study in which he participated. Months meant the difference in him seeing his two sons grow up and our lives continuing together.

In 1997, I began a journey working with Oregon’s Death with Dignity Law, culminating early this year in the US Supreme Court affirming Oregon’s law 6-3: the federal government had no right to interfere in a doctor or pharmacist’s compassionate decision to alleviate suffering at the request of the patient. Strict safeguards make that once controversial law a model of compromise among medical, legal, political, ethics, policy, mental health, faith, hospice, and most importantly, patient and family communities. Compromise works.