The Case for Empathy—Open Hearts May Open Minds

In the past, Rob Portman has supported the federal Defense of Marriage Act, favored a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage and backed legislation prohibiting gay couples in Washington, D.C., from adopting. Now, the conservative Republican senator from Ohio has changed his mind. “I have come to believe that if two people are prepared to make a lifetime commitment to love and care for each other in good times and in bad, the government shouldn’t deny them the opportunity to get married,” he wrote in the Columbus Dispatch. Discovering his son Will is gay “led me to think through my position in a much deeper way,” he said.

I would never question the sincerity of Portman’s change of heart or the thoughtfulness that made him reverse his personal and political opinions. But I would ask why it took the concerns of someone in his immediate family to move him.

Empathy for others is not, it seems, a valued quality, especially that which might cross differences in gender or race, economic status or geography—or sexual identity. Portman’s public change of heart makes me wonder where those seeking public office draw the line – at the border of their districts, their blocks, their front doors?

And the inability to appreciate the life experience of others unfortunately seeps into other parts of our culture,

Why Obama always returns to North Carolina

President Obama just can’t stay away from North Carolina, though after giving him hope and a victory in 2008, the fickle state cozied back up to the GOP in 2012. Being wooed with a national convention and a stream of visits from surrogates wasn’t quite enough to stem a statewide swing from blue to red. Yet there the president was on Wednesday, the day after his State of the Union speech, selling his ideas on manufacturing and the economy at the Linamar engine factory near Asheville, N.C.

Playing hard to get is irresistible.

 

 

How will the Violence Against Women Act fare in Congress?

A bill reauthorized twice since its inception in 1994 stalled last year. Will a new version gain bipartisan support?

Will President Obama get the respect he deserves now?

In the final days of the just-ended, very long presidential campaign, when supportive crowds booed President Obama’s mention of opponent Mitt Romney and the GOP Congress, he delivered his usual response, “Don’t boo, vote. Vote!” then added, “Voting is the best revenge.” He was he hammered for it, of course, with Romney interpreting it to mean that Obama wanted supporters to “vote for revenge.”

Actually, no. The president, by paraphrasing an old saying, was picking up on a mood of pent-up frustration felt by many who had voted for him in 2008. No one ever expected a president of the United States to govern without criticism or partisan sniping. What they hoped was that Barack Obama — a man born without wealth or privilege, whose life story exhibited the best of the American dream — would, once he worked his way to the White House, be accorded the simple respect due that special office.

At DNC Charlotte, taking the ‘war on women’ seriously

CHARLOTTE — The National Women’s Political Caucus is about issues, not party affiliation, as it tries to get more women elected to office. But the issues it cares about — supporting a women’s right to choose, the Equal Rights Amendment and dependent care for women balancing responsibility for children and aging relatives — come with a party label these days.

At the organization’s packed reception at Ri Ra Irish pub on Sunday afternoon, before the official Tuesday start of the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, shouts of “yes we can” echoed Obama campaign enthusiasm. National Organization for Women president Terry O’Neill, a familiar television presence, put it this way: “The radical fringe on the right wing has taken over the Republican Party.” She lamented the invisibility of GOP women with more moderate views, such as Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) and Susan Collins (Maine) at the Republican convention in Tampa.