Editor’s Note: This column was co-authored by Bob Morrison.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected to his fourth term, Kansas editor William Allen White, a staunch Republican, wrote: "We who hate your gaudy guts salute you." President Obama: We have never hated your gaudy guts. And we acknowledge that a majority of our fellow citizens of this Great Republic have saluted you and conferred upon you for the second time the office of President of the United States. We thank God that more than 120 million Americans voted in a peaceful and orderly election. That alone is a wonder of the world. (You will pardon us, Sir, if we also thank Heaven for the Twenty-second Amendment, another legacy from FDR.)
Our favorite portrait of you is the inaugural cover of The New Yorker.] Over the past four years, we have written more than 600 columns singly and together about your administration’s policies. Throughout those years, we have kept the high promise of that Inaugural Portrait in mind. We have endeavored always to remember that you hold the office held by Washington and Lincoln. We believe that office deserves respect.
We also recall the amazing spectacle of millions of Americans attending your first Inauguration. We feel deeply what your taking the presidential oath must mean, especially to our fellow citizens whose ancestors survived the horrors of the Middle Passage. Those forebears came here in chains. For our fellow citizens of African descent, your rise to the presidency holds profound spiritual and historical meaning. With our fellow Christians, we share a belief in the redemptive value of suffering.
We must in all candor admit that we have opposed most of your policies. We believe your administration daily fails to recognize the God-given right to life. We assert that what was wrong in slavery, what was wrong in segregation, is what is wrong in abortion. It treats millions of humans as less than human. TIME’s Joe Klein admits that ultra-sound makes it “impossible to deny that that thing in the womb is a human being.” Mr. President, your administration denies this reality every day. Abraham Lincoln said it well: “Nothing stamped in the divine image was sent into the world to be trod upon.” President Obama: Are not unborn children so stamped?
We have also opposed your administration’s policy of refusing to take care that the laws be faithfully executed. One of these laws, the Defense of Marriage Act, you have flouted from the first days of your presidency. Now, we have seen voters in four states decide to permit same sex couplings to be recognized as marriages. Thirty-two states have voted to preserve true marriage. We will see what some call “marriage equality” only when Zero equals One. We are not surprised that some today hail Tuesday’s results as proving that Four is greater than Thirty-two.
True marriage benefits all and bashes none. It is the foundation of society.
The moving story of 10,000 more marriages being recorded in Tennessee in 1866 should be more widely known. Recently freed black couples came to Tennessee that year to have their slave marriages legally recognized. That’s how strong was the desire to preserve family life then. That’s how important marriage was for the black community. The breakdown of marriage among blacks, Hispanics, and whites has caused untold heartbreak for the nation. If you are against traditional marriage, Mr. President, you cannot have a successful administration. We will fight for this ideal with or without your support.
Your administration is paying billions to tormentors of Christians in a number of Muslim majority lands. German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said that Christianity is the most persecuted religion on earth. You were received with joy and admiration in Germany, Mr. President. We appeal to you to change your policies in your second term. Those who oppress neighbors who worship differently will never enjoy democracy. This must stop. You must cease taxing us to support treacherous allies who shoot us in the back.
We doubt you will be moved by our appeal. In your first term, you proved deaf to the cries of the oppressed of many lands. American blood has been shed and American treasure sunk in foreign entanglements that will result in neither freedom nor peace. And today, our strongest ally in the Middle East, Israel, is in mortal peril. No president had been as hostile to Israel’s survival needs as you have been.
For the sake of our beloved country, we urge you to reverse your Mideast policy. Embracing regimens which have vowed to eradicate Israel, will bring nothing but blood and dishonor.
Finally, we pray for you, President Obama. We hope you and your family are kept safe from all harm. We believe that as we pray for you and for all those in authority, we are following God’s Word.
We pray, too, that you will remember President Washington’s words to the Hebrew Congregation in Newport. Washington wanted to see an America “where each shall sit under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid. May that be our America, too, Barack Obama.
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