Blog entry called "Can you handle the truth?" by my black lawyer friend Sheria made me cry this morning as she described what it means to be black in American and to have the first black president vilified by racists

http://theexaminedlife-sheria.blogspot.com/
I knew I had to ask readers to go there, because I know that she has been working very hard to explain issues, bills in congress, anything she can do to help President Obama during his first term in office. She is a lawyer so understands legal language which she can explain in terms easier for everyone to understand.  Naturally she wants nothing less than another term for this president which by tradition is generally his for the taking if a president does not stumble too badly. There is much to worry about.
As a pro life registered democrat I want this president to do as well in office as he can do, given what the party platform is and what he has pledged to try to do. I have tried to explain again and again that I do not think the party has allowed for dissenting voices within when it comes to an issue like legalized abortion, which the democratic party supports. I am sure there are other pro life democrats who feel that their convictions are no longer welcome.
I have often thought that with legalized abortion came sharp criticism of religious beliefs. Fanatics and zealots became words that were flung about freely, denigrating people as stupid and ignorant who could not support the killing of the unborn, who were shackled by commands from on high that no longer applied.  Well, Supreme Being bears some resemblance to me to Supreme Court that reversed Roe vs Wade and legalized abortion across the land. I grew up in the Mormon Church founded by the prophet Joseph Smith who claimed as most prophets do to be receiving revelations directly from God.  These revelations must have been pretty hard to swallow when God said men should take 7 wives to be fulfilled, and so on.  When I first found out that I was going to the temple to be baptized for the dead, I had a hard time believing that people who died had to wait around until I or some other Mormon child got baptized in their names, so they could enter heaven a Mormon.  Only Mormons went to heaven according to Joseph Smith!  Well, my father and grandfather were both free thinkers so I was allowed to express my doubts about this doctrine without being sharply rebuked, even though I did obediently made the temple trip.
Now sudden believers in abortion seemed to think that the Supreme Court's decisions were just as sacred and no one should think of questioning these august judges.  It looked to me as though a lot of people, including journalists, had a tendency to go along with authority if there was some risk in dissent, didn't matter where or how it came about.
Mormons in the heart of Mormon Utah found it extremely difficult to protest any revelations. In fact, when I did I had to leave the state of Utah so I could have peace and not be treated like the enemy in our midst.
If we all protested every single thing we are expected to believe, progress might just stop. I have voted in the past for pro choice presidents.  I voted for Clinton both times thinking that other good he could accomplish might outweigh his lack of conviction on the issue of legalized abortion.  But I finally had to decide that I could not even do that.
Or things would never change.  Over a million abortions a year would still continue like clockwork, a VIOLENT solution, and violence begets violence.  So we have to beware of supporting violence done to any human being, least of all to one who needs a mother's protection in the womb even to live.  
So I came out supporting Sarah Palin who has transformed herself into a pro life activist.  At the same time, I hope democrats realize that I still want this president to be as good and strong as he can possibly be.  I am a registered democrat because of what this great party has done for civil rights in this country. A great president in many ways, John Kennedy was surely assassinated for what he did do at great risk for our country when it came to standing up to the Russians in the Cuban nuclear missile crisis stopping them from moving in missiles pointing directly at our country 90 MILES AWAY.  I will never forget how he faced down the communist leaders of Russia and Cuba with such cool brilliance. And Robert Kennedy who fought crime, fought racists, was ironically killed by a terrorist who seemed to come from neither of those factions, but he died on the floor, nether the less, his life's blood soaking up the carpet of the hotel where he had just spoken to a crowd of screaming supporters who believed he would make another great Kennedy president.
I believe that Obama, too, has conducted himself with cool brilliance and careful control of his emotions, struggling with a myriad of challenging issues that every president must deal with when he takes office.  Racists must examine their hateful rhetoric and desist, for racism must not be allowed to determine what a black president can accomplish in the land of the free and the home of the brave where all men are to be treated as equal.