Freedom's Fire, Brightly Burning

Kerry points to "The most important work"
By Patrick Brodrick/ Staff Writer
Thursday, June 22, 2006

CLINTON - It has housed disadvantaged and troubled youth since the Victorian era, but on Monday the Robert F. Kennedy Action Corps in Lancaster hosted both local and federal politicians, including former presidential-candidate U.S. Sen. John Kerry.

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During his speech, Kerry drew attention to the fact that all too often funding for centers like the Robert F. Kennedy Action Corps is being left out of spending bills.

"Budgets for these programs are being slashed," Kerry told the crowd. "I’ve seen it all over this country, community by community and state by state, families are struggling. Too many children in this country are struggling to get the help they need. Values are taught to young people in three ways; through their parents, through their teachers and organized religion - I know some people don’t like to hear that but it’s the truth. And in the richest country in the world, too many children are without all three."

Kerry said that is why institutions like the Action Corps are so crucial to the country’s youth.

"I want to thank all the people that work at this center and all the institutions just like this one," Kerry said. "Without question this is the most important work being done in America."

Kerry gets it.

Now compare that with the so-called "values-based" republicans with their plan to cut taxes for the wealthy and balloon the deficit to saddle future generations with immense debt, so that government support for children's programs like this becomes impossible; while they spend Congress' time (and my tax dollars) arguing about "urgent" issues such as "protecting" marriage from, well, people who want to get married; while they spend their time in Congress debating how and how much to slash from children's programs, so that they can continue to fund war and the war provisioners. Those seem to be the republican "values," and if so I don't want any part of them. I don't see how any Christian can.

I'll take the values of Kerry and others like him. Real Christian values, that prioritize love and caring over condemnation.