Two Current Profiles in Courage

(From the JFK Library)

John F. Kennedy had long been interested in the topic of political courage, beginning with his senior thesis at Harvard. The thesis, later published as Why England Slept, was a study of the failure of British political leaders in the 1930s to oppose popular resistance to rearming, leaving the country ill-prepared for World War II. Kennedy’s election to the House in 1946 and the Senate in 1952 gave him personal experience in dealing with the conflicting pressures that legislators face. When Kennedy took a leave of absence from the Senate in 1954 to recover from back surgery, it gave him the opportunity to study the topic of political courage. The project resulted in the publication of Profiles in Courage, which focuses on the careers of eight Senators whom Kennedy felt had shown great courage under enormous pressure from their parties and their constituents. His own battles with physical pain and his experiences in World War II as a PT boat commander also gave him inspiration. Profiles in Courage, which Kennedy dedicated to his wife Jacqueline Kennedy, received the Pulitzer Prize for history in 1957.

The subjects of Profiles in Courage are:

• John Quincy Adams
• Daniel Webster
• Thomas Hart Benton
• Sam Houston
• Edmund G. Ross
• Lucius Lamar
• George Norris
• Robert A. Taft

In the preface to Profiles in Courage, Senator Kennedy discusses the “problems of political courage in the face of constituent pressures, and the light shed on those problems by the lives of past statesmen.’’

www.jfklibrary.org/Education+and+Public+Programs/Profile+in+Courage+Award/Profiles+in+Courage.htm

Reading the editorial on today's Chicago Sun-Times, highlighted two men taking courageous stands currently and I thought about how they fit the principles then-Senator John F. Kennedy laid out in Profiles in Courage.

Two men take a stand for America's values

One man is East Coast, the other is West Coast. One is a politician, the other a federal judge. But in two historic developments this week, both men stood up for what is right, even sacred, about our country and our Constitution.

How refreshing it was, bordering on inspiring, to see two public figures champion without apology our nation's most fundamental values -- civil liberties and religious freedom -- giving no quarter to baser sentiments.

If only their strong public commitment to our noblest principles did not seem so exceptional. Unfortunately, we live in intellectually dishonest times.

First, on Tuesday, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg defended the building of a mosque near the World Trade Center site, Ground Zero for the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Bloomberg refused to pander to those who would block the mosque out of a misguided notion that all Muslims and their religion, rather than a radical minority, are somehow to blame for the 9/11 attacks.

"Let us not forget that Muslims were among those murdered on 9/11 and that our Muslim neighbors grieved with us as New Yorkers and as Americans," Bloomberg said. "We would betray our values -- and play into our enemies' hands -- if we were to treat Muslims differently than anyone else. In fact, to cave to popular sentiment would be to hand a victory to terrorists -- and we should not stand for that."

Then on Wednesday, Vaughn R. Walker, chief judge of the Federal District Court in San Francisco, struck down California's Proposition 8 ban on same-sex marriages, issuing an eloquent ruling that drove to the heart of the matter.

"California's obligation is to treat its citizens equally, not to mandate its own moral code," Walker wrote. "Moral disapproval, without any other asserted state interest, has never been a rational basis for legislation."

But might there be a "state interest" in banning same-sex marriage? Walker emphatically said no.

The Proposition 8 campaign, he wrote, "relied heavily on negative stereotypes about gays and lesbians and focused on protecting children from inchoate threats vaguely associated with gays and lesbians. The evidence at trial shows those fears to be completely unfounded."

Every day, we turn on the radio or cable TV and hear manufactured outrage about manufactured stories based on manufactured facts.

Broadcast hucksters trample on the American ideal of tolerance -- for Muslims, for gays and lesbians and for immigrants. People believe this stuff, and opportunistic know-nothing politicians ride the wave of anger and misinformation to ever-higher speaking fees.

So it was with real appreciation that we listened to Bloomberg's speech, given before a backdrop of the Statue of Liberty, and read Walker's ruling.

"We may not always agree with every one of our neighbors -- that's life and it's part of living in such a diverse and dense city," Bloomberg said. "But we also recognize that part of being a New Yorker is living with your neighbors in mutual respect and tolerance. It was exactly that spirit of openness and acceptance that was attacked on 9/11."

Yes. Exactly right.

"Proposition 8 was premised on the belief that same-sex couples simply are not as good as opposite-sex couples," Walker wrote. "This belief is not a proper basis on which to legislate. The Constitution cannot control private biases, but neither can it tolerate them."

Yes. Exactly right.

Some people say they want their country back. We're not sure what country they're talking about.

We'll take the America of Vaughn Walker and Michael Bloomberg, from California to the New York Island, the one that's made for all of us.

www.suntimes.com/news/commentary/2571128,CST-EDT-EDIT06.article?plckCurrentPage=0&sid=sitelife.suntimes.com