By Diane Silver
Yet another prominent Republican has said he just can't take it anymore. Lifelong GOPer Rev. Bob Meneilly has told the KC Buzz Blog that he is bolting to the Democratic Party.
The tipping point was the Religious Right's annointing of ousted Kansas Attorney General Phill Kline as Johnson County's new district attorney.
Meneilly told the Buzz Blog that "the way they did it was kind of a slap in the face to the community."
Both Meneilly and his wife are becoming Democrats. Meneilly is in his 80's and is pastor emeritus of Village Presbyterian Church and chairman emeritus of the moderate MAINstream Coalition.
I had a chance to talk with Meneilly during the 2005 campaign to defeat the anti-marriage amendment to the Kansas Constitution. I have a lot of respect for all he has accomplished in his life. He has always stood up for what he believes.
When a couragous, principled and religious person like Meneilly leaves your party, you know you're in trouble.
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3 comments:
Meneilly was a Republican in the same sense that Madonna is a virgin.
Meneilly was a Republican in the same sense that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican.
Thanks for stopping by, Groenhagen. Oh! and as for Madonna... there was a point in her life when she was a virgin.
"Meneilly was a Republican in the same sense that Abraham Lincoln was a Republican."
Well, that not true at all. Lincoln's bid for the presidency was motivated to a large degree by a moral issue, i.e., slavery. Meneilly says he wants moral issues out of politics. If Lincoln were a Republican in the same sense as Meneilly, he would have taken slavery out of his political agenda.
Meneilly is also pro-abortion. Abortion, of course, results in the death of an innocent human. Orlando Patterson has described slavery as "social death." Abolitionists and pro-lifers are very much alike in their concern for fellow human beings. (We have to keep in mind that the pro-slavery forces were overwhelmingly Democrats, just as are the pro-abortion forces today.)
With Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday coming up, I invite you to read his Letter from a Birmingham Jail, especially his discussion on Martin Buber and segregation. King wrote that segregation substitutes an "I-it" relationship for an "I-thou" relationship, which "ends up relegating persons to the status of things."
Meneilly and his cohorts have done the same thing vis-a-vis abortion (i.e., they're in an "I-it" mode). Lincoln and Kline are both in the "I-thou" mode and respect the lives of their fellow human beings.
"Oh! and as for Madonna... there was a point in her life when she was a virgin."
Yes, but that was a long, long, long time ago, and it's likely she had very little respect for virginity even when she was a virgin.
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