Reflections on two presidential inaugurations 40 years apart

 

Forty years ago, on January 20, I was serving as editor of The Baylor Lariat, the student newspaper at Baylor University in Waco, TX, and busy supervising the newspaper's coverage of the inauguration of Richard Nixon to succeed Lyndon B. Johnson as President of the United States.
 

Our student newspaper desks contained the old Royal manual typewriters. Stories were typed on paper, then edited by hand before being transported by foot across campus to the Baylor Press, where they were keypunched into an old linotype machine complete with hot, molten metal.
 

We watched the Nixon inauguration on a 13-inch, black-and-white TV carted into The Lariat newsroom for inauguration day. We obtained our Associated Press wire stories about the event from an old AP machine that noisily flowed a steady stream of paper from its top.
 

This past Tuesday, January 20, I thought back to those days while I visited The Baylor Lariat offices, one of my few times since 1969 to be there. I just marveled at how things had changed and yet how they had remained so much the same.
 

Student reporters this week sat in front of beautiful, clean iMac screens. They watched the news on a large, overhead color TV that appeared to be a permanent fixture in The Lariat newsroom. Their news of the inauguration of Barack Obama arrived via emails and blogs written by four Lariat students in D.C. for the event. (Student reporters in my day would have been blown away by the possibility of The Lariat paying their way to Washington for the inauguration.) Lariat stories and layouts of the paper moved electronically at lightning speed across campus to the printing presses of the local Waco newspaper.  
 

Watching President Obama's inauguration also stirred other memories of four decades earlier. I entered Baylor the same semester John Westbrook broke the racial barrier, moved into Baylor's Martin Hall (where I lived at the time), and joined the Baylor Bears on the football field. As The Lariat editor in 1968-69, I hired the first African-American reporter for the school's newspaper. His name was Willie White. I worked diligently to see that he was in line to become editor of The Lariat two years later. I also wrote an editorial in The Lariat welcoming Dr. Vivienne Mayes as the first Baylor professor of African-American heritage to the campus. My editorial scolded the Baylor administration for waiting so long to hire a black professor and also for trying to play down the fact that Dr. Mayes had been denied admission as a student some years earlier because of her race.
 

So here I was 40 years to the day later sitting in The Lariat newsroom watching on TV as America inaugurated its first President of African-American heritage. The goose bumps told me that was actually more overwhelming than was seeing the computers sitting on the students' desks.

(Adding to my feeling of being surrounded by history, later that day I also was on Interstate 35 after former President George Bush landed in Waco and his motorcade traveled on to Crawford.)
 

I was there as a guest of the Journalism Department to talk about my career in religion journalism and my new book, Witness to the Truth about my 40-year career. I spent two days lecturing in classes, chatting with students, and visiting with professors in both the journalism and religion departments. What a marvelous and humbling experience it was!
 

I must admit I felt a bit ancient looking into the faces of the young student journalists—and even into the faces of many of the journalism professors. I was grateful that my host, longtime friend from college days and now Baylor journalism professor Mike Blackman, accompanied me most of the time I faced the youngsters.

I also thanked God that most of the religion professors with whom I dined were around my vintage.
 

Lariat reporter Jenna Williamson did a excellent job in her interview and article about Kay and me being back in The Lariat newsroom for the inauguration coverage. (Though she certainly doesn't look like she's been around that long, Kay had been city editor of The Lariat back then.)

Students seemed bright-eyed and eager to learn. I particularly enjoyed giving lectures on ethics in the media. Some of my greatest delights arrived afterward when Jenna, Mike, and others wrote to say students were still discussing what I had to say about ethics in the field of journalism. I had been able to tell by their eyes, rapt attention, and questions that they were listening without diversion.
 

As Kay and I bid adieu to the faculty and students Wednesday afternoon, we felt really good about the future of newspaper reporting in the next generation. Baylor journalism grads have always been a magnificent lot. Our peers have contributed much to newspapers over the past 40 years. I'm now confident that tradition will carry forth into future years.

Personal tie to Sanctity issue sparks my special letter (and plea) to President-elect Obama

Dear President-elect Obama,

Only one issue kept me from voting for you.

As an activist during the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s, I so looked forward to the day when I could cast a presidential ballot for a person with an African-American heritage.  I always thought I would vote for the first African-American Presidential candidate, regardless of which party, when he or she got his or her party's Presidential nomination.

I entered college the year my alma mater allowed its first African-American to become a student.  I lived in the same dorm as the young man and admired his prowess on the football field. As a newspaper reporter on the Baylor University student newspaper, The Lariat, I interviewed the first African-American faculty member at the school and dared to spotlight how years earlier she had been denied admission when she wanted to attend our school. As the student newspaper's editor, I scolded the university's administration for waiting so long to make that faculty appointment. I even won a journalism award for what I said in my editorial.  Then, I deliberately helped a young African-American journalist eventually become my successor as editor of The Baylor Lariat. (By the way, that was a feat that took decades to replicate.) 

Do you get my point?  I am so proud of you for making history this week. It hurt me greatly not to be able to vote for you.

But I still couldn't vote for you because of that one issue.

What is the issue? Abortion.

You see, Mr. President-elect, I have a very strong commitment opposing abortion. My commitment began long before my denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, changed course and became truly pro-life. In fact, long before the Southern Baptist leaders you're likely to encounter on this issue over the next few years ever spoke out against abortion publicly even one time, I was pro-life and outspoken on that position.

Today is Sanctity of Human Life Sunday in Evangelical churches across our land.  So, let me tell you on this day and on the eve of your inauguration as our nation's 44th President why I am pro-life.

It is a highly personal issue for me.

You see, I am married to an adopted person. I love her as much as you could love Michelle. We've been married almost 40 years.  She is my best friend, my soul mate, and the love of my life. She is also the mother of my beloved son and daughter and the grandmother of my only grandchild. (Call me up sometime and I'll tell you all about that 3-year-old who wraps her grandmother and grandfather around her little tiny fingers!) I love all three of them very much, too.

One day I met the woman who gave birth to my wife and made an adoption plan for her.  Back in the 1940s when people were so cruel to unwed mothers, the woman suffered much humiliation at the hands of many around her. I felt very sorry for her. Then she told me she felt so bad about being pregnant with my wife that she wanted to abort my wife and almost did.  A few missing bucks made the difference. That startled me.

Then I got to thinking.  If my wife's birthmother had aborted that baby, the love of my life would never have been able to enter my life. I would never have known the joy of being married for a very long time to a very special lady.

Then it dawned on me that my two precious children would not be here either. I can't imagine not having Matthew and Katie in my life. As children and now as adults, they have brought me untold joy and happiness. Years later when my granddaughter entered the picture, I thought, "Golly gee whiz, if Kay and I had never met and married and had our son, then this little princess would not be in my life either."

All this, of course, led me to read the Christian Scriptures more closely for an understanding of what God says about abortion. I found many passages in the Bible that underscored my concern and led me to a firm conviction about the sanctity of all human life.

Every time I think about abortion, I shudder and wonder who is going to have a great big gap in his or her life because some woman somewhere—perhaps because of humiliation, ignorance, greed, or whatever—chose to have an abortion.

I deeply regret that you do not share my perspective on this issue.  Perhaps you would if you had married a woman who had been adopted as a baby. You are lucky you never had to face such thoughts. Nevertheless, I hope and pray that some day you will rethink your support of abortion—and if not oppose it, at least not work to support it.

By the way, my wife, Kay W. Moore, is the author of Gathering the Missing Pieces in an Adopted Life, published in 1994 by Broadman and Holman and then reprinted later in 2008 by Hannibal Books. This was one of the first books ever written from a truly Evangelical Christian perspective about adoption.  It was based on a series Kay wrote in 1979 for the Houston Chronicle about her successful search (then a real novelty) for her birth mother. The series was even nominated by the Chronicle for a Pulitzer Prize. Let me know if you'd like to have a copy; I will personally see to it that you get one.

In the meanwhile, please know that I will continue to pray for you regularly, just as I have since the election. I may not have voted for you, but I truly want you to succeed. We may disagree on one major issue and maybe a few other smaller matters, but I do want you to become a truly great American President.

Blessings and Peace.

Louis Moore

Media's treatment of Sarah Palin is shameful, disgusting

Let me start by being perfectly clear:  Many who work in the news media in this country are not liberal.

Now let me quickly add:  Many who work in the news media in this country are very liberal.

Characterizing all members of the media as liberal or affiliated with the left-wing of the Democratic Party is unfair.  But somehow since last Friday those who are on the left-wing of the media seem to have grabbed the microphones and the writing assignments to cover the biggest breaking news in the Republican Party. They look like one motley, wild-eyed liberal, crazed crew.

As a former staff member of one of the largest newspapers in the United States, I feel embarrassed by what many of my colleagues have said and done since Friday. I'm talking, of course, about the treatment of Republican Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin.

What I don't understand is the irrationality of the media's behavior. I understand pack journalism. I've always found such herd mentality a contradiction to the independence and freedom reporters say they crave.

But what has occurred since Friday noon goes beyond all common sense and decency. Take Yahoo's lead story today: the story said Sarah had "seduced" her Republican and prime-time TV audience.  If someone had used that word with a sexual connotation to describe Barack Obama's or Hillary Clinton's speeches at the Democratic Convention last week in Denver, he or she would have been lynched professionally. Or at least fired. That was a purely sexist, intolerable use of the word "seduced". The only good thing I can say about Yahoo!'s story is that it was better than anything else the organization has published about Sarah since Friday. Since Saturday I have filed numerous complaints with the outfit about its offensive and irrational coverage—something I have never done previously.

Even the stately and usually sedate Dallas Morning News today chose a headline that said, "Palin plays up part of outsider". Come on, folks! Is this all you can think of to characterize last night's knock-your-socks-off, electrifying address? One gets the impression the headline writer at the paper thinks Sarah's an actress. I thought she was the governor of the largest (geographically speaking) state in the union. 

And then, of course, we see the obsession and compulsion the news media has displayed about the five Palin children, particularly one teen-age daughter and the family's new baby. Like the Kennedys and Carters before them, when Bill and Hillary Clinton first headed toward the White House, they made clear the fact that Chelsea was off-limits to the media. For the most part, members of the Fifth Estate respected the Clintons' request.  The Obamas have for months made that same request. Even though I am a voracious reader of the news, I know very little about the Obama children, because once again members of the media have agreed to their request. But the poor Palin children?  God help them! They are being ridiculed and maligned every day in the press. Why? Because their mother is running for Vice President of the United States? 

This behavior smacks of discrimination against a mother who works outside the home.  If so, where are the so-called liberals on this one? I thought they advocated women with small children having the right to have outside jobs. When my wife, Kay, and I wrote in 1982 our first book, When You Both Go to Work, about churches and their attitudes toward employed women, we expected to find that conservative religious groups discriminated against mothers with outside employment and that liberal religious groups supported them.  Instead in our research we found that churches in affluent areas tend to frown on or discriminate against employed mothers while churches—of whatever theological stripe and denominational persuasion—in blue-collar areas and lower white-collar neighborhoods tend to be much more tolerant and supportive of women who have outside work. It really seems to be a matter of class rather than theology.

So is this horrible treatment of the Palin family a result of discrimination by rich elitists against a blue-collar, working family? One can surely make a case for that.

Or is this because the children's father is a blue-collar, oil-field worker who doesn't have the political know-how to muster his highly paid professional people to call a few select media moguls on the phone and threaten them with invasion-of-privacy suits on behalf of his children? Libel laws protect the news media when its members report on public figures.  And yes, Sarah is now a public figure. According to the laws of the land, members of the media can say almost whatever they want in print about her without facing a libel suit, because she is a public figure. But her children are not covered by those same laws, or at least they should not be. They are citizens and individuals in their own right—citizens who deserve to be treated respectfully.

I thought the family on stage last night at the Republican Convention looked absolutely precious. And very courageous!  Not too long ago families hid their out-of-wedlock-pregnant teen-age daughters to keep the neighbors from knowing.  And their boyfriends who did the dastardly act were banished with a shotgun aimed at their backsides. And small children with Down Syndrome were hidden in back bedrooms. Not so in this family. Here they were—warts and all—on the public stage. They were so much more refreshing and looked so much more natural than all the millionares' children with choreographed waves and sculpted hairstyles at other Republican and Democratic Conventions in the last several decades.

I don't condone teen-age pregnancy, but it happens. And the Bible is clear how we are to treat each other when we sin or make mistakes! Obviously, many of my colleagues in the news media haven't read any of those Scriptures--or even Miss Manners--on such things.

The flip side of this media debacle is that the nation is getting a chance to look in the mirror and see a family that looks an awful lot like families all across America. And in so doing, the media may reap the opposite of what these ill-mannered reporters have desired. And, if Sarah can withstand the scorching heat of prejudice and irrationality, she may accomplish what many of us have wanted for a very long time: a woman in the White House or at least one heartbeat away from it. 

In Roman Catholic baptized and reared Sarah Palin, Southern Baptists will find a strong ally; and she will in them, too

As the presumptive Vice-Presidential nominee of the Republican Party, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, who was baptized a Roman Catholic but now attends Assemblies of God churches, will illustrate how much the nation's largest Protestant denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, has changed over the past 50 years.

Forty-eight years ago when the Democratic Party nominated John Fitzgerald Kennedy for President of the United States, Southern Baptist pastors and leaders recoiled at the nominee because of his Roman Catholic background. Ignoring Kennedy's impressive credentials and bright mind, the Baptists argued forcefully in sermons, church newsletters and every forum they could find that the election of Kennedy would de facto turn the country over to the pope in Rome.

Weeks before the election Kennedy recognized the seriousness of the situation and met with key Baptist pastors and leaders on the second floor of the Rice Hotel in downtown Houston. There he pledged his loyalty and fidelity to the American concept of the separation of church and state. After that the Baptists and their cohorts in other denominations calmed down and stopped fighting against him. (Many actually even voted for him!) 

During that same time period, Southern Baptists pastors and leaders declined to interact with Assemblies of God pastors and churches, because they rejected their neo-Pentecostal theology. SBC churches or pastors in that day that leaned Pentecostal soon found themselves ostracized or even evicted from the SBC fold.

Nearly a half-century later, much has changed in the country and among Southern Baptists.

For one thing, in 1960 when the brouhaha over Kennedy's Catholicism occurred, Southern Baptist pastors and leaders mostly were affiliated with the Democratic Party. Southern Baptists' disaffection for Kennedy threatened a serious schism in that party. 

Today, a significant majority of Southern Baptists and Evangelicals register as Republicans. That means they will be mostly loyal to their party's nominee, John McCain, even when they have some reservations about him.

Beyond party affiliation, however, another factor will trump many things in this election. Back when Southern Baptists fought against Kennedy, they and the Democractic Party were not at odds over one of the major social issues of our day—abortion. Until the early 1980s, Southern Baptists were mostly either benign toward or mildly supportive of abortion. The key escape-hatch phrase for the Southern Baptists back then was "abortion for the mental health of the mother". The Democratic Party then as well as now was comfortable with a pro-abortion stance. It became even more so after the Roe v Wade decision in 1973.

Today, Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, and Assemblies of God are more united in their opposition to abortion than they are divided on many theological points.

Sarah Palin's strong pro-life stand—including her living personal testimony in favor of it—no doubt will grab the attention of a large majority of Southern Baptists as well as other Evangelicals. It will override any concern they might otherwise have about her Roman Catholic roots and her current Assemblies of God affiliation.

Many Evangelicals already have expressed dismay at John McCain's lukewarm opposition to abortion, while they express horror at Barack Obama's wholehearted support of it. Illustrating this attitude, the SBC's Richard Land recently likened McCain to a "third-rate fireman" and Obama to a "first-rate arsonist".  Land left no doubt about his concern about both candidates' positions on abortion, but his comments also left no doubt McCain would get the nod—though a weak one—over Obama.

Some Southern Baptists even have considered boycotting the election altogether because of McCain's tepid approach to the pro-life movement.

Now enters Sarah Palin, the pro-life Roman Catholic-turned Assemblies and relatively unknown governor of Alaska. While Obama-oriented political writers at CNN, Yahoo and other media outlets roast McCain for choosing a relatively inexperienced Vice-Presidential running mate, they completely fail to note how much support Palin instantly will draw for her pro-life stand. Many voters will prefer a candidate with the right (and very strong!) stand on pro-life to a candidate with a tepid approach to pro-life issues but with many years in political life in Washington! 

When Kennedy was running in 1960, many political commentators ignored and even laughed at those Southern Baptists preachers who were up in arms over Kennedy's Catholicism. Kennedy didn't laugh. He took the matter seriously. Had he not done so, he probably wouldn't have occupied the Oval Office, given his tiny margin of victory in the general election.

Today, some news commentators are laughing at Palin's limited credentials (ignoring, of course, how even Hillary Clinton not long ago poked fun at Obama's lack of experience, too). On election day, those same commentators may find that in Sarah Palin's nomination McCain pulled off a John F. Kennedy-like move that won him the election.

Time will tell.