Articles

Response to 2005 Inaugural Address

By Rabbi Jack Moline
The Interfaith Alliance
Feb. 16, 2005

The word is that President Bush reviewed twenty drafts of his Inaugural Address before finding the words that satisfied him. That kind of attention to detail deserves detailed attention in return.

The value of liberty, emphasized again and again in the speech, is undisputed by those of us blessed with it. I applaud the President's choice of this general theme for his message and as the operating principle of his next four years.

But preserving freedom means making difficult choices for the sake of freedom, even when they go against one's own particular interests and inclinations. To affirm an "ownership society" in which "every citizen is an agent of his or her own destiny" requires that every citizen have something to own.

Far too many Americans are enslaved by the inequities of wealth in this country – an inequity that the President's policies have preserved.

Nothing is more basic to a citizen than his or her own physical existence. Yet to affirm that "even the unwanted have worth" – a clear message opposing abortion – compromises a woman's ownership of her own body.

And when it comes to the freedom to choose a partner in love and life, for the President to proclaim that we must preserve an "ideal of ... conduct the same yesterday, today and forever" is to set himself as master of another's freedom.

As the President himself declared, "no one is fit to be a master and no one deserves to be a slave."

Of course, the dominant theme of the President's address was America's mandate to spread the flame of freedom around the world. Would that the self-control he lauded in his words were evident in the Administration's policies! Instead, the "untamed fire of freedom" has been applied to tinderboxes. The President seems to confuse light with heat.

I wish the President well in the coming four years. He can count on my most patriotic devotion to the ideals that make this country great, and my unflagging vigilance that is the eternal cost of liberty.

But I would also be remiss if I did not note with great disappointment that the President's choice to offer God's blessing at the end of his inauguration ceremony disenfranchised millions of non-Christian Americans with his choice of signature language. All the promises of equality and equal consideration are empty if a person's faith is relegated to second class because it is called by a different sacred name.

The Interfaith Alliance (TIA) is a nonpartisan, grassroots organization dedicated to promoting the positive and healing role of religion in the life of the nation and challenging those who manipulate religion to promote a narrow, divisive agenda. With more than 150,000 members drawn from more than 75 faith traditions, and 47 local alliances, TIA promotes compassion, civility and mutual respect for human dignity in our increasingly diverse society. www.interfaithalliance.org.