President takes on birthers & Uganda anti-gay law @ Nat'l Prayer Breakfast

The Huffington Post has the entire text of the President's remarks this morning at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington.

Here's a quote:

"We may disagree about the best way to reform our health care system, but surely we can agree that no one ought to go broke when they get sick in the richest nation on earth," Obama said. "We can take different approaches to ending inequality, but surely we can agree on the need to lift our children out of ignorance, to lift our neighbors out of poverty. We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are, whether it is here in the United States or, as Hillary mentioned, more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda."

Here's another one:

Speaking Thursday morning at the National Prayer Breakfast, a conciliatory President Barack Obama urged attendees to bypass grievances in their efforts to push forward morally and socially responsible policy.

But at the same time, he made it clear that there are some positions that lie outside that realm of civil discourse, such as birther conspiracies and the targeting of gays and lesbians.

"Civility also requires relearning how to disagree without being disagreeable," Obama declared before a standing-room-only crowd. "[C]ivility is not a sign of weakness. Now I am the first to confess I am not always right. Michelle will testify to that. But surely, you can question my policies without questioning my faith. Or for that matter, my citizenship."

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Imagine if we could find a way to apply those same standards to our discourse in the church -- or in the communion.

Oh well -- a girl can dream.
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