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Date:         Thu, 21 Jan 1993 01:04:29 -0500
From:         Username was LODEESEN <LODEESENJ@ADMINB.RFERL.ORG>
Subject:      Re: President Clinton

Matt McGuire is concerned about the categories of people we have not as yet
elected to the Presidency.  I take pride in the removal or reduction of
barriers
and am always willing to work to bring more of them down whenever possible.
But
since I have never voted FOR  President because that person was of my religion
or race or gender I see no particular point in trying to find a way to give
out quotas in the Presidency according to any criteria other than who is likely
to do the best job from among those who have gone through that process.  I have
voted recently voted for a person to be Senator who happened to be Black.  His
opponent was a woman.  But I don't think anyone could argue that I voted
against
her for being a woman
I am, I trust, protected from that charge that the person for whom I voted
for Representative is a woman.  To me all this means is that I backed a
brilliant but politically inexperienced candidate for the Senate who lost as
I knew he would, since he was opposed by a very able politician who had built
a strong regional constituency outside my area of the state; for the house,
"my man" won.  I hadn't thought about it until now, but the State Senator whom
I back is Jewish, and the one person for whom I regularly cross the party lines
and sent to the State capitol as a Representative is both Jewish and a woman,
none of which has any bearing on what she does there.  I did once back, at
the instigation of a neighbor and after I read his platform, a Chinese who
may have been a Christian or a Buddhist.  I just don't know.  We also had
a young fellow, a Muslim, make a run for nomination here, but he was too
young and too inexperienced this time around.  At least he didn't come in last.

        There was a hideous problem here.  There is still an unacceptable
problem.  The bigots who occupied the heights are long since gone.  The ones
who still try to persuade are old, few, and on the outside looking in.  They
should be kept on the outside until the Good Lord in his ultimate wisdom
takes them away.  May they win that particular race.  But the measure of our
improvement is in the way we choose our candidates and elect our officials,
not in the percentages.  Am I to tell an Azeri or Cambodian that he has no
chance to represent his neighbors because it is now the turn of some other
group?  Groups don't get turns, people do.  Discrimination must never be
against groups, for or against groups.  Right the justice by removing the
barriers, compensate in every way possible for injustices done, but let me
choose my candidate without regard to race, creed, color, gender, national
origin, and according to all of his attitudes on all questions of importance
to me.

  Religion, although the progress of opening the doors is going on (you should
have noted that there was a Muslim at the church this morning), I too see it
as a de-facto Christian nation and I don't know that I understand the
desiderata of separation of state and church the same way you do.  Perhaps
the subject can now be addressed with more light and less fire than in the past.
I have not felt persecuted when I was in a religious minority and the majority
loudly proclaimed its faith.  But I'm willing to hear, and do, from others that
there reaction to such things as school prayers differs from mine.
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