MAHMOUD, LET'S DO LUNCH.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, President of Iran, does not strike me as the kind of guy I’d enjoy sharing a cart with in a round of golf. In fact, to be perfectly honest, the guy gives me the creeps. If even half the stuff that is reported about him is true, extreme caution is in order when dealing with him.

Still, I think it is a very good thing that he was invited to speak by Columbia University. What happened yesterday at their controversial speakers’ forum is the kind of thing that just might keep us from resorting to bombs and guns in our international dealings. As long as we can keep engaged in dialogue there is hope that maybe the day will come that Iran and the world community will agree that whatever our differences, as profound and complicated as they are, they aren’t worth going to war over. Because, once we go to war, everybody loses. Ongoing conversation, on the other hand, furthers the chances that each party will discover elements of common humanity upon which they can lay foundations for more peaceful resolutions.

Isolating and stigmatizing usually ends up stiffening resolve and defiance. Despots and tyrants when backed into a corner tend to resort to desperation to preserve their power. That’s when the neighborhood gets really dangerous.

I’m a firm believer in the concept that in the free exchange of ideas truth will ultimately prevail. Freedom of speech is a cornerstone of liberty. It is one of those values brave individuals have fought to preserve on the battlefield. What sense does it make to defend it and then deny it to a person we hope to win over to our way of thinking? So let’s keep talking. Sure, we will have to work hard to get past the revulsion we feel toward a guy that denies the Holocaust and has called for the destruction of Israel, but while we are listening there is a much greater likelihood that we will also be listened to.

Jesus said, if your enemy is hungry, feed him. It’s pretty hard to share a meal with anyone without having some conversation. Therein is the key to overcoming evil with good. It is the opposite of scorning, intimidating and threatening.

So, Mahmoud, let’s do lunch.

Hypocrits and Cheaters

A judge in Polk County, Iowa recently ruled the Iowa law banning same sex marriages was unconstitutional. This started a race to the courthouse between same sex couples hoping to get “legally” married and those hoping to see this appalling example of judicial activism overturned. The gay couples ran to the courthouse to get marriage licenses. Those opposed rushed to get a stay allowing them time to get the judge’s ruling overturned on appeal. One gay couple from Ames, Iowa won the race and had a wedding ceremony in a local pastor’s front yard only minutes before a stay was issued. Technically, they are now legally married in the State of Iowa, although there remains some doubt as to whether they will remain so.

Being a happily married heterosexual who plans to continue as such no matter what the courts say, there is a part of me that thinks this has nothing to do with me. That it happened in my home town and was front and center in all the local news coverage makes it more difficult to ignore than if it had happened in Mars or Massachusetts, however.

Clearly there are clashing worldviews and each is hoping to prevail in the courts. The state legislature will probably get involved before it is over and our judiciary will be embroiled in this matter for years to come. In the meantime what are the rest of us to do?

Some, including local talk radio personalities, have gone into hysteria and hostility as they presume to speak for God and the Founding Fathers. Their angst-ridden decrying of societal norms shifting away from their values is causing very polarizing and excluding fallout with which many of us would prefer not to be associated. The activists on the other side are equally smug and offensive as they go about trying to stamp out dissent and run rough shod over the constitution by bypassing the will of “we the people” established by the legislative process.

Since divorce rates among religious defenders of traditional marriage are essentially the same as in the society at large, I don’t think they can speak with much authority in the defense of marriage. Marriage isn’t doing all that well among them; neither is traditional morality it would appear by the evidence of scandal after scandal that hit the headlines. Little wonder that the terms religious and hypocrites are almost synonymous to many.

But, the proponents of gay marriage who are intentionally manipulating the system for their selfish agenda are bad role models, too. Cheaters do not prosper in the end. They lose. Cheating eventually backfires. This end game around established law and societal norms is very unsavory to many and invites a negative reaction.

Americans have a way of eventually getting around to reacting to abuses of power and unfairness. Stand by as “we the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union” work our way out of this dilemma. Hopefully, we won’t lose our decency and civility more than we already have in the process. I hope neither hypocrites nor cheaters get the last word.