Stronger Than All the Armies

This summer of discontent, the hottest in recorded history, has tempers flaring over the oil spill, rising unemployment and deficits.  It's enough to make us want to drink those new 120 proof Nijboer's,  the strongest beer in the world. But maybe this would be a more  appropriate time to pop open a couple cold ones to celebrate what still makes this such a great country. While the French uphold a ban on girls wearing headscarves and the Swiss prohibit minarets,  our country is extending not denying civil liberties. And Americans  of apparently divergent ideologies and religions are finding ways to work together for what is fair.
On the west coast, the Chief Judge of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California struck down Proposition 8, which denied gay men and lesbians the right to marry, depriving them of equal protection under the law.  The lawyers battling for the homosexual couples,  David Boies and Ted Olson, had met on opposite sides of a  famous Supreme Court case, Bush v. Gore, in 2000. Yet in 2010, they worked together to challenge the constitutionality of Proposition 8.

On the east coast, Mayor Michael Bloomberg supported granting permission to Muslims to build the Cordoba Center in lower Manhattan within blocks of Ground Zero.  His words on the mosque: 

 "I believe that this is an important test of the separation of church and state as we may see in our lifetime - as important a test - and it is critically important that we get it right."

Bloomberg, a follower of Reform Judaism, stood up to the Anti-Defamation League in his support for constructing the mosque. 

The events in Los Angeles and New York remind me an earlier civil rights battle in 1964.  Were it not for the few brave politicians who were able to overcome the pull of the past, we might still be a nation divided over race issues. House Minority Leader Everett Dirksen, a Republican,  recorded his thoughts on the cloture vote ending the filibuster of the Civil Rights Act: 

"Victor Hugo wrote in his diary substantially this sentiment, 'Stronger than all the armies is an idea whose time has come.' The time has come for equality of opportunity in sharing of government, in education, and in employment. It must not be stayed or denied."

So let's cool off together with some strong ones, America.