Liberal is not a four letter word

The past couple of days I've been bored (and trying to avoid raeading) and have gone back to watch a few of my favorite West Wing episodes (I know Loni, I should be watching Firefly). In last year's season finale, Congressman Matt Santos (Jimmy Smits) gives an impassioned speech at the party convention about what it means to be a liberal. Speeches like this make me love the show.

Liberals/progressives (I like to use them interchangeably, since at one point in history they were called progressives) have been at the forefront of every major social and/or legal change in this country, especially after the Civil War. It was a liberal Congress that forced the South to ratify the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments, which respectively abolished slavery, gave everyone the equal protection of the law and citizenship, and prohibited the vote from being denied on the basis of color, the 14th Amendment being the most important and fundamental to our freedom of all of these. A few decades later, liberals (now under the moniker of Progressives) stabilized our goverment's income through the income tax (16th Amendment), gave people the direct vote of Senators (17th Amendment) and gave women the right to vote (19th Amendment). In the 1960s (perhaps the greatest decade in American history), liberals finally secured the rights promised to minorites in the 14th and 15th Amendments by passing the 24th Amendment, abolishment of poll taxes, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which promised everyone equal access to society through a number of provisions. Some of these provisions were embodied in the Civil Rights Act of 1870, but it was struck down under the pressure of the newly restored Southern Congressmen.

I know a lot of this sounds like a civics lecture, but to me knowledge of our nation's laws as embodied in the Constitution and Bill of Rights and the history behind them is paramount to citizenship. As a proudly-admitted liberal, I see the Constitution as the contract which preserves our freedoms and guarantees oppurtunity for all, and anything which seeks to strike it down needs to be met with equal if not greater force. Therefore, as proud liberals, we should resist the moral fundamentalism which is slowly taking over our country, which seeks to, among other things, take away a woman's right to choose and tell a gay couple that they cannot enjoy the same civil rights as other married couples. Others may disagree, and I welcome the discussions of those whose disagreements are based on a different interpretation of the law of the land. It's those who disagree out of blind devotion to their faiths, not law, that aggrevate me beyond control. I am proud to be a liberal, and those who seek to throw the label at my feet will see me pick it up and wear as a badge of honor.