Senator Mark Hatfield passed away on Sunday. While I never voted for Senator Hatfield, I was proud to have him representing my State in Congress. I was really struck by these words in his obituary when I read it this morning:
Hatfield once said that his major accomplishments included ushering through Congress a ban on U.S. nuclear-weapons testing in 1987.
"Every president other than Eisenhower has been seduced by the military concept that that is our sole measurement of our national security and the more bombs we build, the more secure we are," Hatfield said a decade later.
"That's just not true. We are vulnerable in our national security today, and we are vulnerable in many ways we are not addressing — the needs of education, the needs of housing, the needs of nutrition, the needs of health, the needs of infrastructure," he said.
The devastation witnessed by Hatfield as a young naval officer at Hiroshima in 1945 helped shape his politics. When the war was officially over, Hatfield and his shipmates were instructed to take a boat and chronicle what was left of Hiroshima.
"There was a deathly silence," Hatfield said in 1999. "There was nothing happening in a big area that once had been a city. Now it was totally quiet except for the sound of our voices."
A devout Baptist, Hatfield frequently spoke out for the sick, homeless and others in need of an advocate.
He also criticized the death penalty and opposed abortion, though he never actively sought to place legal limits on abortion. He said his views on both issues were based on his belief in the sanctity of life.
In today’s political climate, he seems like such an anomaly. A Republican, a moderate and someone whose consistent ethic of life extended from abortion to death penalty to war.
Rest in Peace Senator Hatfield. Please pray for us.
No comments:
Post a Comment