Nuns posing as nuns - how clever! Imagine the outbreak of conference room smiles this idea must have generated when presented at NETWORK headquarters in Washington some months ago. Who wouldn't trust a message delivered by a nun?
NETWORK is the high-powered Washington, D.C., lobby that brought "Nuns on the Bus" to Marietta. Three quick glances at the website reveal:
(1) organized in 1971 to lobby for federal policies and legislation that promote economic and social justice.
(2) during the 2010 health care reform struggle, NETWORK Executive Director Simone Campbell, SSS (leader of Nuns on the Bus), wrote the "nuns' letter" supporting the bill (now known as Obamacare) and got 59 signers on the letter. She was thanked by President Obama.
(3) listed as prominent with NETWORK are: Ted Kennedy, Adlai Stevenson, Barbara Mikulski, Walter Mondale, Joseph Biden, and Bill Clinton (a who's who listing from the Democrat Party).
The nuns who rode the bus to Marietta that day were, no doubt, nice ladies. Yes, they had every right to speak their piece in front of the union hall on Front St. But make no mistake - despite stepping onto our local stage as nuns, their primary purpose for visiting our city three weeks before the election was to politically lobby against the Republican vice presidential candidate and the leadership he has offered to solve our nation's debt crisis.
So it was quite appropriate for political and religious opposition to greet the bus when it arrived. A large group of concerned citizens turned out - unpaid and unsponsored - to repudiate the well-funded, professionally publicized, national political juggernaut that was "Nuns on the Bus". This group of Marietta protesters was diverse, including Christian, non-Christian, pro-life, and pro-choice. But they were spurred to action by their heartfelt shared opposition to a federal administration whose first instincts (a) allow it to trample the most sacred beliefs of one religious denomination and (b) push it to promise voters an ever-growing stream of goodies on the premise that massive national debt is OK - but if not, "someone else" will pay.
Tom Fenton
Marietta
