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McCain & Obama: Where they stand on key social issues |
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ST. PAUL, Minn. (BP)--Barack Obama clinched the Democratic nomination June 3, and in doing so set up a general election contest with Republican John McCain that will offer social conservative voters two very different choices on a host of cultural issues.
A senator from Illinois, Obama is the first African-American to lead a major political party, and if elected would serve during the 150th anniversary of both the Emancipation Proclamation and the beginning of the Civil War, the war that freed the slaves.
"I think we should pause to give our country a round of applause for having nominated the first African-American candidate for president," Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Commission, told Baptist Press. "Whether or not we can support this particular African-American candidate, I think it says something pretty great about our country, that we have nominated someone who at least on his father's side is represented by about 13 percent of the population and a percentage of the population that has been sadly and tragically the object of a great deal of prejudice and hostility and violence."
Martin Luther King Jr., Land said, "is smiling today."
"Among other things, this is what his dream looked like. I'm very pleased that we have done this, even if I am not particularly happy with this particular candidate," he added. "I think it says something really good and strong and fine about our country."
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