Can We Just Coexist?
The tolerance for difference is a lost art in our society, especially in the church.
Between my junior and senior years of college, I interned with my congressman on Capitol Hill. It was a memorable summer for me. Being a political junkie, I was starstruck at seeing all these politicians I had seen on television. It was also a time when I met other college-age kids from all over the country. It was truly a great time. I can remember so many images from that summer of 1990. One memory involved an elderly man who drove a scooter like a madman to catch the underground subway connecting the House office buildings with the Capitol. That man was Silvio Conte, a Republican from Massachusetts.
Conte would be an unusual man in today’s world. He was a liberal Republican at a time when that was still a thing. He voted in favor of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and for Medicare. One of his last votes before his death in 1991 was against going to war against Iraq.
Liberal Republicans were on the wane 30 years ago, but they were still around even as the party had become more conservative in the Reagan years.
Oh and the congressman that I interned for? Dale Kildee who represented my hometown of Flint, Michigan was a Pro-Life Democrat.
