http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=124116President Obama today lobbied for his "gay" and "green" agendas both during the traditional appearance by a president before the National Prayer Breakfast.
Addressing the idea of civility, he said it actually has improved of late: "We haven't seen any canings on the floor of the Senate any time recently."
But the president whose party when it held a majority in the U.S. House and a so-called supermajority of 60 votes in the U.S. Senate pushed for its agenda items without, at times, even consulting the minority GOP, said, "At times, it seems like we're unable to listen to one another; to have at once a serious and civil debate."
He said such "erosion of civility in the public square" produces "division and distrust among our citizens."
He then suggested the nation needs "to find our way back to civility" and said that means "stepping out of our comfort zones…"
"We see that in many conservative pastors who are helping lead the way to fix our broken immigration system. It's not what would be expected from them, and yet they recognize, in those immigrant families, the face of God," he said.
Lobbying for his efforts to forward "green" programs such as new taxes on energy consumption, he said, "We see that in the evangelical leaders who are rallying their congregations to protect our planet."
Obama traveled to a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen before Christmas in pursuit of a worldwide plan to reduce "global warming," even though many of the assertions by alarmists now are being questioned. He also has been accused of focusing on "green" – or ecologically friendly jobs – at the expense of the American economy.
"Stretching out of our dogmas, our prescribed roles along the political spectrum, that can help us regain a sense of civility," Obama said today.
Raising the issue of his longstanding support for homosexual causes, he said, "We may disagree about gay marriage, but surely we can agree that it is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are…"
Obama pushed hard for and signed into a law that gives homosexuals special protections against "hate," a law that, according to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, is a "menace" to civil liberties.
Obama also chose to honor as a "civil rights pioneer" a homosexual who said the God of the Bible is a "sinful, homophobic bigot" who needs to "seek forgiveness for the pain and suffering which his sinful homophobia has needlessly inflicted upon gay people for the past 4,000 years."
Obama also credited the American public with sharing his dreams.
"When we challenge each other's motives, it becomes harder to see what we hold in common. We forget that we share at some deep level the same dreams – even when we don't share the same plans on how to fulfill them," he said.
And he said it takes more than faith alone.
"That's why my Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships has been working so hard since I announced it here last year. We've slashed red tape and built effective partnerships on a range of uses, from promoting fatherhood here at home to spearheading interfaith cooperation abroad," he said.
Each president since Dwight Eisenhower attended the National Prayer Breakfast in 1953 has appeared at the event.