Word: breakfasts
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...breakfast can be an irreplaceable occasion—just ask the 3,500 notables who attended the National Prayer Breakfast last week. The event, which was attended by Congressmen, diplomats, religious, business and military leaders, and President Barack Obama, is held annually at the Washington Hilton in order to help these leaders make cross-field connections that they otherwise might not. Yet the event is not without controversy; The Fellowship Foundation, a “secretive evangelical Christian network,” also known as The Family, sponsors the event. Though high-level politicians on both sides of the aisle...
...boycotting an event sponsored by the National Prayer Breakfast would not have been the best way for Obama to declare his views in opposition to the ones linked to The Family. Obama made a wise decision in attending the breakfast and using it as an occasion to to declare, “It is unconscionable to target gays and lesbians for who they are—whether it's here in the United States or…more extremely in odious laws that are being proposed most recently in Uganda.” Going to the breakfast was the best...
Some protestors called for the complete dissolution of the National Prayer Breakfast, claiming that the separation of church and state means Obama should not listen to religious leaders. Yet religious voices need to be heard by the president as much as the voices of any other group of people. Other constituency groups such as businesses, gender-based groups, and race-based groups receive opportunities to consult with political leaders in a personal setting, and it would be unfair for those who choose religion as their primary affiliation to not have the same opportunity...
However, the National Prayer Breakfast does create an uncomfortable pressure for attendees to support religious groups and religion in general. Inherent in the word “prayer” is the assumption that one’s spiritual choices involve supplicating a higher being. This is discomfiting to atheists and others whose religious beliefs do not involve praying to a God. This nominal objection is important because, in a country with a commitment to the separation of church and state, for any group to be disadvantaged or not included in the breakfast by virtue of their lack of faith...
...They're part of our youth culture. The themes are timeless. I mean, yes, teens today are doing things that '80s teens didn't - they're on Facebook or texting or whatever - but they're worrying about the same issues of coolness and conformity. The theme song of The Breakfast Club is "Don't You (Forget About Me)," and here we are, 25 years later, and it's clear that no one has forgotten and no one ever will...