Martin O'Malley's Social Justice Religious Background

[Koinos]

"For 2016, Take Martin O’Malley Seriously," by Jonathan Miller

This interesting article from 2014 provides excellent background about O'Malley's liberal Catholic religious background and the role it plays in solving problems in the public sphere. Here are some excerpts:

The Maryland governor is a problem-solver and a social-justice Catholic who can transcend the left-right divide. Keep an eye on him.

In his potential White House run, however, O’Malley won’t be pursuing the DLC’s lurch-to-the-center path. Nor will he be following the liberal orthodoxy. Indeed, it’s the Maryland Governor’s uniquely post-Clinton, post-Obama positioning that makes him this handicapper’s pick to emerge as the dark horse with the most potent stretch kick in the 2016 presidential derby.

The most compelling reason? As O’Malley demonstrated in the immigration debate, he’s the rare progressive to frame his strongly felt policy positions in the language of faith. It’s the passionate application of universal moral values by this devout Catholic that has the potential to upend the usual partisan and ideological categories that are choking today’s body politic.
....

But the most interesting thing about O’Malley is his exploration of an intriguing, heart-centered strategy that could potentially shake up our national political paradigm: using the language of faith and universal moral values to ground public policy.

The entire article can be found here:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/08/03/for-2016-take-martin-o-malley-seriously.html

[yallerdawg]

1. Liberal social-justice Catholicism...

informed the foundation of the service and philosophy of the Kennedy family.

Not a bad place to start.

[Koinos]

2. Agree. Does remind me of the Kennedy family in a number of ways.

[JustAnotherGen]

3. From the article

I sat down with O’Malley on July 11, a few hours after he stole the platform at the National Governors’ Association annual conference in Nashville and broke with the President by forcefully and emotionally calling for a more compassionate policy on the treatment of Central American children who’ve recently come to the United States illegally: “It is contrary to everything we stand for to try to summarily send children back to death.”

This Unitarian Universalist Agrees with him.

ETA - I posted this on July 18th last year:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1066476

[Koinos]

4. Compassion

Republicans after Reagan have tried to make compassion into a dirty word.

Compassion is an essential part of humanity. Without it, we are not human.

Inclusiveness is another word that O'Malley uses a lot and is a hallmark of Unitarian Universalists.

Good people everywhere tend to agree when it comes to basic human values.