Seeking out injustice and setting it right is what lawmaking should be about. Those elected to office should think much in terms of creating laws that bring justice where justice is not currently had.
Like, our oath of citizenship, and how we require our immigrants to renounce allegiance and faithfulness to their past countries.
Tonight, after a beautiful music performance by a family, I was in a conversation with the mother of the family when politics and the U.S. presidential race came up. The mother said she could not vote because she isn't a U.S. citizen. After, I don't know, maybe 18 years here, and being in the process of raising a wonderful family here, she remains a Canadian citizen.
I asked her why she hasn't applied for U.S. citizenship. She told me she didn't feel right about renouncing her Canadian citizenship. She felt that would be kind of like being a traitor.
I think it sad that the naturalization process in our country requires people to renounce their homelands. I think of the many wonderful countries around the world, and of how people should feel proud to be from those places, and should, indeed, recoil in horror at the thought of renouncing faithfulness to them. I consider on how there must be reasonable percentage of immigrants who retain warm feelings toward their homelands, and I am a little surprised that we don't hear of more who, due to their principles, decline to become Americans because they feel it wrong to renounce their homelands.
And, I think it a wrong that we should require this of them.
You can pledge to be true to America, to stand by it, and to fight for it, if necessary, without being required to renounce your fidelity and love of your homeland. If justice is justice, we should drop this requirement.
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