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FEEL-GOOD POLITICS

Obama Reaches Out to 10-Year-Old 'Pen Pal' With Two Dads

She thanks the President for backing same-sex marriage, he offers advice for dealing with schoolyard taunts

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by Dain Fitzgerald

Staff Writer t

Image: CNN

"You've got a friend in me."

It's a Randy Newman song, yes, but it's also the sentiment being expressed by President Obama in a letter he wrote to a little girl with same-sex parents. CNN reports that the POTUS has a "pen pal" in 10-year-old Sophia Bailey-Klugh of San Diego, who initially wrote the President to invite him to dinner at her house. When he failed to respond, she wrote him again:

Dear Barack Obama. It's Sophia Bailey Klugh your friend who invited you to dinner. You don't remember okay that's fine. But I just wanted to tell you that I am so glad you agree that two men can love each other because I have two dads and they love each other.

The President then responded - about a week before the election, incidentally - with these appreciative words:

Thank you for writing me such a thoughtful letter about your family. Reading it made me proud to be your president and even more hopeful about the future of our nation. In America, no two families look the same. We celebrate this diversity.

To Sophia's story of schoolmates that referred to her dads' marriage as "gross and weird," Obama advised her to remind them of the golden rule: "Treat others the way you hope they will treat you."

"Thanks again for taking the time to write me," he concluded. "I'm sorry I couldn't make it to dinner, but I'll be sure to tell Sasha and Malia you say hello."
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Is it important for the president to respond to letters like this?

Comments (view in Forum)

  • Real4WheelDrv
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    No, useless publicity stunt no matter which party is in office. Oddly enough, I've sent several letters of far more importance to each administration back to the Clinton years, when I was but a young lad, and never even earned a courtesy form letter. Guess I'm just not cute or marketable enough.
  • Real4WheelDrv
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    Nah, they were genuine letters, mostly focusing on inadequacies with the ADA etc. I might dislike both major parties, but I'm not dumb enough to call THAT kind of attention to myself. :)
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    cpeter133
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    The amertican people are probably fine with this. Obama doesn't have to care what you think of his correspondence to a citizen.
  • kirbstomp1
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    @cpeter133 - I believe the first thing I said was 'its nice'. My point was the president has more important things to get done. Im fine with it myself. and Obama doesn't have to care but if a majority feels the same way then he should care. That's his job as potus is to be my employee.
  • PNWest
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    This is a good thing. It didn't take much Presidential time and makes for a feel good story. Certainly it is better than sitting in a kindergarten class reading My Pet Goat for 7 minutes while the country is being attacked.
  • ded
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    Oh that's a bit low! I've never got this My Pet Goat thing. If Bush had spent all his time reading My Pet Goat things would be great and 100,000 people would still be alive.
  • Real4WheelDrv
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    I pointed out the last time you posted that, it was originally posted 11 days BEFORE the election and made no difference whatsoever. Just because Reagan Coalition posted it on Nov. 14th doesn't mean it's current.
  • jamie91
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    I don't recall him ever saying he was going to take it out of state hands. And was it not the republicans squawking about it being a state issue? Obama agrees, it is something he feels the individual states are dealing with.
  • Real4WheelDrv
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    In all fairness Bobo, form letters are par for the course in something like that. At least in my opinion. I don't know if GWB sent personal letters to family or not. I also can't decide if no letter at all would be better, though it might make the family feel ignored rather than disrespected.
  • GetAwake
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    @Real4WheelDrv R4WD is right. Barry has form letters for "Charles in Charge", "Who's the Boss?" and "Three's Company", too.
  • GetAwake
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    If you keep reading the letter pictured, she continues with: "I have two dads that love each other, but kids at school think it's grass." REALLY? That's what they're teaching kids? That weed does that? That's some BS. If they want to teach children that it's a learned-behavior and unnatural, I have no problem with that...but let's leave MJ out of it.
  • GetAwake
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    And THEN she says, "...if you were me and had two dads..." IF?!? Are they not teaching the kids about Frank Marshall Davis yet?!?
  • GetAwake
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    @MRMacrum Not at all. Barry wrote, "you've got a friend in me", but that would be more appropriate for one of the two dads to say, wouldn't it?
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  • jessejaymes
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    This is only "politics" if you choose to make it politics. I don't like gays and that will never change. Further that is my right as a citizen. There are a lot of things I don't like in America and we all have to deal with things we don't like. It's not, nor will it ever be a perfect world to our thinking.

    Having said that I think it's great that the President chose to answer the little girl. Despite my feelings concerning gays I would never take it out on a kid like her classmates do. I wonder why the adopted parents of this child would adopt a child knowing full well what they are going to be subjected to. Putting their own desires ahead of the kid no doubt. And in that respect that makes them very little different from the majority of heterosexual parents I see today.
  • Real4WheelDrv
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    You wouldn't take it out on her NOW, as a kid, you still might. Heck a lot of kids that age think that the OPPOSITE sex is gross.
  • jessejaymes
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    @Real4WheelDrv I personally think it's gross but you don't always go around spewing everything you think and particularly among children who will repeat what you say. Sometime there is a greater need and the greater need here is to teach your own kids not to bully others over what they can't control. I see the kids bullying this child as the direct result of adults influencing them to do so.
  • jessejaymes
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    @Real4WheelDrv You're correct but I would point out that "stopping them" after they have heard the adults in their lives doing the same as they're being told not to do is much tougher than to just teach them from the git go that bullying is wrong. Ya know, I was a high school football star many many years ago. I look back on how the "stars" treated everyone else not in their pecking order and I am ashamed. We didn't know any better all those years ago because nobody told us it was wrong. It was just accepted as one the perks of being "popular". It was wrong then and it is wrong now. there is no legislation that will make me accept homosexuality. Again, that is my right under the constitution. But that doesn't give me the right to bully children who have no say so in who their parents are.
  • Real4WheelDrv
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    @jessejaymes I was on the other side of that spectrum, wheelchair, kinda chubby, if the "popular" kids talked to me it was usually so they could laugh at something I said...not that I had a speech impediment or something I was just...odd to them. No question I would have loved to be a star in high school, but I still have good friends (and a fly ride hehe) so things even out after a while.
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  • Keyjo
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    It's nice. This young lady will always treasure her response from the President of the United States.
    Foutunately, by the time she is able to vote, same gender marriage will be accepted and common place throughout the country.
    It may not be the most urgent issue, but it is important and relevant to millions of couplesand families.
  • bsking
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    if your son or daughter dies in combat you get a formal letter from Barack Obama.
    maybe this little girl situation reminds him of when he grew up in indonisia with his transvestite housekeeper
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    mtkopf
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    @bsking I just found an article from USA today on the former nanny and you are correct. Unlike other people here(and unlike my wife) I do admit when I'm wrong.
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    Sharpshooter
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    Nice that he takes the time to write a child about gay rights and leaks it to the press to garner favor with that group but doesn't have the time to send a real letter to the families of troops who gave their lives to serve the country. There are far more gays and “keens” (people who aren't quite gay but support gay rights) than there are Gold Star Families so Axelshafts boy spends time writing to little girls. Perhaps if he would spend more time paying attention to DOING the job rather than campaigning for it, Tyrone Woods, Glen Doherty, Sean Smith and Ambassador Stevens would be alive. I wonder what letter he wrote those families.... To Whom it May Concern, I'm sorry your loved one died but it's not my fault. I inherited a big mess from George W. Bush and it's going to take a while to straighten it out. Please vote for me in the upcoming election because I'm really good at being president.
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    Hireman
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    Yes. If he is a president of the people, then he should be responding to them. Do I think this was pandering, yes. However, it doesn't matter. He has given support to a child, and hopefully made a meaningful difference. Good for him regardless of motive.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    Of course it's important. All presidents should make an effort to be asscessible to their vast constituency, and dealing so tenderly with a child's concerns shows good character on the part of Obama.
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    culinary
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    Come on, people, REALLY??? The president is known for his personal correspondence with people who write him letters. Is it bad that he responded to this little girl? I think it's fantastic! And to those of you who are saying that she is being bullied because of her parents choice, that is like saying black people should have never had children not so long ago. The child was PROBABLY adopted, and what is wrong with that? She could have spent her life in a foster home with constantly revolving "families" only looking for a ccheck. Instead, she has two loving parents....IT DOESN'T MATTER THEIR SEXUAL ORIENTATION!!! This kind of thinking just burns my ass!
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