Patrick O’Malley is to the anti-abortion movement what Martin Luther King was to civil rights.
At least that’s how he sees it. King’s name is one of several the Illinois senator has evoked along the campaign trail in explaining his mission in the governor’s race.
O’Malley has also compared his struggle to those of George Washington’s fight for independence from British rule, Abraham Lincoln’s push to abolish slavery, and Susan B. Anthony’s championing of women’s rights.
“This nation was founded on human dignity . . . but we also know that we didn’t always get it right,” O’Malley recently told Virtue PAC, a group of like thinkers, at a gathering in Bradley. “We are always struggling to create a more perfect union.”
He added that: “The great vexing issue in the nation today is whether we will have respect for innocent human life. We need to undo what has been done. We are more respectful of each other when we respect innocent human life.”
Last week, he told a crowd of newly registered voters at Sandburg High School in Orland Park that he was particularly inspired by King. “I’ll never forget his `I Have a Dream’ speech,” he told them. “He challenged a nation on its racism.”
But the students, whose families live in his Senate district, took umbrage at O’Malley’s comparison of his politics to King’s.
Several teenagers were particularly offended by O’Malley’s stance on gay rights, after he said he would oppose any legislation that would “create a protected class for people because of their sexual orientation.” He told them he favored legislation that makes “more traditional family units strong.”
“How can he mention Martin Luther King, who believed that all people were created equal, and then turn around and say that he’s against gay rights?” said Alex Corrigan, 18, a student at the school.
And while O’Malley has told many gathered along the campaign trail that abortion is the biggest challenge of today’s generation, the young voters at Sandburg seemed more concerned with the state’s budget crisis, O’Hare International Airport expansion vs. building an airport at Peotone, and education funding. The great vexing issue for them, several said, was the use of the death penalty.
When O’Malley told the school assembly that he favored capital punishment, he drew silence.
While O’Malley sees himself as a martyr for the anti-abortion movement, he acknowledges that it was his opponent in the GOP primary, Corinne Wood, who is pro-abortion rights, that first made abortion an issue in the governor’s race.
“God moves in mysterious ways,” he said. “He’s taken someone who holds the opposite view that I hold to be the voice on this issue.” But he said he’s hopeful, in that “the press is not as abrasive anymore to those of us who think innocent human life should be protected.”
As for the polls, which show him trailing front-runner Jim Ryan by more than 30 points, O’Malley said Washington, Lincoln, Anthony, and King “were not necessarily popular people in their lifetimes. Much like those who signed the Declaration of Independence, they lost a lot for standing up on their principles . . . We are willing to sacrifice everything to stand up for human life.”
