I cried so hard when I saw Michael J. Fox in this interview.

Fox was one of my husband's favorite actors as the slightly built but brave and clever Marty McFly in the Back to the Futures trilogy. As an advocate for stem cell research because of his familiarity with Parkinson's disease, a condition that he has been living with for 15 years, Fox often appears in campaign ads for politicians who support stem cell research. He was campaigning for Claire McCaskill, a Democratic candidate for the US Senate in Missouri, who wasn't the first politician that Fox supported; he also appeared in ads for a Republican in previous campaigns.

In the video, Fox exhibited classic reaction to the drugs he has to take to alleviate symptoms of Parkinson's. However, Rush Limbaugh later blasted Fox for "exaggerating the effects of the disease. He is moving all around and shaking. And it's purely an act. This is the only time I have ever seen Michael J. Fox portray any of the symptoms of the disease he has. ... This is really shameless of Michael J. Fox. Either he didn't take his medication or he's acting, one of the two."

And how did Fox respond to such moronic criticism from someone who knows the side effects of prescription drugs so intimately? With grace. Instead of hitting back with toxic sarcasm like Keith Olbermann would or muttering something religious and inflammatory like Ann Coulter are prone to, he simply said, "It is hard for people and I understand, it's difficult for people who don't have Parkinson's, or don't know about Parkison's, to understand the symptoms and the way they work and the way medication works. You get what you get on any given day." Later he also appeared in an interview with Katie Couric, in which he had a hard time keeping his right leg crossed and rested on his left because of his involuntary motor movements.

Here is someone who is crushed everyday by a cruel reality that is indirectly shaped by public policy. The controversy over stem cell research, to me, is simply a clumsy argument based on emotional religious claims instead of rational scientific facts. The reality of people suffering and dying often gets lost in passionate public discourses, particularly in the current suffocatingly religious environment fostered by the Christian right. Fox is an important living reminder that the decisions of you and me, on public policy, have real, life-changing consequences.

The people of the US, in whom the democratic system entrusts the ultimate power to make a decision, should wake up to the reality that the very foundation of their nation is being constantly ridiculed and threatened. The separation of Church and State is one of the greatest gifts that America has ever given to the modern civilization; please don't lose sight of it now, when religious fanatics are wreaking havoc around the world.