Friday, October 10, 2008
At a September 18 roundtable discussion with religion reporters, five Senate Democrats talked about the role of religion in politics and Democratic outreach to religious leaders and communities of faith. Senator Robert Casey (D-PA) spoke of the need for politicians to respect the importance of faith in the lives of American voters and said "the Catholic vote" is not a monolith but is "every bit as diverse as every other group." Listen to excerpts from his comments.
Please pass these informative sheets (in English and in Spanish) on to any USA voters you know. They are short summaries, suitable for distribution or posting, contrasting Obama's abortion position and proposals with those of McCain: http://www.nrlchapters.org/comparison
Thank you for your help in getting this information out to the North American public. As you may know, the media in the USA have so far not generally revealed the actions (with regard to abortion and like matters) that each presidential candidate is (or is not) committed or likely to be taking if he wins.
Richard
P.S. For a more in depth review, mainly of Obama’s likely impact, the best i know is still http://article.nationalreview.com/print/?q=OGM5YzIzYTExNjIyZmExODY0MzQyZDUxNmRmNmU1NmM=
Eduardo's post at dotCommonweal is worth reposting here:
My colleague, the superb and very dishy Kathleen Parker, recently wrote in National Review Online a column stating what John Cleese as Basil Fawlty would call “the bleeding obvious”: namely, that Sarah Palin is an embarrassment, and a dangerous one at that. She’s not exactly alone. New York Times columnist David Brooks, who began his career at NR, just called Governor Palin “a cancer on the Republican Party.”
As for Kathleen, she has to date received 12,000 (quite literally) foam-at-the-mouth hate-emails. One correspondent, if that’s quite the right word, suggested that Kathleen’s mother should have aborted her and tossed the fetus into a Dumpster. There’s Socratic dialogue for you. Dear Pup once said to me sighfully after a right-winger who fancied himself a WFB protégé had said something transcendently and provocatively cretinous, “You know, I’ve spent my entire life time separating the Right from the kooks.” Well, the dear man did his best. At any rate, I don’t have the kidney at the moment for 12,000 emails saying how good it is he’s no longer alive to see his Judas of a son endorse for the presidency a covert Muslim who pals around with the Weather Underground. So, you’re reading it here first.
I could -- but am not going to (UPDATE: Ok, I will. Warning: Some very graphic stuff. Not family friendly) -- post a bunch of links and clips to web sites (Kos, HuffPost, Andrew Sullivan, etc.), TV shows (Rachel M., Keith O.), news stories, etc., to the effect that partisans on the left are, like partisans on the right, engaging in "misplaced populism, uncritical sloganeering, hostility toward questions directed at factual predicates, and ugly hostility toward those who come to different judgments about policy vehicles". I say "not going to" not to be obnoxious or stubborn, but because, again, I'm pretty sure that this is not the kind of dispute -- i.e., the dispute about whether the "left" or the "right" is more nasty, close-minded, whatever -- that can be resolved in a way that reflects anything other than the putative resolver's point of view. This is not to say that there is no "truth of the matter", but only that Eduardo and I -- notwithstanding our respect and affection for each other -- are not likely to agree about it. (Come to think about it, a lot of debates about who's oppressing whom in Catholic contexts are like this, too. Some perceive overwhelming "conservative" pressures and dominance, others perceive stifling "liberal" ones. The disagreement, in my experience, is hard to adjudicate.)
That said, I don't think, as Eduardo suggests, that he and I are watching different campaigns. I make a point, actually, of making sure (Cass Sunstein will be pleased!) to read and watch a wide range of sources, to avoid the cascade / bubble problem.
I saw the show, actually, where Gergen handwringingly said what Eduardo quotes him as saying, and - I have to admit -- groaned and rolled my eyes. It struck me as little more than a transparent (and troubling) effort to try to marginalize Sen. Obama's critics and discredit (what strike me as) reasonable concerns about his views, past, plans, and associations.
The Connecticut Supreme Court has overturned the state's ban on same-sex marriage. The majority opinion is here. From the introduction:
We . . . conclude that (1) our state scheme discriminates on the basis of sexual orientation, (2) for the same reasons that classifications predicated on gender are considered quasi-suspect for purposes of the equal protection provisions of the United States constitution, sexual orientation constitutes a quasi-suspect classification for purposes of the equal protection provisions of the state constitution, and, therefore, our statutes discriminating against gay persons are subject to heightened or intermediate judicial scrutiny, and (3) the state has failed to provide sufficient justification for excluding same sex couples from the institution of marriage.
I would file this under "rulings that Senator Obama wishes could have waited until mid-November."
Yesterday, the Murphy Institute for Catholic Thought, Law and Public Policy sponsored a forum at the University of St. Thomas School of Law entitled, Faithful Citizenship: A Catholic DIalogue on Voting. The two speakers for the program, which I was privileged to moderate, were MOJ'ers Amy Uelmen and Michael Scaperlanda.
The dialogue was enriching for all of us who have been struggling with questions relating to how to exercise faithful citizenship in the context of the upcoming election. In a media world that tends to eschew nuance, both Amy and Michael approached the issue with deliberation, fairness and nuance. Amy devoted the first part of her talk to the "elephant in the room," the question of whether a Catholic voter could vote for a pro-choice president. Once she got past the easy (or easier) portion of the answer - i.e., no if the voter's intent is to promote abortion and probably yes if all of the candidates are pro-choice - she offered a range of questions that one must ask in order to determine if one could vote for a pro-choice candidates if the race included at least one pro-life candidates.
The second part of Amy's talk was a broader discussion of what faithful citizenship entails, an important subject that is often lost because of the focus on the narrower questions. Here she emphasized a couple of things. First, the need for a commitment on the part of Catholics to speak up in an evenhanded way and to challenge both parties for being insufficiently mindful of the broad range of principle of Catholic Social Thought that should guide decisions about social policy. Second, the need for Catholics to take active steps to buils a culture of life and to contribute to the common good. this includes the need to open ourselves to how much we need each other and to listen to each other in love.
Michael Scaperlanda's talk addressed the general role politics plays in the life of a Catholic as well as the particular issues the Church asks us to take seriously as Catholics. Regarding the first, he started by talking about the importance of being models of civility and of the need to help end the divisions of red state/blue state, etc. The starting question for Michael is: do we believe Jesus Christ is our Savior, that the Gospel is the Word of God and that the Church is the true Church founded by Jesus. If the answer is yes, than the Gospel is the organizing principle of our lives; if we believe Jesus is Lord, our primary commitment is to relationship, not ideology. He also talked about the need to confront squarely the question whether we (as a country) should retain our fundamental Judeo-Christian culture, suggesting that if the answer to that is no, difficult questions arise as to what we replace it with and by what standard will we judge what is right and what is wrong. Michael then moved to a discussion of the need for a consistent ethic of life, at the same time stressing that not all issues are equal. He suggested that although single-issue voting is not appropriate, a candidate could disqualify himself from consideration on the basis of a single issue.
Following Amy and Michael's talk, there was some back and forth between the two of them and then some thoughful questions from the audience. It was, all in all, a terrific program.
As with any gathering the brings together members of our "community" (which I broadly define to include the intersecting universes of the MOJ folk and the members of the Conference of Catholic Legal Thought), for me a significant part of the joy of the day was time to visit with Amy and Michael over lunch, dinner and informal discussions that went on over the course of the day. We look forward to welcoming them and others back to UST at opportunities arise.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Commenting on Rob's post about Palin, Rick says:
As I see it (and, to be sure, there's probably no point in elaborating -- at this point, we all think what we all think), misplaced populism, uncritical sloganeering, hostility toward questions directed at factual predicates, and ugly hostility toward those who come to different judgments about policy vehicles are (at least) at present, bigger problems on the political left than on the political right (which is not to say that anyone is innocent).
Misplaced populism and ugly hostility are bigger problems on the left? I feel like we must be watching different campaigns. (Given the ideological fragmentation of the media, it's quite possible that we are, I suppose.) Here's a description of some recent McCain rallies:
McCain was speaking today in New Mexico, doing his usual personal attack on Barack Obama, as the stock market plummeted (you can see the ticker next to McCain on the screen, an apt reminder of what McCain and his fellow Republicans represent), and McCain asked the crowd "who is Barack Obama?" Immediately you hear someone yell "terrorist."
The Secret Service is following up on media reports today that someone in the crowd at a McCain/Palin event suggested killing Barack Obama, according to Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley. The shout of "kill him" followed a Sarah Palin rant on Obama's relationship with radical Chicagoan Bill Ayers.
And here's a description of a recent exchange over at NRO:
It all starts when David Frum asks:
"Does anybody really seriously believe that Barack Obama is a secret left-wing radical? And if not, then what is this fuss and fury supposed to show?"
There follow a series of posts at The Corner which basically answer: yes. Jonah Goldberg:
"Well, yes. Lots of people do. For me, it depends on what you mean by "radical" ..."
"How can anyone who actually follows this stuff, who reads Freddoso, Kurtz, and scores of other reliable sources of information, conclude that Obama is not some wild-eyed radical?"
"If you accept the premise that he was a radical, how has he changed such that he should no longer be considered a radical? Obviously, he is very smooth and he presents himself as a reasonable, moderate fellow. But that doesn't affect substance."
There follow several more posts, and then we get to the pièce de resistance, from McCarthy again:
"Obama's radicalism, beginning with his Alinski/ACORN/community organizer period, is a bottom-up socialism. This, I'd suggest, is why he fits comfortably with Ayers, who (especially now) is more Maoist than Stalinist. What Obama is about is infiltrating (and training others to infiltrate) bourgeois institutions in order to change them from within -- in essence, using the system to supplant the system. A key requirement of this stealthy approach (very consistent with talking vaporously about "change" but never getting more specific than absolutely necessary) is electability. With an enormous assist from the media, which does not press him for specifics, Obama has walked this line brilliantly. Absent convincing retractions of his prior radical positions, though, we should construe shrewd moves like the ostensibly reasonable Second Amendment position as efforts make him electable.
This is why Ayers is so important: it is a peek behind the curtain of Obama's rhetoric."
Closer to home, we have Richard S.'s description of Obama as a leader of the Culture of Death. What does that make those of us who support him? Acolytes of the Evil One? Talk about a conversation stopper.
Perhaps there are comparable examples of this sort of thing from the left, although I can't think of any that go quite as far in eschewing reasoned debate. But, even if there were, are there any that are worse so as to justify Rick's assertion that this is somehow more of a problem on the left at the moment?
UPDATE: Here's a McCain campaign co-chair
Appearing on Dennis Miller's radio show, Keating charged that the Democratic nominee was covering up his "very extreme" record, and urged Obama to be more honest with Americans. "He ought to admit," Keating said, "'You know, I've got to be honest with you. I was a guy of the street. I was way to the left. I used cocaine. I voted liberally, but I'm back at the center.'"
And one more, for good measure.
UPDATE II: Lest I be accused of MSM-fueled alarmism, here's David Gergen:
On CNN last night, David Gergen, a Republican advisor to Presidents Nixon, Ford, Reagan, and Clinton, commented on the "anger" evident at McCain/Palin rallies of late. "There is this free floating sort of whipping around anger that could really lead to some violence," Gergen said. "I think we're not far from that." When Anderson Cooper expressed skepticism about whether violence was likely, Gergen said he "really worries" given "the kind of rhetoric" coming from the Republican ticket.
One of my favorite blogs is "Get Religion," devoted to analyzing the media's generally ham-handed coverage of religion. It is an especially good read during campaign season. Yesterday's post looks at the New York Times' recent article on the Catholic Church being "riven by internal debate."
Communion and Liberation, the Catholic lay movement, has issued a statement with respect to the election called "What We Hold Dear". Here's a bit:
[T]wo concerns matter most to us and we will vote according to which candidates and parties demonstrate an authentic care for these concerns.
First: Freedom of Religion. Political power must recognize faith’s undeniable contribution to the defense and broadening of human reason and its promotion of authentic human progress. This is a guarantee of freedom for everyone, not only for Christians. And this freedom must include the freedom to speak, convince, act, and build in the public square; religious freedom relegated to one’s private life is not religious freedom at all.
Second: The Common Good. Those who hold political power must do so as a service to the common good of the entire nation.
We consider the recognition and defense of three self-evident truths regarding human beings the minimum commitment to the common good: the right to life from conception to natural death; the irreplaceable value of the family, founded on the marriage between a man and woman; and freedom of education.
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
I sincerely thank all MOJ contributors who have made recent postings on matters dealing with the state of many important issues that are involved with our national elections and the crises faced by the human family in this country and around the world. I would like to begin discussing in this posting some issues that have a bearing on the law and how we, as citizens (and as believers and Catholics), have a role in contributing to legal developments that are inextricably connected with the political issues of the day.
So, I come to the first issue which deals with matters such as abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and capital punishment. Each of these activities has its own bearing and effect on the right to life. Each of these issues emerges from different political and, therefore, legal discussions; but, sooner or later, they converge on the same point: does a human life have a right to continue to exist or not until natural death? The answer is yes, for if this right is compromised in any way, all other rights are subject to forfeit because it is the right that is the guarantor of all others. How do citizens and public servants who hold or are seeking important political offices contribute to the law to insure that this non-negotiable right is protected for all, not just some?
Another vital issue is the nature of the family. Can any group be considered a family? I think objective reason will demonstrate that not all groups or associations are a family—the fundamental cell of society. Reason demonstrates that a family begins with two persons who are opposite in certain complementary attributes but alike in their love for one another. From both these attributes and the love come new members of this elemental family, then new generations, and then new families. The future of humanity is dependent on laws that recognize and protect this reality that cannot be separated from our human nature. How do citizens and public servants who hold or are seeking important political offices contribute to the law to insure that this conception of the family is protected?
Rights are a wonderful thing to claim and protect, but they cannot be claimed or protected until there is a personal, communal, and a societal acknowledgement that rights are imperiled without a corresponding sense of responsibility by the rights claimant. The notion of responsibility about which I speak necessitates that the rights claimant must also be responsible for protecting the claims of others. This is not to say that all claims made by all claimants are equal; however, the fundamental rights which most would want to claim will be nice goals that may not be achievable without the inextricable obligation on the part of each claimant to protect the corresponding rights claimed by others. How do citizens and public servants who hold or are seeking important political offices contribute to the law to insure that these essential rights are protected?
Toward the end of Saint Matthew’s Gospel we are reminded: whatsoever you do to the least of your brothers and sisters, you do unto Me. If we take this exhortation to heart and place it in our minds, we should come to realize that anyone of us can join the ranks of the most vulnerable in spite of our present circumstances that may place us presently among the most secure—for the time being. Prayerful reflection on who is vulnerable and impoverished can lead us to the recognition that it could one day be us or those who are close to us. And if we conclude that this destiny is intolerable for me and those whom I consider dear, should we also not conclude that it is intolerable for anyone else?
Again, these are just a few thoughts that have emerged from my review of the several rich and intriguing posts made over the last several days.
RJA sj
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