There have been several posts here at MOJ on the 2008 presidential election, some concluding that the only reasonable choice for a faithful Catholic to make is to vote Republican. But many faithful Catholics disagree with that conclusion.
Consider, for example, this editorial from The Tablet, 9/6/08:
Pro-Life Is Not A Single Issue
It may not decide who is to become the next President of the United
States, but abortion is once again a hot issue as the 2008 election
campaign is launched at the conclusion of the two party conventions. As
during the campaign between John Kerry and George W. Bush four years
ago, so attention has again focused on the Catholic vote -
approximately a quarter of the whole - and how it will be affected by
the strongly expressed opinions of some leading members of the Catholic
hierarchy. Joe Biden, the man chosen to be vice-presidential running
mate for the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, is, like Mr Kerry, an
Irish-American Catholic who supports - in a qualified way - the
pro-choice position.
The stance taken by socially conservative
prelates such as Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver is that Senator
Biden should not present himself for Holy Communion when he attends
Mass, as he does every week. Indeed, he should be refused Communion if
he insists on doing so. The fact that Senator Biden has opposed the
legalisation of partial-birth abortion and is also against government
funds being made available for abortion has not won him a reprieve from
Archbishop Chaput's censure. But it may help him with Catholic voters
in general, who by no means always do what their bishops tell them to.
A significant number of them were persuaded to swing towards Mr Bush in
2004, but many have since noticed that America's pro-abortion laws are
no nearer repeal as a result.
No doubt one of the reasons why
the Republican candidate, John McCain, has chosen Governor Sarah Palin
of Alaska is because she is strongly anti-abortion and therefore
thought to be a magnet for conservative Catholic and Evangelical
voters. But this is an area where the Catholic position itself is more
nuanced. Whether or not a particular Catholic politician does or does
not receive Communion is an issue that can cause hurt and
embarrassment. But it does not stop Catholics from voting for him or
her, even on a strict interpretation of moral theology and canon law.
As Cardinal Ratzinger, Pope Benedict gave a ruling in 2004 that
generally supported the case for adamantly pro-abortion Catholic
politicians being denied Communion, but he added: "When a Catholic does
not share a candidate's stand in favour of abortion and/or euthanasia,
but votes for that candidate for other reasons, it is considered remote
material cooperation, which can be permitted in the presence of
proportionate reasons." This deserves to be more widely known, and is
equivalent to the repeatedly stated view of the English and Welsh
bishops that "a general election is not a single-issue referendum".
Senator Biden has certainly been pro-life in urging outside
intervention to stop genocide in Bosnia and Darfur, issues on which
conservatives tended to be more restrained. He supports such pro-life
causes - although not usually seen as such - as universal health care
and measures to improve the lot of the American poor, among whom infant
mortality runs at rates more usually seen in the developing world.
The
demand that the Church should stay out of politics is transparently
unreasonable. But if Catholic bishops are to exert political influence
they must do so with a sophisticated appreciation of complex issues. If
they are not careful, church leaders can find themselves being
cynically manipulated by those whose real interest is not morality but
power.
And consider this editorial from the National Catholic Reporter, 9/5/08:
Ways past the culture wars
The
choice of Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware as the Democratic vice
presidential candidate brought an immediate and predictable reaction
from those intent on using this election cycle to revive the Catholic
culture wars.
Suddenly pundits knew “what kind of Catholic” Biden is and they were
eager to frame his deepest motivations on the basis of a vote here and
there on “life issues,” which in the world of the culture warrior
translates as only one issue -- abortion. And they picked up immediate
encouragement from on high when Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput issued
the pastoral wisdom that Biden should refrain from receiving Communion.
To take that last matter first, Chaput’s pronouncement momentarily
grabbed a portion of the national news cycle, but Catholics shouldn’t
overreact. They would do better to read his book, Render Unto Caesar:
Serving the Nation by Living Our Catholic Beliefs in Political Life, a
far more nuanced and challenging presentation of his view of Catholic
responsibilities.
They’d do better, too, by reading the U.S. bishops’ valuable and
thorough reflection on political responsibility, “Faithful
Citizenship,” which, while placing the protection of innocent life as
the central consideration in pursuing the common good, also
acknowledges the complexities of political life and the ambiguities
that can sometimes confound even the most purposeful legislator.
Mr. Biden is, we suspect, closer to the people most priests face in
the pews every week than the culture warriors would have us believe:
devout, faithful, prayerful and questioning. The problem for him, of
course, is that he plays out his life in public. Most Catholics don’t
have to contend with a chorus demanding absolutes where sometimes only
compromise and negotiation can serve the common good.
According to a recent Associated Press story, Biden has said in the
past that he is “prepared to accept” church teaching on when life
begins, but at the same time he believes that Roe v. Wade “is as close
as we’re going to be able to get as a society” to a consensus among
differing religious and other views on the subject. We suspect that
view is held by a lot of ordinary Catholics and more than a few
bishops, albeit privately. So the dispute becomes more over political
strategy than church teaching. How to attack the abortion problem from
the political stump in the political arena -- where compromise is the
coin of the realm -- is far different from pronouncing from the pulpit.
The
reality, as shown in poll after poll, is that Catholics, like most
others in the culture, are looking for a politics on the abortion issue
that is far removed from either extreme, a politics that can begin to
effectively reduce the number of abortions. Catholics in Alliance for
the Common Good released a study Aug. 27 that shows a strikingly direct
correlation between the availability of social services and a drop in
the number of abortions.
There is more involved in creating a culture of life than simply
seeking the elusive ban on abortion. The culture wars have cost the
church dearly in terms of political capital and credibility, and in the
election of legislators who promise lots on abortion, deliver little
and frequently ignore most of the rest of the bishops’ social agenda.
No political party holds the complete Catholic vision of society.
Seeking a significant reduction in abortion will require more from
us than protest and vilifying politicians. It will require an approach
to the common good that places high value on programs supporting women
and children, on assuring access to jobs and education and on dealing
with the causes and effects of poverty.
Monday, September 8, 2008
What does it mean to "interpret" the Constitution. That question is often beneath the surface, and occasionally on the surface, of MOJ posts about constitutional controversies. Rick Kay's writings on originalism are, IMHO, state-of-the-art. Here's his latest:
Original Intention and Public Meaning in Constitutional
Interpretation
Richard S. Kay
University of Connecticut School of
Law
Northwestern University Law Review,
Forthcoming
Abstract:
In recent years
academic explanations of the originalist approach to constitutional
interpretation have shifted the relevant inquiry from the subjective intent of
the constitution-makers to the "original public meaning" of the Constitution's
words. This article is a critical analysis of that development. In the actual
course of adjudication by honest and competent judges either method should
usually yield the same result. The reliance on public meaning, however,
distracts the interpreter from the connection between the normative force of the
Constitution and the founding events, a link that is essential to the legitimacy
of constitutional judicial review. In the hands of less careful or less rigorous
judges, moreover, abandoning intent as the central object of interpretation
enlarges the range of plausible outcomes, threatening, as a practical matter, to
subvert the clarity and stability of constitutional meaning that is central to
the constitutionalist enterprise.
Keywords: Constitutional Law, Interpreation, Originalism, Public
Meaning
To download/print, click here.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
I was about to post on David Frum's piece, when I noticed that Rick, in the immediately preceding post, had already done so. So let me just quote these passages:
IN SHORT, the trend to inequality is real, it is large and it is
transforming American society and the American electoral map. Yet the
conservative response to this trend verges somewhere between the obsolete and
the irrelevant.
Conservatives need to stop denying reality. The stagnation of the incomes of
middle-class Americans is a fact. And only by acknowledging facts can we respond
effectively to the genuine difficulties of voters in the middle. We keep
offering them cuts in their federal personal income taxes — even though
two-thirds of Americans pay more in payroll taxes than in income taxes, and even
though a majority of Americans now describe their federal income tax burden as
reasonable.
What the middle class needs most is not lower income taxes but a slowdown in
the soaring inflation of health-care costs. If health-insurance costs had risen
50 percent rather than 100 percent over the Bush years, middle-income voters
would have enjoyed a pay raise instead of enduring wage stagnation. John McCain’s health plan, which emphasizes tax changes to
encourage employees to buy their own insurance rather than rely on employers, is
a start — but only the very beginning of a start. Some Republicans have brought
great energy to this problem. In the Senate, Robert Bennett of Utah has written a bill with the Oregon
Democrat Ron Wyden that would require employers to “cash out”
employer-provided health care — and then midwife a national insurance
marketplace in which employees would join plans that offered more price control
and price transparency. Mitt Romney in Massachusetts put an end to the tax
disadvantage that hammers consumers who buy health care directly rather than
through their employers. Rudy Giuliani proposed a federal law to enable low-cost
insurers in states like Kentucky to sell their products across state lines in
high-cost states like New Jersey. But it remains unfortunately true that the
Republican Party as a whole regards health care as “not our issue” — and
certainly less exciting than another round of tax reductions.
Unlike liberals, conservatives are not bothered by the accumulation of wealth
as such. We should be more troubled that the poor remain so poor. With all due
respect to the needs of employers, Republicans need to recognize that the
large-scale import of unskilled labor is part of the problem.
Meanwhile, the argument over same-sex marriage has become worse than a distraction from the
challenge of developing policies to ensure that as many children as possible
grow up with both a father and a mother in the home. Over the past 30 years,
governments have effectively worked to change attitudes about smoking, seat-belt
use and teenage pregnancy. Changing attitudes about unmarried childbirth may
prove more difficult. Yet it is a fact that the only way to escape poverty is to
work consistently — and that even after welfare reform, low-skilled single
parents work less consistently than the main breadwinner in a low-skilled
dual-parent household.
At the same time, conservatives need to ask ourselves some hard questions
about the trend toward the Democrats among America’s affluent and well educated.
Leaving aside the District of Columbia, 7 of America’s 10 best-educated states
are strongly “blue” in national politics, and the others (Colorado, New
Hampshire and Virginia) have been trending blue. Of the 10 least-educated, only
one (Nevada) is not reliably Republican. And so we arrive at a weird situation
in which the party that identifies itself with markets, with business and with
technology cannot win the votes of those who have prospered most from markets,
from business and from technology. Republicans have been badly hurt in upper
America by the collapse of their onetime reputation for integrity and
competence. Upper Americans live in a world in which things work. The packages
arrive overnight. The car doors clink seamlessly shut. The prevailing Republican
view — “of course government always fails, what do you expect it to do?” — is
not what this slice of America expects to hear from the people asking to be
entrusted with the government.
It is probable that the trend to inequality will grow even stronger in the
years ahead, if new genetic techniques offer those with sufficient resources the
possibility of enhancing the intelligence, health, beauty and strength of
children in the womb. How should conservatives respond to such new technologies?
The anti-abortion instincts of many conservatives naturally incline them to look
at such techniques with suspicion — and indeed it is certainly easy to imagine
how they might be abused. Yet in an important address delivered as long ago as
1983, Pope John Paul II argued that genetic enhancement was
permissible — indeed, laudable — even from a Catholic point of view, as long as
it met certain basic moral rules. Among those rules: that these therapies be
available to all. Ensuring equality of care may become inseparable from ensuring
equality of opportunity.
Saturday, September 6, 2008
[UPDATE: Check out this post, and comments, at dotCommonweal (here).]
A MOJ reader sent this to me. I thought some other MOJ readers might like to see it. (I had not known about the web site Catholic Democrats, here.)
Palin Attacks Catholic Community Organizing by Senator
Obama; No Mention of Economic Distress Across America
Minneapolis, Minn. - Sept 4, 2008 - Catholic Democrats
is expressing surprise and shock that Republican vice presidential nominee
Sarah Palin's acceptance speech tonight mocked work that her opponent had done
in the 1980s for the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. She belittled
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's experience as a community
organizer in Catholic parishes on the South Side of Chicago, work he undertook
instead of pursuing a lucrative career on Wall Street. In her acceptance speech,
Ms. Palin said, "I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a community
organizer, except that you have actual responsibilities." Community organizing
is at the heart of Catholic Social Teaching to end poverty and promote
social justice.
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops has operated the
Catholic Campaign for Human Development, its domestic anti-poverty and social
justice program, since 1969. In 1986, the Bishops issued Economic Justice
for All: Pastoral Letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the US Economy,
which said, "Human dignity can be realized and protected only in community."
Senator Obama worked in several Catholic parishes, supported by the Catholic
Campaign for Human Development, helping to address severe joblessness and
housing needs in economically disadvantaged neighborhoods of Chicago.
"It
is shocking that a vice presidential candidate would disparage an essential
component of the Catholic Social Tradition with her condescending
attack on urban community organizing," said Dr. Patrick Whelan, president of
Catholic Democrats. "Her divisive rhetoric, repeatedly pitting small
towns against urban communities, demonstrates not only a lack of charity toward
the needs of some of the least among us but a fundamental disrespect for those
who dedicate their lives to overcoming poverty across our country. Her sarcastic
tone is also emblematic of the contempt that she and Senator McCain have shown
toward actually addressing the economic distress that is gripping America in
these difficult times. Economic issues, including extreme poverty, are among the
most important to Catholics and other people of faith in this
election."
"Why do Governor Palin and the McCain Campaign sarcastically
attack efforts to organize unemployed Catholics and Protestants? Senator Obama
has spoken warmly about his experiences as a community organizer on the South
Side of Chicago," said Lisa Schare, chair of Catholic Democrats of
Ohio. "His work in helping people who were experiencing the real trauma of
losing their jobs and livelihoods demonstrates an authentic Christian spirit and
the real essence of Catholic Social Teaching, something strikingly absent from
Governor Palin's remarks tonight."
[UPDATE: Check out this post, and comments, at dotCommonweal (here).]
I read this with particular interest, since I am the parent of two teenagers. If you disagree with what Mr. Blow has to say, you may want to e-mail him. His address is below.
NYT, 9/6/08
Op-Ed Columnist
Let’s Talk About Sex
By CHARLES M. BLOW
Sarah Palin has a pregnant teenager.
And, she’s not alone. According to a report published in 2007, there
are more than 400,000 other American girls in the same predicament.
In fact, a 2001 Unicef report said that the United States teenage
birthrate was higher than any other member of the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development. The U.S. tied Hungary for the
most abortions. This was in spite of the fact that girls in the U.S.
were not the most sexually active. Denmark held that title. But, its
teenage birthrate was one-sixth of ours, and its teenage abortion rate
was half of ours.
If there is a shame here, it’s a national shame — a failure of our
puritanical society to accept and deal with the facts. Teenagers have
sex. How often and how safely depends on how much knowledge and support
they have. Crossing our fingers that they won’t cross the line is not
an intelligent strategy.
To wit, our ridiculous experiment in abstinence-only education seems
to be winding down with a study finding that it didn’t work. States are
opting out of it. Parents don’t like it either. According to a 2004
survey sponsored by NPR, the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard’s
Kennedy School of Government, 65 percent of parents of high school
students said that federal money “should be used to fund more
comprehensive sex education programs that include information on how to
obtain and use condoms and other contraceptives.”
We need to take some bold steps beyond the borders of our moralizing
and discomfort and create a sex education infrastructure that actually
acknowledges reality and protects our children from unwanted
pregnancies, or worse.
Britain is already taking these steps. London’s Daily Telegraph
reported last month on a June study that found that “one in three
secondary schools in England now has a sexual health clinic to give
condoms, pregnancy tests and even morning-after pills to children as
young as 11.”
Furthermore, a bipartisan group from the British Parliament is
seeking to make sex education compulsory for “children as young as four
years old.” In a letter to the paper, the group laid out its case:
“International evidence suggests that high-quality sex and relationship
education that puts sex in its proper context, that starts early enough
to make a difference and that gives youngsters the confidence and
ability to make well-informed decisions helps young people delay their
first sexual experience and leads to lower teenage pregnancy levels.”
That may be extreme, but many Americans can’t even talk about sex
without giggling, squirming or blushing. Let’s start there. Talk to
your kids about sex tonight, with confidence and a straight face. “I’d
prefer you waited to have sex. That said, whenever you choose to do it,
make sure you use one of these condoms.” It works.
Friday, September 5, 2008
New York Times, September 5, 2008
Georgia GOP congressman calls Obamas 'uppity'
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrats are calling on a Republican congressman from Georgia to apologize for referring to Barack and Michelle Obama as ''uppity,'' but the lawmaker stood by his comments and said he meant no offense.
Speaking to reporters Thursday, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of
Grantville, Ga., described the Obamas as members of an ''elitist-class
... that thinks that they're uppity,'' according to The Hill, a Capitol
Hill newspaper.
Asked to clarify whether he intended to use the word, he said, ''Yeah, uppity.''
In a statement Friday, Westmoreland -- a white man who was born in
1950 and raised in the segregated South -- said he didn't know that
''uppity'' was commonly used as a derogatory term for blacks seeking
equal treatment. Instead, he referred to the dictionary definition of
the word as describing someone who is haughty, snobbish or has inflated
self-esteem.
''He stands by that characterization and thinks it accurately
describes the Democratic nominee,'' said Brian Robinson, Westmoreland's
spokesman. ''He was unaware that the word had racial overtones and he
had absolutely no intention of using a word that can be considered
offensive.''
The Obama campaign had no immediate response. But the head of the Georgia Democratic Party
called on Westmoreland to apologize, saying his comments were ''more of
the same, tired old politics that are dividing this country.''
''The fact is, political attacks like this don't lower gas prices
one cent, they don't give one more American access to affordable health
care, and they don't get one more Georgian a job that pays the
mortgage,'' Jane Kidd said. ''Lynn Westmoreland should be ashamed of
himself.''
Westmoreland is one of the most conservative members of Congress. He
has drawn criticism from civil rights advocates on a number of issues,
including last year when he led opposition to renewing the 1965 Voting
Rights Act. He also was one of two House members last year who opposed
giving the Justice Department more money to crack unsolved civil rights
killings.
