Well, the editorial page of the WSJ is always clicking away:
In "A Voter's Guide: Pro-choice candidates and church teaching," Archbishop John J. Myers gives us a fair and balanced view of the candidates.
It's actually a very interesting article. Full of insights and wisdom. Perhaps just a tad one-sided.
Oh, you know, like when it implies that John Kerry and the left in general supports "the legalized killing of human beings in the embryonic and fetal stages of development by abortion or in biomedical research."
Now wait a damn second:
No one on the left is actually advocating producing "tens of thousands of human lives ... each year for the purpose of being 'sacrificed' " to the cause of embryonic research, are they? Maybe I didn't get the memo.
But as far as I remember, that's not what's being asked for at all. The "conservatives" (what are they conserving? not nature or gas, I assume...) are so good at making this kinda stuff up it makes me giddy with delight. Life must be a constant episode of "The Twilight Zone" for the republican marketing guys. This WSJ archbishop perhaps stayed up too late eating Cheetos and watching "Soylent Green," before writing his op-ed piece.
It's exactly this sort of twisting around of the facts that has convinced the likes of Ron Reagan Jr. to speak up in favor of increased stem-cell research; because the right is trying to demonize the issue by pretending that babies are going to be purposefully produced and slaughtered.... I can't believe the Wall Street Journal is getting away with perpetrating this myth.)
But alright, let's say that abortion is the key issue here. What if you take into account the idea that neither Bush nor Kerry will be able to actually reverse or protect Roe vs. Wade -- and that everything either of them says to the contrary is just grandstanding? If this were the case, then it might partially negate the issue and allow a Catholic to vote for Kerry for other reasons, instead of "Precisely because of a candidate's permissive stand on abortion," as the church suggests.
The war, as this article mentions, was not condoned by the Pope. Nor is capital punishment.
There's a very good editorial in the National Catholic Reporter on this very issue: "Partisans try to narrow Catholics’ choices".
ALSO, When it comes to ranking up the overall Catholic qualities of all U.S. Senators, Kerry ranks higher than any Democrat or Republican (admittedly, this is from a Democrat’s study, so bias could be found, I'm sure). Kerry beats everyone on most issues except for the abortion issue, where he scores a dismal (but not zero) rating.
" [WASHINGTON, DC] – Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and other Catholic senators today released an analysis of votes and actions of Catholic Senators based on the official positions taken on legislation by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB).... 'Unfortunately, recent media attention has focused on one or two priorities of the Catholic Church, while obscuring others. This has made it more difficult for Catholic voters to understand the full range of issues that have been identified by the USCCB as priorities for public life,' said Senator Durbin. 'What we have done today is to use the criteria established by the U.S. Catholic Bishops to give voters an insight into the voting records of Catholic senators.' "
I'd reccomend glancing over the analysis in it's summary form, but the full report is also available as as a PDF.
"But wait!," you say. Despite all of the above evidence, you still can't bring yourself to vote for a dirty Dem. That's fine. Vote Nader. He's fiscally responsible. He won't bite. He likes seatbelts. He's a good guy. Heck, if you were going to vote for Bush anyway, then why not go all the way and put a write-in vote for Buchanan on the ballot. Buchanan or Nader. Those are your choices. Bush will eat your children. There. I said it. It must be true. Maybe the Wall Street Journal will publish it -- it seems right up their op-ed alley.
Here's the best news of all, though, straight from the Catholic Church itself:
If you've voted for a pro-abortion politician, you'll be okay -- just so long as you go to confession before your next communion.
"Forgive me Father, for I voted for Kerry today... Five Hail Mary's? Ahhh ... shucks...."
Now, isn't going through that after every election a heck of a lot easier than having to get Born Again again (and again and again and ...) ? That's why Catholics are the hardest rockin' Christians ever, dude man.
The Democrats Find God - Kinda
In a story titled "Kerry Speech at Church Highlights Double Standard," the Family Research Council (FRC) jumps on a Washington Post story about a black church throwing it's support behind Kerry.
It noted that a "pastor of the Miami church endorsed Kerry from the pulpit in almost messianic terms, telling his congregation, "For every Goliath, God has a David. For every Calvary's cross, God has a Christ Jesus. To bring our country out of despair, discouragement, despondency, and disgust, God has a John Kerry."
Hyperbole? Sure. But being so close to an election, one expects this sort of cheerleading on both sides. However, the FRC saw it as pure hypocrisy on behalf of the dirty liberals: "Recall the outcry from Barry Lynn and the left when Pastor Ronnie Floyd instructed his congregation to 'vote God'? Can you imagine the outcry that would arise from the Democrats and the liberal media if President Bush made an appearance like Senator Kerry's, and similar things were said about him? They would be pressing to have the church's tax exemption lifted the next day."
In reality, however, this is only hypocrisy if Kerry was among those who joined in the fight against Pastor Ronnie Floyd. As far as I know, he wasn't. It's a group called "Americans United for Separation of Church and State" that's causing the double standard. What was done with Floyd was just more dirty politics executed by organizations with (supposedly) no direct connection to the candidates -- something we've been seeing more and more of lately.
What the Bush guys did to McCain in the 2000 primaries (the confirmed spreading of rumors involving his wife's unconfirmed drug problems, the use of "push polling" to coerce votes, third-party groups distributing slanderous flyers) was just as bad as the Pastor Ronnie Floyd IRS switcheroo some left-wingers tried to pull off on Bush. The same could be said for this "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" debacle that Bush supporters have pulled on Kerry. Bush keeps his hands (mostly) clean of all this stuff, just as Kerry kept his hands (mostly) clean of Pastor Ronnie Floyd. But it happens nonetheless.
It's an endemic of the current system, and the system needs to be cleaned up. But these little games cannot be pinned on Kerry or the liberals in general as a double standard any more so than they can be pinned on Bush or the right-wingers. It's a larger problem -- it's a problem about political parties trying to win by any means necessary, instead of truly playing by moral standards or in defense of principals.
John F. Kerry is supported by some church groups and Bush is supported by others. However, it's interesting that the African-American churches are rallying behind JFK II while the hard-line Catholics have tagged GB II as their man. There was a time when both these groups would have been sure-thing Democrats, and logically they still should be....
Other than the abortion issue (which Kerry dances around like a prickly pear), boring old JFK II is probably the safer bet for Catholics, in my paranoid mind, because the Evangelicals (the most fervent George Bush supporters) historically have had a seething hatred of Catholics.
Oh, the Evangelicals and Catholics are cozy enough at the moment, but Protestant vs. Catholic animosity has merely sunk beneath the surface, I suspect. I've met quite a few people who only rank Catholics a few circles up in Dante’s inferno -- just above the Jews and Muslims. Spend a couple of years in the Deep South, Florida included, and once people get to feel comfortable around you they might tell you about how the Catholics are all idol worshippers that are surely burn -- I was told this many a time, first hand, in a kindly and genteel manner, of course.
When it comes down to it, the extreme-right wings of the Catholic and Protestant churches make for good political bedfellows -- they both certainly have little use for these crazy agnostics and atheists. And Buddhists and Hindus aren't even worth mentioning. And due to Middle East policies, the Jews are even finding support in the Christian community.
But make no mistake: the Christians think the Jews are going to Hell and the Evangelicals, in particular, know the Catholics are going to Hell, and the Catholics reckon all non-Catholics (and most Catholics, for that matter) are getting sent to Purgatory at least for a little while. While attending high school in Florida, I was shocked to learn that there were even a few kids that didn't realize Catholics were Christians (I wish I was kidding).
They thought Catholics were like Jews -- shared some of the same bible stories and prayers and maybe the same God, but otherwise were worshipping up an entirely different theological burning bush. (Listening to a Baptist history teacher trying to explain to these kids that Protestants actually came after Catholics -- thus the word Protest in Protestant -- was worth the price of admission, 'cause these stalwarts did not like the idea that they were a spin-off of the Mary-Statue-Worshipping wackos. Of course, it was a public school, as may have guessed, so admission was free).
But back to the real topic at hand: This is simply not the fiscally responsible Republican party that once was -- it's a mix of the most paranoid Nixonites with the most fervent Televangelists. Wait, was that the topic at hand, or is it just wishful thinking on my part?
Ah, yes, here we go: The double standard and hypocrisy found in the political system must be scrubbed clean to the best of our ability. Both on the left and the right. And I even agree with the Family Research Council on at least one aspect of their article: "We should favor a single standard that defends religious liberty and freedom of speech for all -- including ... pastors who want to address the moral dimension of political decisions from the pulpit, regardless of their views."
Let the churches say what they want -- and then let the people make up their own minds. It can be a tricky issue, because of the tax-dodge questions rasied, but it's just not a good idea to force churches -- or anyone -- to not support a candidate or issue publicly, because the exclusion of a truth is in fact a lie. Besides, we could always just reclassify churches as tax-exempt 527 Advocacy Groups instead of places of worship (it's all one and the same, isn't it?)
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