The Catholic bishops have received some credit for helping to get an amendment passed which would forbid federal funding of abortion in the health care bill. Predictably, this act of the church calling upon the state to achieve a particular moral outcome has been viewed by some as a violation of the supposed separation of American politics and religion.
William Donohue (thank you, sir and bless you, sir) recently made the point (one I spent an entire chapter on in The End of Secularism) that American secularist liberals have not exactly been consistent in their opposition to religious participation in the formation of public policy:
The following is a partial list of religious groups that want abortion coverage in the health care bill: Rabbinical Assembly, Women’s League for Conservative Judaism, Episcopal Church, Society for Humanistic Judaism, Jewish Reconstructionist Federation, Union for Reform Judaism, Central Conference of American Rabbis, North American Federation of Temple Youth, United Church of Christ, United Methodist Church, Unitarian Universalist, Presbyterian Church (USA), Women of Reform Judaism, Society for Humanistic Judaism, Church of the Brethren Women’s Caucus, Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, Lutheran Women’s Caucus, Christian Lesbians Out, YWCA.
Stephen Carter has said it. Richard John Neuhaus has said it. Religion from the left “speaks truth to power” while religion on the right is nothing but ugly “theocracy.” The double standard continues. It’s been running strong for at least four to five decades.
November 15th, 2009 | 8:29 pm
Just before I read this article, my husband and I were discussing that the left-wing insists on a wall separating church and state, but only when THEY want the wall in place. The wall of separation is like a window shade that can be raised and lowered by the Left at will.
This is the same Left that has ensnared, with the bait of the Stupak abortion amendment, the support of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops for Obama/Pelosi healthcare bills.
I am shocked at the naive trust of the USCCB to believe that this amendment is going to survive the Conference Committee, if legislation gets that far. I am also shocked that the USCCB does not see all the other UnChristian aspects of the bill such as sure health care rationing by government edict, redistribution of tax money to Special Interests such as SEIU, encouragement of more medical malpractice litigation, increased taxes from income that will deplete charitable donations, etc.
I do not understand how the Bishops and the Pope can believe that this President and this Congress mean to support any core Christian principles. It is almost like the USCCB and the Vatican do not know their voting records and have never read their party platforms.
November 15th, 2009 | 10:35 pm
So who really does speak the truth to REAL power?
That is the power that really does rule to here!
If you check out the links on Hunters blog you will find that they are all in one way or another full on apologists for the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us against.
Which is now the largest most powerful concentration of power that the world has ever seen.
Quite literally, and very concretely too, the now world-wide Pentagon death machine.
The “values” of which permeate every aspect of USA “culture”, and by extension the entire world too.
November 16th, 2009 | 5:42 pm
If the bishops violated the separation of church and state by lobbying against abortion funding, then did they also violate it when they previously lobbied for immigration reform and opposed the war in Iraq?
What makes the abortion issue different that it invokes church-state separation while the other issues do not?
It is a fallacy to argue that only the Catholic Church in the United States opposes legal abortion. I can show you pro-life Protestants (including in the mainline denominations), pro-life Jews (Rabbis Neusner and Gelman), and even pro-life atheists (not just Nat Hentoff, but http://www.godlessprolifers.com).
If we should separate moral questions from politics, then make it absolute. Let liberals stop making appeals to some vague morality when they argue for the abolition of capital punishment, anti-discrimination laws, more programs for the poor, elderly, and sick, and hate crimes protections.
November 16th, 2009 | 5:43 pm
Wrong link, see http://www.godlessprolifers.org/home.html
November 16th, 2009 | 8:31 pm
So, Sue, why doesn’t that death machine simply overwhelm its opponents, which it could surely do? What stays its hand?
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