Slate: Obama is Natural Choice for Catholics

Slate Magazine seems to believe that Catholics Should Vote for Barack Obama. Never mind that whole thing about millions of babies being killed year. Instead of saying Catholics for whom tearing babies limbs off doesn’t blip on their moral radar are for Obama, they call themselves “Social Justice” Catholics.

The piece is titled “Reaganites for Obama? Sorry, McCain. Barack Obama is a natural for the Catholic vote.”

The writer Douglas Kmiec, a law professor and former Reaganite who supported Romney this time around, starts off by saying Catholics have been on the side of the top vote-getter in the last nine presidential elections.

Much of the Catholic primary vote has been in the Democratic column, going at first to Hillary Clinton over Obama, as in New Hampshire, where she won 44 percent to 27 percent. But lately, Obama has been narrowing the gap, using the Catholic vote to vault to victory. In the Illinois primary, where Obama bested Clinton 65 percent to 33 percent, he attracted 48 percent of the Catholic vote. When Obama’s share of the Catholic vote drops, the races tighten: In still-undecided New Mexico, only 39 percent of Catholic voters went for Obama.

Clinton lost Tuesday to Obama in Maryland, the first Catholic settlement in America, but also in Virginia, where the number of Catholic households in the burgeoning northern section of the commonwealth is up more than 67 percent over the last decade. However hard-working, intelligent, and policy savvy she may be (and she is), Clinton seldom inspires even the so-called “social justice” Catholics or reveals that rare gift of empathy that defined Reagan and that one glimpses in Obama. Say what you will about not preferring style over substance, modern leadership requires both, especially now when the international community—whose help we need to arrest terrorism—seldom gives us the benefit of the doubt…But the primary statistics do not tell the full story. For the general election, it’s important to peer deeper into the Catholic mind…Because Democratic and Catholic dogmas collide over the polarizing issue of abortion, Catholics do have to navigate some difficult ethical waters to contemplate voting blue. McCain and Huckabee—unlike either of the Democrats—join in the Catholic prayer for the unborn, but Republican promises have often left those prayers unanswered. While no papal instruction will ever condone the “right to choose,” the church does ask for a consistent and realistic defense of life that actually takes steps to reduce the incidence of the practice, not just condemns it. Catholics will note that McCain and Huckabee’s pro-life postures collapse when it comes to the death penalty. Even if the Supreme Court decides later this spring that lethal injection is not “cruel and unusual” under our Constitution, capital sentencing is often erratic and erroneous in light of the modern availability and reliability of DNA evidence. It is Catholic instruction that there are better ways to deter violent crime.

You know what, I’m growing a little tired of people comparing innocent babies with serial killers. Look, I’m against the death penalty but I’m sorry I just can’t get as worked up protecting rapists and murderers as I will about protecting babies. If you look at the problem quantitatively you get about 75 executions per year nationwide while there are over 1millions abortions per year. So give me a break, okay?

And how can the writer say that Republicans have done nothing about abortion? George W. Bush put two judges on the Supreme Court that scare the heck out of the abortion industry.

Kmiec continues:

Beyond life issues, an audaciously hope-filled Democrat like Obama is a Catholic natural. Anyone seeking “liberty and justice for all” really can’t be satisfied with racially segregated public schools that don’t teach. And there’s something deeply hypocritical about being a nation of immigrants that won’t welcome any more of them. And that creation that God saw as good in Genesis? Well, even without seeing Al Gore melt those glaciers over and over again, Catholics chose Al to better steward a world beset with unnatural disasters. Climate change is driven by mindless consumption that devotes more ingenuity to securing golden parachutes than energy independence.

First let’s talk about racially segregated schools. We all know that Republicans are for segregation, right? And also, Republicans have supported School Choice which would give families with children in failing schools options to choose a better school of their own choosing. But never mind all that reality. We’re talking about Barack Hussein Obama here.

But then Kmiec goes on to talk about immigration saying that Republicans are hypocritical for wanting to limit immigration. Does Kmiec really believe we should just throw the doors wide open to anyone who wants in. And McCain is very immigrant friendly. You remember McCain-Kennedy.

And finally about climate change. You have to love him referring to the fact that global warming is man-made. Because we all know there’s no question about that.

Of course, marriage and family are indispensable as well, and until now, Catholics saw the Republicans as having a lock on the family issue. But if either Clinton or Obama would acknowledge the myriad problems associated with a declining population in the developed world and affirm the importance of both having and raising children (and not just punting these duties over to Hillary’s “village”), Catholics could well contemplate a Democratic adoption.

But that hasn’t happened yet, has it? And I don’t think Obama’s going to anytime soon either.

So, here’s the thing: John McCain will have many Catholics in the pews a little while longer, but more than a few of us are thinking of giving him up for Lent. Reagan used to say that he didn’t leave the Democratic Party, it left him. The launch of “Reaganites for Obama” might not be far behind. We might not be there yet, but we’re getting close.

I’m not close at all. Let’s remember that Obama voted against giving medical care to babies accidentally born during botched abortions. I’m sure Jesus would’ve overlooked that because Obama gives a really good speech.