Politics

A reader sent me a link to a homily by Archbishop Chaput at at Red Mass. The Archbishop always makes for a good read and his homily included the following.

We need to drill it into our heads that defending the sanctity of the human person and serving the common good can’t be separated. Stuffing our Catholic faith in a closet when we enter the public square or join a public debate isn’t good manners, and it isn’t political courtesy. It’s cowardice. And we’ll be judged for that cowardice by the God who created us.
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Read the whole thing]

Somebody should start PravdaTube. This would be a version of YouTube with one hundred percent liberal content. They could probably sell it for more than 1.6B to Google. Last week Michelle Malkin chronicled her problems with having her video removed from YouTube. Earlier today I saw the David Zucker Albright Ad, which has got to be the funniest political ad I have ever seen. When I went to view it again later it had been flagged by users as having offensive content. You just got to love the tolerance of some liberals that they consider anything that pokes fun or depart from their party line as being offensive. I consider that fact that they flagged this as offensive as offensive. Unfortunately there is no "Flag as Inappropriate video’s marked as inappropriate." Of course you can still log in to see it, but I consider tactics such as this a very sad statement in political debate and I do hope conservatives don’t do similar tactics to liberal campaign ads. If you disagree with a video simply leave a comment.

Legislation designed to protect municipalities — when groups like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) sue to have Ten Commandments displays or crosses removed from public property — passed the House on a 242-173 vote this afternoon.

H.R. 2679 — the Public Expression of Religion Act (PERA) — moves on to the Senate, where its fate is uncertain. The bill would prohibit the plaintiff in a religious liberties case from being awarded attorneys’ fees for attacking public expressions of faith.

Rep. John Hostettler, R-Ind., told CitizenLink his bill is absolutely necessary.

"The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, for instance, was told by the ACLU that if they did not remove the tiny cross in the county seal, the county would be sued by the ACLU, the ACLU would probably win, and the county would not only have to pay its attorneys’ fees in the lawsuit, it would have to pay the ACLU’s as well," the congressman said.

Hostettler said when confronted with the possibility of having to pay up to $1 million in attorneys’ fees, L.A. County supervisors chose to remove the cross.

"The ACLU did this without darkening the doorstep of a federal courthouse," he said, "and that needs to change."

…Bob Knight, director of culture and family issues with Concerned Women for America, said another classic example is the ACLU win that forced the Boy Scouts out of their camp in San Diego’s Balboa Park. The ACLU collected $950,000 in legal fees.

"It’s like paying a thug for the privilege of being mugged," Knight said. "The ACLU and other groups have shaken down public officials and private groups and benefited greatly in legal fees. In essence, this is really a ‘stop the bullying’ bill."

Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., has introduced companion legislation in the Senate.

In an article on Bob Casey Jr.

…Casey, meanwhile, has flip-flopped on adoption of children by gays. (In a 2002 questionnaire submitted to the Pennsylvania Catholic Conference — the state’s Catholic bishops organization — he said he opposed "legislation allowing homosexual couples to adopt children." In a 2004 questionnaire submitted to PCC, he reversed course, saying he opposed "legislation prohibiting homosexual couples from adopting children.")

…I don’t support gay marriage, but I also don’t support a constitutional amendment banning it," Casey told The Philadelphia Jewish Voice in October 2005. "However, I do support same sex unions that would give gay couples all the rights, privileges and protections of marriage."

That position put Casey at odds with the proposed Pennsylvania Marriage Amendment, which, like Ohio’s, prohibits legal recognition of same-sex unions. The amendment was approved 137-60 in the Pennsylvania statehouse in June, but then stalled in the state senate when it was stripped of the language prohibiting recognition of same sex unions, before passing 38 to 12. (In Pennsylvania, an amendment cannot be placed on the ballot until it has passed both legislative houses in identical form in two consecutive legislative sessions.)

This race has been hailed as one between two pro-life Catholics and it is in fact a good thing that the Democrat saw that they needed to run someone pro-life against Sen. Santorum. For quite a while Casey had been leading Santorum by double-digits, but the gap has recently been closing to be within six points. As of yesterday, finally Bob Casey Jr. has agreed to four debates with Sen. Santorum. His tactic of coasting in without opening his mouth was probably a good idea while he led decisively. But this has failed him in the past in other elections he lost while initially leading. Unfortunately Bob Casey Jr. is no Bob Casey Sr.

Via David at Catholics in the Public Square

Nate Nelson has fired up a new blog called Catholic? Rudy Watch. His mission? Oppose the candidacy of Rudy Giuliani for president. As many know, Rudy "disagrees" with Church teachings in re: to abortion, protecting marriage, and ESCR. Looks like Nate wants Catholics to get to know the real Rudy. Great idea Nate!

Reminds one of Catholic[?] Kerry Watch which Christopher, Jeff, and Oswald contributed to during the 2004 presidential campaign.

The thought of Rudy Giuliani running for President gives me gas pains. I don’t think he can make it through the primaries when so much of what he endorses is so blatantly liberal in the modern sense. But I am definitely not looking forward to conservatives supporting him with the "but he is strong on defense" excuse. Kerry in GOP clothing isn’t much better than the original. I hope a campaign of "Tough on Crime, Tough on unborn Babies" just doesn’t resonate.

Out of the current possibles only Sen. Brownback could receive my full support. But historically Senators just don’t make good presidential candidates and I don’t rate his chances very high. But I would certainly love seeing a Catholic convert whose positions don’t make me squirm become President. If it happened though I think Bush Derangement Syndrome would be mild compared to hatred aimed at a President Brownback where you would think his middle name had become "Theocracy." I don’t think the know-nothings would have anything on the type of rhetoric you would see associated with a serious Brownback run.

Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, the likely Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, affirmed his allegiance to Roman Catholic teachings yesterday as he addressed a conference of Catholic families at the Baltimore Convention Center.

"You will find that you cannot divorce your faith from your public service," Steele said, as the audience, primarily composed of parents who home-school their children, applauded. "There can be no conflict between God’s will and my duty as a public servant."

Steele, who spent three years in the early 1980s in an Augustinian monastery, has stated publicly that, unlike Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., he opposes abortion and the death penalty. Although he has marched in anti-abortion demonstrations, Steele has not openly lobbied to change the state’s abortion laws while in office.

Steele did break with the church to support legalizing slot machines at Maryland’s racetracks, a key part of the governor’s platform in the 2002 election.

"You can’t please everyone, but you can certainly make them all mad at you at the same time," Steele said, as the audience chuckled. "As an African-American Catholic Republican, I’m pretty good at ticking everyone off."

Mercator.net carries what should be the letter of reply to the long-winded letter by the President of Iran to President Bush.

Here is an interesting article on Lech Walesa where he calls Gorbachev an "accidental hero" and theorizes that the U.S. leaves Cuba alone to be a Jurassic Park of Communism.

Maybe it is just that I am a political geek or the fact taht the Supreme Court has become so disordered in its power that I was almost as apprehensive waiting for the news of the new judicial nominee as a kid on Christmas Eve. Well opening up my present this morning it does look like we received the right gift – Judge Alito. We had to return Harriet Miers back to the store for possibly being defective or at least not fulfilling what we had put on our judicial wish list. There is of course no such thing as certainty when it comes to a judicial nominee actually being an orignalist when it comes to interpreting the Supreme Court, but there are various levels of certainty and this pick is of the highest order. Democrats have been very good at picking nominees that stay stuck that don’t grow or what they would think of as shrinking. But the best thing about this pick is that we will return to the normal order of things. The last couple of weeks have been like Alice in Wonderland where Harriet Miers garnered mostly praise from the Democrats and mostly disappointment or out right anger by the Republican base. It was not NARAL that ran ads against her but a conservative organization instead. Harry Reid who approved of Miers has said about an Alito nomination that it "create a lot of problems." Ralph Neas is bummed and I am happy. Yes things are back to normal.

Being that this is a Halloween pick hopefully "Scalito" will put a big scare into liberals. Trick or Treat? Looks like a treat.

Via Southern Appeal and from a 1993 speech to the Executive Women of Dallas given by Harriet Miers.

The ongoing debate continues surrounding the attempt to once again criminalize abortions or to once and for all guarantee the freedom of the individual women’s [sic] right to decide for herself whether she will have an abortion," Miers said.

Those seeking to resolve such disputes would do well to remember that "we gave up" a long time ago on "legislating religion or morality," she said. And "when science cannot determine the facts and decisions vary based upon religious belief, then government should not act."

With Judge Roberts nomination as days went on the more I heard the better I felt about his nomination. The opposite seems to be true for the nomination of Harriet Miers. In a perfect world we would not be concerned about any personal philosophy that a nominee held since they would only be judging on what the law actually says in accordance with its original intent. There has always been some extent of judicial activism most notably the Dred Scott decision and it has been on the upswing in the last fifty years. Unfortunately this is why we now need nominees with some track record with regards to constitutional law so that we are better able to determine their judicial philosophy. It is too bad that this is now necessary, but necessary it is.