Your Public Square

For the last year feminists, Democrats and various other devotees of multicultural college-speak (i.e., the first Asian-American female sewer commissioner in the history of Los Angeles County, yeah!!!) have been telling Americans how impressed and proud they should be of Hillary Clinton's presidential candidacy.

And yet now, with another women - Gov. Sarah Palin - running for the country's second-highest office, these same people are doing everything they can to destroy this woman's historic run. In addition to the usual left leaning writers and politicos, female celebrities like Whoopi Goldberg, Oprah Winfrey and Jamie Lee Curtis have been making sure American women get the message that Palin "isn't welcome into the feminist club."

All of this was fairly clear to me right away. It wasn't Clinton gender's that was important, is was her feminist credentials: pro-abortion, pro-gay rights, clearly more identified with career aspirations than family (one child is enough for any woman!) as well as being a person shaped by 1960s-era politics and themes.

I then guessed that the attacks on Palin were centered on her solid pro-life credentials, or perhaps it was her Christianity (although I haven't heard her talk about her faith in any detail), but somehow I couldn't put my finger on the exact reason she was such a threat to the left. And then I read Deal W. Hudson's article in InsideCatholic.com.

Mr. Hudson sums it up all so clearly:

"The Palin factor, in this way, introduces something entirely new in American politics. Until now, a traditional woman was never envisioned as the leader of a major political party, because feminism was assumed to be a requirement for women leaders in cultural and political life.

The viciousness of the media attack surrounding Palin's nomination was fueled by its implicit repudiation of the feminine mystique. Whether they are aware of it or not, I believe the thousands of Republicans who cheered Governor Palin were expressing their relief at a woman political leader created outside the mold of Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi."

What if a Christian, pro-life, rural mom with five kids, who was also smart, attractive and professionally successful, became vice president? Young American girls might have a new role model for success other than the 60's era dinosaurs - now that's the threat.

Labels: Presidential Election

Catholics, of all of people, shouldn't be fooled by Sen. Obama's choice of Sen. Joe Biden as a running mate. Mr. Biden is pro-abortion, which puts him squarely at odds with the Catholic Church and those who are in communion with the Pope.

Mr. Obama needs the Catholic vote in places like Ohio and Pennsylvania, so Mr. Biden made a point of describing himself as an "Irish-Catholic from Scranton." This may be a true description in terms of cultural identity, but Catholics politicians who publicly endorse and vote for pro abortion legislation are betraying their faith and causing scandal.

Abortion is intrinsically evil and Catholic politicians must vote against pro-abortion legislation and Catholics citizens must vote against politicians who support abortion. A catholic vote for Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden is a vote against the culture of life that John Paull II so faithfully promoted.

Neither party owns the Catholic Church; to read the history of Christendom is to observe the Church constantly fighting for its independence from temporal authority. Yet the Democratic party - for far too long - has taken it for granted that Catholics will vote for them, even if their policies blatantly contradict Catholic doctrine. This isn't to suggest that the Republican party purely reflects all that Catholics social and moral doctrine demands, but that the Democratic party has been specifically at war with the American family and Christian values since the early 1970s.

Catholics need to listen to the gospel, their Bishops and the magisterium of the Church, instead of voting for the latest cultural Catholic who trots out on stage and tries to tout his Catholic identity.

In this election it is clear that Mr. McCain, though not someone who perfectly reflects Catholic doctrine, is clearly pro life and a much more suitable candidate for Catholic voters who are faithful to their Church and Jesus Christ.

Labels: Presidential Election

One of the disappointing aspects of Pastor Rick Warren's questions for Mr. Obama was that he forfeited his role as a Christian minister and played the role of an objective journalist.

Instead of giving Christians the opportunity to listen into a discussion that was entirely "within the realm of faith," he tossed softballs to Mr. Obama, letting him give the kind of stump answers that he routinely gives on CNN.

When(briefly)asked about abortion and stem cell research, Mr. Obama was allowed to lay down the standard progressive response that he believed in a woman's right to choose, though he was personally opposed to abortion. In a truly Christian discussion, why couldn't Mr. Obama be pressed on this? If an embryo is that which becomes a human person, is it possible that at ANY point it is NOT a human person? Did Pastor Warren fear offending the abortion supporters across the country with such a reasonable question?

When asked about evil, Mr. Obama reminded us that many evil acts have been committed by people with good intentions. A reasonable thing to say, and Mr. Warren should have used this logic to return to Mr. Obama's views on embryonic stem cell research. Certainly women who decide to have an abortion or researches who destroy embryonic stem cells do not have evil intentions, but the results are the same regardless: a life has been snuffed out and this is intrinsically evil.

This was the perfect forum for a heterodox Christian like Mr. Obama; instead of focusing on the moral issues of the day in detail: abortion, same sex marriage, sexual licentiousness, disobedience of all kinds, divorce and the decline of marriage and its damage to our society - he got more "social justice" type questions. Most of the issues Mr. Obama got to address in detail, were in his comfort zone: faith-based initiatives, orphans, taxes, war, torture, human trafficking (all important, of course) yet topics easily covered by a reporter from Los Angeles Times.

There is no question of Mr. Warren's robust faith, and the good work his evangelical church has done, but he missed the opportunity to have a truly Christian discussion between two self-professed Christians in a room full of fellow Christians.

The more Christians try to look, act and talk like secular Americans, the harder it will be for them to be the salt of the earth. We must recall that Roman civilization was converted by Catholics because pagan Romans saw how different they were from the everyday Roman. "Look at those Christians," they said. "Look how they love one another." And part of love must be to tell the truth, with charity of course, but without mincing the words of Jesus Christ and the Gospel.

Labels: Presidential Election

U.S. Presidential elections always serve to stir the pot on what Americans believe they believe about themselves; what they hope to believe about their national leaders and what candidates are hoping to have us belief about them (somewhere in there, thankfully, we get bits of truth that are priceless to our understanding of America).

Some criticized Mr. Obama early on in the Democratic primary race for not wearing an American flag lapel pin, which has become de rigueur for American political leaders since the September 11 attacks. Mr. Obama stated, quite reasonably, that patriotism isn’t evaluated by such accessorizing; yet it’s worth noting that the decision not to wear one for a presidential candidate must have been a conscious one, which begs the question of what Mr. Obama was hoping to signal to supporters and opponents alike by excluding the pin.

Now that Mr. Obama is the presumptive Democratic nominee, the pin is on his lapel and he has since made patriotic stump speeches with the Stars and Stripes filling the backdrop. The shift proves that even candidates from the far left, who may privately associate patriotism with nationalism or militarism, must at least make of show of national pride if they want the American public to take them seriously.

One conservative commentator (whose name I don’t know) recently summarized the message of Mr. Obama as: “America is the greatest country on Earth…And it’s my intention to completely change it.” The quote is funny, but it goes right to the heart of the American progressive message that appears, on one hand, to laud the greatness of America, but then seems determined to dismantle or change the very things that have made it great.

Pope Benedict XVI in his book Values in a Time of Upheaval writes eloquently on people’s expectations these days that politicians must promise “change” and that change is itself always desirable. “Politicians of all parties take it for granted that they must promise changes--naturally changes for the better,” the Pope writes. “So since the general consensus is that the essential task of politics is to improve the world, indeed to usher in a new world, it is easy to understand why the word ‘conservative’ has become disreputable…”

It appears that members of the left appear, once more, to be rushing the windmills of utopia, hoping that if the correct set of elites govern society then man can finally be freed from his ills, evils, failings and sins. The 20^th century produced atrocities on a historical scale because political elites in China, Russia and Germany believed that original sin was simply a fairy tale and that once the people “were properly enlightened” a perfect, harmonious society of love and congeniality would appear.

It’s not the intention of the author to put Mr. Obama in such a category. He is without much experience and arguably holds political views out of the mainstream, but he is someone who the constitution and laws of this country will manage as they’ve managed other executives for the past 230 years; but there are certainly strands of socialism that waft through his rhetoric.

There is no reason to question Mr. Obama’s Christianity or his belief in Christ, yet there is a strong hint of liberation theology in this statements and the religious company he keeps. And as many commentators have pointed out, liberation theology (particularly in the 1980s in Latin America) was often a way for communists to cloak their designs and beliefs under the respectability and traditions of Christianity. Mr. Obama is certainly no agitator, but it’s worth observing if his campaign attracts those with more strident socialistic beliefs, which nowadays are articulated in the language of climate change, population control, attacks on the family, etc.

Mr. Obama and those pushing for political change would do well to remember that things can always be worse; the liberal imagination focuses on utopia instead of appreciating the blessings that exist here and now. It’s not cynicism to understand that things could always be much worse, and that current institutions, values, traditions and morals may actually be keeping the forces of evil and disorder at bay.

For those of us with a personal savior and a religion already, we expect simply that our next president will operate within the boundaries of the constitution, focusing on the rule of law and the promotion of the common good. To quote a Brazilian immigrant and U.S. citizen on NPR who supports Mr. McCain: “We don’t want change – we love this country the way it is. If the American people want change, they should go out and buy a new suit.”

Labels: Presidential Election