CatholicVote.com Speaks Out Regarding Obama's Record on Life and Marriage
From CatholicVote.com:
URGENT MEMO
TO: American Catholics
FROM: CatholicVote.com
RE: Barack Obama on the Issues of Importance to Catholics
1. Obama is undecided on whether life begins at conception - Saddleback Church Forum Aug 16th, 2008. Obama voted against born alive protections for abortion survivors four times, and voted against a ban on partial-birth abortion in the Illinois state senate
SOURCES:
http://www.bornalivetruth.org/
Audacity of Hope written by Barack Obama
2. Obama has pledged to Planned Parenthood to sign The Freedom of Choice Act, a law which would cancel every state, federal, and local regulation of abortion, no matter how modest or reasonable. It would even abolish all state restrictions on government funding for abortions. Catholics that pay income tax will be paying an abortionist to perform an abortion. It would also abolish state laws that protect Catholic doctors and nurses from losing their jobs if they refuse to participate in abortions. It would abolish requirements for parental notification and informed consent for mothers who consider the procedure. – Obama speech to Planned Parenthood, July 17, 2007 He is endorsed by pro-Abortion industry leader Planned Parenthood and has a 100% NARAL voting record.
SOURCES:
http://www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/campaigns/barack-obama-endorsement-111.htm
3. Obama would repeal the Mexico City policy, which bars federal funding for international nongovernmental organizations involved in abortion-related services and would pit the US against the Vatican on the international fight against abortion.
SOURCE:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php
4. He strongly supports the 1973 Supreme Court decision on abortion rights and says he will oppose any constitutional measure to overturn it.
SOURCE:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php
5. Obama has pledged to choose Justices with a Pro Abortion agenda and he voted against Roberts and Alito.
SOURCE:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php
6. Obama voted no on notifying parents of minors who get out-of-state abortions and prohibiting minors crossing state lines for abortion.
SOURCE:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php
7. Obama supports the destruction of embryos for experimentation and voted to expand research to more embryonic stem cell lines.
SOURCE:
http://obama.senate.gov/press/070411-obama_renews_su/
8. He voted yes on $100M to fund contraceptives for teens and sponsored bill providing contraceptives for low-income women.
SOURCE:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php
9. Voted no on defining unborn child as eligible for SCHIP a program that gives funds to states in order to provide health insurance to families with children.
SOURCE:
http://www.ncregister.com/site/article/15942
10. He opposed the federal marriage amendment in 2006 and also favors repealing the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which gives a state the right not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in another state.
SOURCE:
http://www.nationaljournal.com/njmagazine/nj_20080719_6257.php
A PROJECT OF THE FIDELIS CENTER FOR LAW & POLICY
Contact (312) 201-6559 or www.catholicvote.com/
Labels: Catholic Social Teaching, Culture of Death, Faith and Family, Families, Marriage, Obama, Pro-Life, The Catholic Vote, Voting Your Values
posted by Pro Ecclesia 3:46 PM
8 comments
8 Comments:
Does a Catholic have to support a marriage amendment? I don't believe so. I am an a Catholic, and think that homosexual unions are perfectly legitimate. The bishops and popes have it wrong.
"I am ... a Catholic ..."
"The bishops and popes have it wrong."
Sorry, but those are mutually exclusive statements. If you want to proclaim yourself a Catholic, then, on matters of faith and morals, you follow the shepherds the Lord has given to His Church.
I will continue to call myself a Catholic, and will call the bishops out when necessary. I am a Catholic because of the community of believers, not because of the bishops.
The bishops are subject to the same rules of reason as the rest of us. When they make bad arguments with conclusions, they are wrong just like anyone else who does the same.
All I am saying is that you can, and even the bishops can for that matter, refuse to acknowledge me as a Catholic. I won't, however, leave the Church over that. I attend Mass and receive communion every week.
I have respect for the bishops and popes as genuine people of faith, but I refuse to grant them any special epistemological status because of their office. I think the bishops and popes can be great leaders as well, but just like any other great leader they have the possibility for error. We have to get beyond defining "catholic" in relationship to the hierarchy. It is clear that Jesus and his immediate disciples would have rejected that notion outright. I don't think there is any justification, historical or theological, for such as doctrinal authoritarianism.
I can appreciate the fact that you do attempt to understand your faith. I simply disagree with your rigid understanding of what it means to be Catholic. I don't think that understanding is necessarily how it has to be.
I will continue to call myself a Catholic
And I will continue to call myself Lord and Protector of the Milky Way Galaxy. Saying it doesn't make it necessarily so.
What is a Catholic? Someone who submits his intellect to bishops or someone who is a follower of Christ? Tradition suggests the latter.
Well, under that definition, I needn't have bothered to convert at all. I was a "follower of Christ" for nearly 30 years before becoming Catholic.
The Church teaches what it teaches. The Bishops in union with the Pope are those charged with teaching (a.k.a. the Magisterium). You can accept that teaching as what the Church, in fact, teaches, or you can pick and choose, in which case you're just doing what Luther and Calvin and Henry VIII did.
I certainly don't expect to convince you, but I am taking the time to respond lest anyone unfamiliar with the Church happen to stumble upon this blog and happen to think from your comments that Catholicism is merely a more ancient version of Protestantism.
The major difference between Luther and I is that I am perfectly willing to stay in the Church that does not have it completely right. I am not going to leave the Church over my issue over homosexual relationships. I am not going to slander the bishops either. I just happen to think they are wrong.
I think the official stance of the hierarchy on homosexuality is based on anachronistic interpretations of a few verses. It is also based on bad biology; Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas were brilliant men for their time periods, but they knew nothing about biology. Thomas objected to homosexual relations because he thought that the "spilled seed" contained the whole of human life. It was an issue of abortion, based on bad Aristotelian biology. Yes, the bishops realize that is no longer a tenable stance, but instead of reinterpreting the Church's stance on homosexuality, they simply find new reasons to denounce it. Because of the idea of infallibility, they have to hold onto doctrines even when it is largely recognized that a lot of people would be better off if we left the doctrine behind.
I am not so much asking you or the bishops to change your stance. I am just asking for the respect that people, even Catholics, can have different interpretations. I cannot, in good conscience, support a freedom-limiting Constitutional Amendment. It is not fair to call my catholicity into question over that. Being a Catholic is a whole lot bigger than the issue of homosexuality.
More than one way to kill.
A political candidate’s position on abortion has become the de facto litmus test of morality, and of respect for life. However, the data show that economic policies, health care and many other issues may be just as deadly. Consider the matter of health care. For a study of life expectancy in the United States published in PLoS Medicine in 2006, Harvard Professor Christopher Murray analyzed 8 years of census and health statistics data. He found an astonishing 35 year gap - in life expectancy based on county of residence, income, and other social factors. In my home county, Fairfax Virginia, life expectancy is among the top ten in the US about 81 years. Life expectancy in counties at the bottom is only 46 years, shorter than that in many developing countries! This isn’t a new finding - many other studies reported similar results. There are several reasons for such early death, but socioeconomic status and access to health care are the heavyweights. Thus, health care in particular and many other policy differences between the political parties can have as profound an influence on life as abortion. Clearly, the moral justification for voting cannot be based on a single issue.
As a Catholic, I am opposed to abortion and efforts to reduce abortions must continue. However, the pro-life concept must encompass all causes of death, not only abortion. The positions the Democratic Party has held with respect to universal health care, taxation, unemployment, war and torture, all of which have life-or-death consequences, are more consistently pro-life than those of the Republicans. My conscience requires that I vote for Barack Obama, and I will do so with great enthusiasm and hope.
Peter Kaufmann, Ph.D.
Past President, Society of Behavioral Medicine
Secretary, International Society of Behavioral Medicine
The views expressed above are not necessarily those of the SBM or ISBM.
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