Posted on 05/04/2004 7:05:46 PM PDT by neverdem
Should Kerry be denied communion?
I am in favor of the First Amendment guarantee of free speech, with one exception. Nobody should be permitted to say flat-out that “the government should stay out of the bedrooms of America.” What if a civil-rights hate act was being conducted in the bedroom? For that matter, what if Daddy was forcing his way with a 10-year-old girl? Or Mom was starving her 10-month-old boy?
The phrase is an idiotic invocation of a taboo whose single purpose, in current usage, is to illegitimize concern about sexual activity. Said John Kerry, “Abortion should be rare, but it should be safe and legal because the government should stay out of the bedrooms of America.” Just by the way, the bedrooms of America aren’t where abortions are had, they’re where seeds are planted that lead to abortions.
That government should stay out of the bedrooms of America has come to mean an ever-increasing area of official non-concern. There is to be no concern over sodomy in the bedroom. But are there limits? What about incest? We know that infanticide is just plain illegal, even if undertaken in the bedroom—provided the infant is at least one day old. If the infant is minus one day old, it’s all right to snuff him/her out, and go to church on Sundays.
We bump now into a second maxim, to which insufficient thought is given. “John Kerry is a believing and practicing Catholic,” said his campaign spokesman David Wade. “His faith has played an important role in his life but he also believes in the separation of church and state.”
Well, so do us guys, Wade. But when John Kerry approaches the altar rail to present himself for communion, why are so many people saying that he should be given communion? If we have a separation of church and state, then the right of the Church is to decide who does and who does not receive communion. If you are saying that a member should be given communion even if he counsels laws that violate rights believed by the church to be universal, then you are not arguing the separation of church and state. You are arguing the supremacy of the state. State believes abortion okay, therefore, Church must not discriminate against anyone who also says it is okay.
Or is the complaint against the Catholic Church that it is laying down laws not only for Catholics, but also for non-Catholics? But if the moral commandments of a church extended only to the treatment of its own members, then it would be fine to ignore the rights of people who were merely, oh, Hindus, or Jews. It is another thing, of course, to limit the sanctions of a church to its own members. A Catholic bishop would be presumptuous if he announced that Al Franken would not be welcome at the communion rail. It is widely understood, and not resented, that only Catholics go to the Catholic communion rail, the same kind of thing as only Democrats go to Democratic caucuses.
But now we have a Nigerian cardinal in the Vatican who has reaffirmed the right of an American Catholic bishop to deny communion to someone who votes in favor of permissive abortion laws. The organization of the Catholic Church is centralized. The Pope is the head of the Church, but bishops are vested with authority which is theirs, and includes, in this case, the authority to deny communion to those who flout precepts thought by the bishops to be central to moral obligations. The difference between giving communion to John Kerry, presidential candidate, and giving communion to John Doe, who voted for a local abortion law, is that Kerry is a public figure, and therefore a transgressor whose transgression is a public act, inviting reprisal, like the protester who draws attention to himself by proclaiming his defiance. To upbraid a bishop for denying communion to a public figure who espouses permissive abortion laws is to upbraid him for upholding the doctrine of the separation of church and state. If the churchman allows himself to be governed by state practices, he violates that separation.
There's a difference, though, between saying that the Catholic Church should be allowed to do something, and saying that it should in fact do it. It would be wrong for the government to mandate that the Catholic Church give communion even to those who promote abortion. That does not, in and of itself, however, imply that it would be wrong for the Catholic Church to give communion to such people.
Personally, I think it entirely reasonable that the Catholic Church withhold communion from those who openly advocate or promote abortion. Many cases, however, are apt to be less than clear.
For example, if a certain state bill provides a certain amount of funding for abortion, but provides a greater amount for prenatal care (including 4D ultrasounds), adoption services, and the promotion of adoption services, would voting for such a bill be considered to "promote" adoption or would the other parts of the bill do enough to discourage adoption to outweigh the first part?
Tricky issue, but it could probably IMHO be resolved by the priest asking what the person's intention was. If the person answers truthfully that his intention was to discourage abortion, he should not be denied communion (IMHO). If he dishonestly answers that way, the priest should not deny him communion but it will be his own deceit, rather than the priest's actions, which desecrate the Eucharist.
Why not?
As to John Stickboy's positions on issues, his boss is the voters like me.
Not really, insofar as it means that actions performed by consenting adults in the privacy of their own home are no business of government unless they materially affect other people who are not consenting adults, and unless such effect on those people was reasonably foreseeable.
If two (or more) consenting adults are engaging in dubious relations within a soundproof room with the door locked and blinds drawn, they should not be prosecuted for such behavior just because a cop breaks in unexpectedly on a no-knock drug warrant. By contrast, if people were engaged in such behavior in a spot which was visible from outside the dwelling or even from an unlocked front door(*), one could easily foresee that the behavior might be seen by those who didn't wish to see it, and as such prosecution might be appropriate.
(*) I'm sure I'm not the only person who's accidentally opened an unlocked door to the wrong dwelling. That unlocked doors will get opened by people who didn't mean to is foreseeable if not commonplace.
Right. And I would argue that such cases should be thrown out on the basis that the suspect should not have reasonably foreseen that he would be bugged.
I have no problem with laws which forbid sodomy (or even indecency) in circumstances where a reasonable person would expect to come to public attention; that the government finds out about such actions would constitute prima facie evidence that they were performed without necessary discretion. Such evidence should be rebuttable, however, by a showing that the actions came to the government's attention in a manner the actor or actors should not reasonable have foreseen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.