Posted on 07/05/2004 12:58:47 AM PDT by miltonim
DYERSVILLE, Iowa — As Sen. John Kerry campaigned across Iowa yesterday with Gov. Tom Vilsack, widely reported to be on Kerry's vice-presidential short list, both men dodged repeated questions about whether their joint appearance might be a preview of the Democratic ticket.
But even as he tried to avoid making news, Kerry broke ground in an interview that ran in the Dubuque, Iowa, daily, the Telegraph Herald. A Catholic who supports abortion rights and has taken heat recently from some in the church hierarchy for his stance, Kerry told the paper: "I oppose abortion, personally. I don't like abortion. I believe life does begin at conception.
"I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist," he continued. "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."
The comments came on the final day of a three-state Midwest swing, during which Kerry has repeatedly sought to dispel stereotypes that could play negatively among voters in the Midwest.
President Bush's campaign said these instances are further evidence of what it says is Kerry's propensity for misleading flip-flops.
"John Kerry's ridiculous claim to hold conservative values and his willingness to change his beliefs to fit his audience betrays a startling lack of conviction on important issues like abortion that will make it difficult for voters to give him their trust," said Steve Schmidt, a Bush campaign spokesman.
Let's remember the tragedy of 40 million American babies aborted since 1973.
"A woman has a right to control her own body."
"The privacy of the bedroom is sacred." (and, hence, should be kept beyond government or legal control)
"We can't legislate morality."
Kerry:"I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist," he continued. "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."
What are the key concepts, ideological and ontological presuppositions of such fuzzy claims?
MEDIA SUING TO OPEN KERRY'S SEALED DIVORCE PAPERS
More Bias and spin in the many newspaper articles to protect the liberal democrat. Kerry provided NO evidence of an annulment and he was married to Heinz, his second wife worth Billions, in the back yard of a home on Martha's Vineyard which is not ordinarily allowed for Catholics and there is also NO evidence of any RC priest who married them.
I wish the reporters would question him for the truth. Dream on.
Teresa on the Stump, Teresa Heinz Kerry, from Mozambique, PRO-ABORTION Catholic, UN Employee, etc.
Teresa Heinz Kerry, Drummond Pike and the Communist TIDES FOUNDATION
The Bible and homosexuality [Kerry thinks the bible is for homosexuality]
Kerry’s Dirty Deeds (How, pray tell, do they comport with religious belief
Catholic Pro-Abortion, Pro-Homosexual
Catholic and 100% Pro Abortion
CONGREGATION FOR THE DOCTRINE OF THE FAITH
DOCTRINAL NOTE
on some questions regarding
The Participation of Catholics in Political Life
Living the Gospel of Life:
A Challenge to American Catholics
A Statement by the Catholic Bishops of the United States
Faithful Citizenship:
Civic Responsibility for a New Millennium
Canon Law and Abortion
Sign Petition: To Excommunicate Pro-Abortion Catholic Politicians
The Gospel of Life--Evangelium Vitae
Herod's Heroes, Sign Petition
Kerry, Candidate and Catholic, Creates Uneasiness for Church
A Primer on Canon 915 Can. 915 Those upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to holy communion
Catholics Against Kerry
1400 Ecclesial communities derived from the Reformation and separated from the Catholic Church, "have not preserved the proper reality of the Eucharistic mystery in its fullness, especially because of the absence of the sacrament of Holy Orders."236 It is for this reason that Eucharistic intercommunion with these communities is not possible for the Catholic Church. However these ecclesial communities, "when they commemorate the Lord's death and resurrection in the Holy Supper . . . profess that it signifies life in communion with Christ and await his coming in glory."237
Can. 844 §1. Catholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone, without prejudice to the prescripts of §§2, 3, and 4 of this canon, and ⇒ can. 861, §2.
Sin to vote for pro-abortion politicians?
By Father Matthew Habiger, OSB
Kerry Will Hold Pro-Abortion Rally Prior to Sunday's Abortion March
Kerry seems to think there is a mandate for him to support the culture of death across the board. The U.S. Constitution authorizes no such mandate. That's purely a legal interpretation (not a proposition of Catholic theology or articles of faith).
We might suspect that Kerry will increase U.S. funding for pro-abortion policies abroad as well. And pay lip service to U.N. Population Control. Again, there is no binding legal or constiutional mandate for him to do that. He's lying. His position is not merely to observe some mythological "separation of church and state" edict. Kerry is hard-core culture of death all the way.
He's lying or...he's a moron and doesn't understand the contradictions in what he is saying.
Of course by definition metaphysics is involved in all considerations, including science and empiricism, as well as correct and erroneous ideas, so I'm not sure why you're invoking it here. Even an ignorant liberal only needs look up the word "metaphysics" to quell his surprise.
I disagree with your allusion that Kerry's leap of faith is just like any other philosophical stance. You're leaning toward a (self-contradictory) nihilist view by insinuating that all possible positions are equally arbitrary.
I will say that Kerry can only defend his own position by asserting that his views on abortion are mere arbitrary stipulations of the Church that cannot be defended on rational evidentiary grounds. Otherwise, he would be able to pursue his claimed anti-abortion beliefs without even referencing the Church. Unless, of course, he can defend the position that Church stipulations are the rational means of obtaining truth--a rather difficult argument to make.
These statements about the nature of human life or the human person which pop up in pro-abortion discourse are ontological propositions. Liberals tend to be rather underendowed (and underwhelming) in this area of cognitive exercise.
Too verbose. Lets just agree liberals are stupid.
All "science" involves a certain set of ontological presuppositions about the nature of reality.
Does science need to be in quotes? Science only needs the recognition of the validity of one's own sensory perceptions along with the fallibility of their interpretation. Science is a weak conduit to knowledge, where doubt, beyond the most obvious introspective epistemological truths, is ever present. However, it is the only conduit for knowledge that is justifiable in terms of reproducible interactions with reality. Almost seems ironic that a method that insists upon its own fallibility has led to mankind's most confident descriptions of reality.
Why??? Kerry's position and that of liberals focuses on the Catholic Church as making absolute and extraordinary definitional claims about human life. Liberalism's metaphysics hardly escapes the same categorial fever swamp.
The best thing a pastor (in his case the bishops) could do for Sen. Kerry's own salvation might be to show him the door until he sees the errors of his ways and repents. They clearly have a far greater obligation than the salvation of this one man, though. Not only may their silence in the face of the scandal of Sen. Kerry's unquestionably grave sin jeopardizes millions of other Christians who may fall into the same reprehensible apostasy, it could also permit the continued murder of million of innocent children.
If Sen. Kerry were and Atheist, his conscious defense of abortion given this revelation of his view of life would be an embarrassment to Atheists. The fact that he is permitted to remain a Catholic in good standing is unfathomable.
"I can't take my Catholic belief, my article of faith, and legislate it on a Protestant or a Jew or an atheist," he continued. "We have separation of church and state in the United States of America."
Mr. Kerry, what religion finds the practice of abortion acceptable? Couldn't this argument be made for practically any issue?
No need to quibble about my typing habits or highlighting techniques. Not sure that tangent illuminates much in this debate. Thank you.
"Science" can mean many different things. Scientia, episteme, laboratory empiricism, gnosis, the bureaucracy and institutions of positivist scientism and modern technology, the left-brain fetishes of Ivy League dorks and nerds, etc.
I am confused and wonder if you could help me out: I thought there was a big dust up not long ago about Kerry taking communion because he was FOR abortion.
If what he is saying now is true, why didn't he just say THIS then?
I suppose it is possible they are merely using the imprecise vernacular to communicate otherwise precise concepts, but I doubt it.
One can defend any individual's (even a woman's) right to control her own body based upon a self-interested desire for a society that enable's one's own such freedom. However, if there is anything that such a person would consider properly illegal (such as denying an individual's right to her own body), then presumable that should be illegal whether it is in the bedroom or not.
Also, it seems like it would take an absurdly narrow definition of "morality" that would exclude it from legislation. Isn't "all men are created equal" a moral statement afterall?
Anyway, any possible rational argument with a liberal is irrelevent anyway. What they all really care about is cold hard cash--yours--and they are prefectly willing to drop any pretence to self-ownership in order to get it. The most a thoughtful liberal (particularly environmentalists) will give you is the metaphysical primary, "other humans are all evil".
His position that to advocate, as a political matter, a pro-life position on abortion laws constitutes imposing Catholic "articles of faith" on non-Catholic Americans (in violation of this mythological "separation of church and state") is just plain wrong. Constitutional and legal scholars dispute the reasoning of the 1973 pro-abortion Roe vs. Wade ruling by SCOTUS. Not all who dispute this are Catholics.
I don't deny it. I was being a bit presumptuous in thinking that you were granting equal validity to religious proclaimations as to repeatable experiences with skeptical inquiry. I thought you were condemning knowledge in general, not just the arguments of Kerry & the libs. Sorry if I was out of line.
He is personally opposed to abortion. He understands this in Clintonesque fashion - (he, John Kerry, must never have one to conform with Catholic teaching). However, he thinks American women should be able to have abortions. And that to promote their having abortions does not violate Catholic teaching because he, John Kerry, (like Clinton's deponent in the "what is sex" debate) is not having the abortion. Maybe Fr. Drinan cooked up this weasle logic.
I'll throw in this for fun. By making abortion legal and allowing ontological materialists (atheists, as Kerry alludes to them)to have abortions because they believe that there is no soul and no afterlife, do not liberals make other Americans subject to the propositional claims ( the "articles of faith") of a deranged non-Christian cult???
"There is nothing sacred or of significant transcendent value in a human fetus worth protecting." (ergo, abortion on demand)
What is the basis of such a belief or notion?
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