Posted on 11/12/2004 3:36:02 AM PST by Former Military Chick
My wife is a Democrat. Her family home in Chicago is lined with photos of the Kennedys. As a child, she remembers Saul Alinsky organizing neighborhood groups in her living room at the invitation of her mother and father. She volunteered on the Eugene McCarthy campaign. She worked as a floor runner at the 1968 Democratic Convention. Adlai Stevenson was a household icon.
My wife is a Democrat. Always was, always will be - at least in her heart. But she hasn't voted for a major Democratic candidate in more than 25 years. And therein lies a lesson for any Democrat who wants to understand the debris of the 2004 election.
I met my wife before I had returned to my childhood faith. One day I made the mistake of poking fun at those neanderthal Catholic views on abortion. What I got for my ignorance was a kindly but memorable tutoring on the sanctity of human life.
For my wife and her family, being a Catholic meant being a Democrat, and being a Democrat meant fighting for the little guy - literally. That included the poor, the homeless, racial and ethnic minorities, and the unemployed. It also meant defending the unborn child.
For my wife, arguing whether an unborn child was a "full human person" or a "developing human being" was irrelevant - or worse, a kind of lying. The dignity of the unborn life involved was exactly the same, whatever one called it.
In the years since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion on demand, my wife and I have struggled many times with the choice of voting Democratic. Our youngest son has Down syndrome, and Democratic policies often benefit the disabled in ways Republican policies don't.
But it's also true that children like our son are becoming extinct in part because the abortion lobby has a stranglehold on the Democratic Party platform, with all that it implies for legislation and judicial appointments. The easiest response to handicapped children is to kill them before they arrive. That's not a solution. That's homicide.
We can't build a just society while killing a million unborn children a year. No matter how much good we try to do, we can't outrun the effects of that most intimate form of violence against women and children.
Not so long ago, leading Democrats understood this. Robert P. Casey, governor of Pennsylvania from 1987 to 1995, embodied the deepest ideals of the Democratic Party: pro-worker; pro-minority; pro-economic and social justice; and also thoroughly pro-life, from conception to natural death. In arguing for the rights of the unborn child, he worried that the Democratic Party was becoming "little more than an auxiliary" of the abortion industry.
For his candor, the Clinton machine publicly humiliated him at the 1992 Democratic Convention. Other prominent "Catholic" Democrats - including fellow governor and media darling Mario Cuomo - looked the other way.
In his 1996 autobiography, Casey warned that:
"Many people discount the power of the so-called 'cultural issues' - and especially the abortion issue. I see it the other way around. These issues are central to the resurgence of the Republicans, central to the national implosion of the Democrats, central to the question of whether there will be a third party . . . \[The] Democrats' national decline - or, better, their national disintegration - will continue relentlessly and inexorably until they come to grips with these values issues, primarily abortion."
Bob Casey isn't around to see the 32-state crater his party left in this year's election. He died in 2000, loyal - to the end - to his party, his Catholic faith and his convictions about the dignity of all human life, born and unborn.
But after a decade of "ethnic cleansing" within the party by the abortion goon squad, is anybody left to learn from Casey's warning? Don't count on it. Hundreds of thousands of traditional Democrats, barred from any real voice in the party, have simply left. And the tumor within the party has only worsened as the culture war has widened from abortion to the nature of marriage.
California's Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein warns cluelessly that gay marriage was pushed too fast - as if the troglodytes in the red states (and, oh yeah, in Oregon) need more time to see the light. Others point to Bush's personality, or Karl Rove's evil genius, or John Kerry's bumbling campaign team. The list of excuses is endless.
The 2004 election wasn't about "personality." It was about character - the Bob Casey, moral values kind. Democrats used to be able to tell the difference. That they no longer can is why my Democratic wife, and millions of people just like her, had no trouble at all pulling the lever for Republicans on Nov. 2.
Francis X. Maier is chancellor of the Archdiocese of Denver. The views expressed here are his own.
Copyright 2004, Rocky Mountain News. All Rights Reserved.
Yup. Rural MO is full of 'em. They vote for pro-life Democratic state reps; pro-abort Dem governors, US congressmen & senators, and for Republican presidential candidates. It all goes back to Missouri being essentially an occupied state during the Civil War. General Sterling Price (Confederate general) was seen as a hero by much of the populace, as was Confederate guerilla Jesse James. But the state is slowly becoming more Republican and now has a Republican state rep majority.
The party has left its members behind. They unfortunately don't even know it.
Actually, I doubt that she's clueless. My guess is she just thinks they should have taken more time to make gay marriage a protected p.c. lightning rod, so that those who oppose it can be labeled bigots with impunity.
I agree. He was saying that Feinstein doesn't understand the other point of view at all.
This so called lady should be aware that there is a high price to pay when you mock God.
She may get by with convincing the fools - but she should be forewarned that there is a price to pay. Taking on God is an awesome challenge and she is not up to it.
Next she will borrow Slick's bible to tote around - but they will both pay for this in the end.
hmmmm, I am a disabled person, I was born with a degenerative condition that made me blind, the only thing the government has done in the past 30 years was the 1974 Rehabilatation Act and the 1991 Americans with Disabilities Act, not much has been done for the disabled and I don't see Democrats doing much for us the disabled community, oh yes stem cells frm embryos that will help us really well, uh-huh! place a dead baby in my eyes and I will have it removed! God bless the GOP!
Excellent article. I left my former party in 1992 right after Clinton took office for many of these same reasons. Unlike the woman in this article, I could not remain identified with that immoral socialist party. My prayer is that more democrats will awaken to the fact that their party has been hijacked by anti American, anti God scum.
As a former democrat, the title of the article is wrong.
I saw the tumor growing years ago. The tumor completed itself years and years ago.
One of my biggest concerns about our society is how little religious knowledge we have any more. Children don't even go to Sunday School at all to get just a little exposure to morals the Bible. Many churches preach psychology rather than religion so adults are not informed either. We make easy prey for someone to "talk" religion.
from 2004.
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