Posted on 09/17/2008 12:24:31 PM PDT by pgyanke
For my Friends, Family and Clergy,
Our political party system gives the voting public a political voice and a means to implement its priorities in self-governance. The power of the political party comes from the individuals they attract: the greater the numbers, the greater the power. When we choose our party affiliation, we add our voice to the party message, give our assent to their agenda and add to their power. The party platform, then, becomes the common mission of each party member. When was the last time we actually read our political party platform to see what our party supports? Although many voters try to look beyond party affiliation when choosing their candidates, in the end, it is the platform of the candidate’s party that will be implemented. The platform will tell you the real agenda behind the rhetoric. As Catholics, we are charged to fully form our consciences to make wise choices.
As this letter will outline, the two major Party platforms show clearly where the Catholic vote is not earned. In fact, if the Democrat Party feared losing 30 million Catholic votes due to its obsession with abortion and the destruction of traditional family values, the Democrats would most likely change their immoral policies. Now that would be real change! The time has come for Catholics to look beyond traditional Party affiliations and see the true nature of the political powers that they are electing.
In the current political climate, a vote for the Democratic Party is incompatible with Catholicism. Even the Democratic politicians who claim to "personally oppose abortion" are voting with those same Party players who are busy cementing this intrinsically evil act into our laws. For this reason, in the spirit of Ez 33:7-9, it is imperative that Catholic voters understand and are forewarned of their complicity in the policies which they are effectively choosing when they vote for their candidate. Unfortunately, a large percentage of voters today do not take the time to properly educate themselves on the issues.
The Democratic Party continues to count on nearly half of the Catholic vote while opposing our values and teachings on bedrock issues. They claim to want abortions to be “rare” and a “choice” yet oppose any action to limit the practice and discourage other decisions. Real change will come not when we carry signs at right-to-life rallies but when immoral positions become a losing proposition for any political party. Every Catholic must be educated on these issues and encouraged to vote for life and the family regardless of past party affiliations. Every Catholic must be shown what the politicians and political parties truly support—not be left to the mercy of slick advertisements and intentionally confusing rhetoric.
"The common outcry, which is justly made on behalf of human rights--for example, the right to health, to home, to work, to family, to culture--is false and illusory if the right to life, the most basic and fundamental right and the condition for all other personal rights, is not defended with maximum determination" -- Pope John Paul II, "Christifideles Laici"
According to Catholic theologians, there are five moral issues which are intrinsically evil and must never be promoted by the law. Intrinsically evil actions are those that fundamentally conflict with the moral law and can never be performed under any circumstances. It is a serious sin to deliberately endorse or promote any of these actions, and no candidate who really wants to advance the common good will support any action contrary to the non-negotiable principles involved in these issues.
1. Abortion
The Church teaches that, regarding a law permitting abortions, it is “never licit to obey it, or to take part in a propaganda campaign in favor of such a law, or to vote for it”. Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being, and therefore it is a form of homicide.
The unborn child is always an innocent party, and no law may permit the taking of his life. Even when a child is conceived through rape or incest, the fault is not the child’s, who should not suffer death for others’ sins.
2008 Democratic Party Platform:
Page 50: “The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.”
2008 GOP Platform:
Page 7: “We assert the rights of families in all international programs and will not fund organizations involved in abortion. We strongly support the long-held policy of the Republican Party known as the Mexico City policy, which prohibits federal monies from being given to non-governmental organizations that provide abortions or actively promote abortion as a method of family planning in other countries. We reject any treaty or agreement that would violate those values.”
Page 20: “We lament that judges have denied the people their right to set abortion policies in the states and are undermining traditional marriage laws from coast to coast.”
Page 38: “Because the family is our basic unit of society, we fully support parental rights to consent to medical treatment for their children including mental health treatment, drug treatment, alcohol treatment, and treatment involving pregnancy, contraceptives and abortion.”
Page 45: “We oppose school-based clinics that provide referrals, counseling, and related services for abortion and contraception.”
Page 52: “Maintaining The Sanctity and Dignity of Human Life
“Faithful to the first guarantee of the Declaration of Independence, we assert the inherent dignity and sanctity of all human life and affirm that the unborn child has a fundamental individual right to life which cannot be infringed. We support a human life amendment to the Constitution, and we endorse legislation to make clear that the Fourteenth Amendment’s protections apply to unborn children. We oppose using public revenues to promote or perform abortion and will not fund organizations which advocate it. We support the appointment of judges who respect traditional family values and the sanctity and dignity of innocent human life.
“We have made progress. The Supreme Court has upheld prohibitions against the barbaric practice of partial-birth abortion. States are now permitted to extend health-care coverage to children before birth. And the Born Alive Infants Protection Act has become law; this law ensures that infants who are born alive during an abortion receive all treatment and care that is provided to all newborn infants and are not neglected and left to die. We must protect girls from exploitation and statutory rape through a parental notification requirement. We all have a moral obligation to assist, not to penalize, women struggling with the challenges of an unplanned pregnancy. At its core, abortion is a fundamental assault on the sanctity of innocent human life. Women deserve better than abortion. Every effort should be made to work with women considering abortion to enable and empower them to choose life. We salute those who provide them alternatives, including pregnancy care centers, and we take pride in the tremendous increase in adoptions that has followed Republican legislative initiatives.”
2. Euthanasia
Often disguised by the name “mercy killing,” euthanasia is also a form of homicide. No person has a right to take his own life, and no one has the right to take the life of any innocent person.
In euthanasia, the ill or elderly are killed, by action or omission, out of a misplaced sense of compassion, but true compassion cannot include intentionally doing something intrinsically evil to another person.
2008 Democratic Party Platform: Silent on this issue.
2008 GOP Platform:
Page 52: “Respect for life requires efforts to include persons with disabilities in education, employment, the justice system, and civic participation. In keeping with that commitment, we oppose the nonconsensual withholding of care or treatment from people with disabilities, as well as the elderly and infirm, just as we oppose euthanasia and assisted suicide, which endanger especially those on the margins of society.”
3. Embryonic Stem Cell Research
Human embryos are human beings. “Respect for the dignity of the human being excludes all experimental manipulation or exploitation of the human embryo.”
Recent scientific advances show that medical treatments that researchers hope to develop from experimentation on embryonic stem cells can often be developed by using adult stem cells instead. In fact, there have been no beneficial treatments to come from experimentation on human embryos… there have been over 72 cures and treatments to come from adult stem cells. Adult stem cells can be obtained without doing harm to the adults from whom they come. Thus there is no valid medical argument in favor of using embryonic stem cells. And even if there were benefits to be had from such experiments, they would not justify destroying innocent embryonic humans.
2008 Democratic Party Platform:
Page 21: “We will lift the current Administration’s ban on using federal funding for embryonic stem cells–cells that would have otherwise have been discarded and lost forever–for research that could save lives.”
2008 GOP Platform:
Page 40: “Taxpayer-funded medical research must be based on sound science, with a focus on both prevention and treatment, and in accordance with the humane ethics of the Hippocratic Oath. In that regard, we call for a major expansion of support for the stem-cell research that now shows amazing promise and offers the greatest hope for scores of diseases with adult stem cells, umbilical cord blood, and cells reprogrammed into pluripotent stem cells without the destruction of embryonic human life. We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.”
4. Human Cloning
“Attempts… for obtaining a human being without any connection with sexuality through ‘twin fission,’ cloning, or parthenogenesis are to be considered contrary to the moral law, since they are in opposition to the dignity both of human procreation and of the conjugal union.”
Human cloning also involves abortion because the “rejected” or “unsuccessful” embryonic clones are destroyed, yet each clone is a human being.
2008 Democratic Party Platform: Silent on this issue.
2008 GOP Platform:
Page 40: We call for a ban on human cloning and a ban on the creation of or experimentation on human embryos for research purposes.”
5. Homosexual Marriage
True marriage is the union of one man and one woman. Legal recognition of any other union as “marriage” undermines true marriage, and legal recognition of homosexual unions actually does homosexual persons a disfavor by encouraging them to persist in what is an objectively immoral arrangement.
2008 Democratic Party Platform:
Page 52: “We support the full inclusion of all families, including same-sex couples, in the life of our nation, and support equal responsibility, benefits, and protections. We will enact a comprehensive bipartisan employment non-discrimination act. We oppose the Defense of Marriage Act and all attempts to use this issue to divide us.”
2008 GOP Platform:"While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia." -- Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (before he was Pope Benedict XVI)
Page 20: “We lament that judges have denied the people their right to set abortion policies in the states and are undermining traditional marriage laws from coast to coast.”
Page 53: “Preserving Traditional Marriage
“Because our children’s future is best preserved within the traditional understanding of marriage, we call for a constitutional amendment that fully protects marriage as a union of a man and a woman, so that judges cannot make other arrangements equivalent to it. In the absence of a national amendment, we support the right of the people of the various states to affirm traditional marriage through state initiatives.
“Republicans recognize the importance of having in the home a father and a mother who are married. The two-parent family still provides the best environment of stability, discipline, responsibility, and character. Children in homes without fathers are more likely to commit a crime, drop out of school, become violent, become teen parents, use illegal drugs, become mired in poverty, or have emotional or behavioral problems. We support the courageous efforts of single-parent families to provide a stable home for their children. Children are our nation’s most precious resource. We also salute and support the efforts of foster and adoptive families.
“Republicans have been at the forefront of protecting traditional marriage laws, both in the states and in Congress. A Republican Congress enacted the Defense of Marriage Act, affirming the right of states not to recognize same-sex marriages licensed in other states. Unbelievably, the Democratic Party has now pledged to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, which would subject every state to the redefinition of marriage by a judge without ever allowing the people to vote on the matter. We also urge Congress to use its Article III, Section 2 power to prevent activist federal judges from imposing upon the rest of the nation the judicial activism in Massachusetts and California. We also encourage states to review their marriage and divorce laws in order to strengthen marriage.
Page 53: “As the family is our basic unit of society, we oppose initiatives to erode parental rights.”
* All of the information in this letter was culled from “The Voters Guide for Serious Catholics” and the major political party platforms.
I included the links below. They are very powerful as well:
Chart showing positions of candidates: politicalresponsibility.org
Outstanding video here: www.catholicvote.com
Ping...
Thanks for the post.
I will simply add it to the "100 Ways to Smoke Our Trolls" list.
I have been a Catholic all my life, and I have never felt a need for unsolicited advice about "things I need to know" before voting; ever. Nor, of course, been so arrogant and clueless as to presume to advise other Catholics.
Any arrogant SOB who feels entitled to change my mind for me about that can...
Offensive?... Arrogant and clueless? This information is from the Catholic Answers voting guide and the political party platforms...
My purpose is to take the guide beyond simply discussing the fact that these issues are anathema to Catholics to showing where the political parties stand on each one. You have a problem with someone doing research and displaying information?
BTW, regarding “advising other Catholics”... you do realize that nearly 50% of Catholics vote for the very things the Church is fighting against, right? Clearly some (maybe not you) could use the information when forming their consciences...
Nicely done. Save under: “Why Catholics shouldn’t vote Democrat.”
Thank you.
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