Comments for Southern Appeal

Comment on “Chaplain Refuses Kmiec Communion” by Elizabeth

Elizabeth — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:02:41 +0000

In this piece, Kmiec encourages Obama to promote adoption as an “abortion alternative.” As an adoptive parent, I am fully in favor of the promotion of adoption. However, Kmiec’s suggestion misses the point. Adoption can’t simply be seen as an “alternative to abortion.” They are not equally valid, or good, choices. And, I find it hard to believe that any pro-abortion politician (and contrary to Kmiec’s assertion, that is exactly what Obama is) would suggest otherwise. Unless they are willing to lose the pro-abortion lobby’s support ($$), they are not going to promote adoption as a better alternative to abortion (or depict abortion as a “bad” choice). Therefore, if Obama takes Kmiec up on his suggestion, he will likely promote adoption as simply an alternative to abortion - as one a woman should consider (in consultation with her clergyman and doctor, of course).

The reality is that most women don’t choose adoption because they think the guilt of “giving up” their child would be worse than that associated with aborting the child. See http://www.guttmacher.org/media/nr/2008/01/07/index.html. For this reason, most crisis pregnancy centers do not strongly promote adoption for fear that it will drive the woman to choose abortion.

In order for adoption to become the preferable choice to abortion, we need a complete paradigm shift in the culture, and nothing Obama (or other pro-”choice” politicans) says promotes this. If Obama thinks abortion is a valid choice for a woman to make, how is he going to convince that same woman to make the very difficult decision to make an adoption plan? After all, she is likely to think that adoption is A MORE DIFFICULT CHOICE than abortion!! What is there in the culture that Obama represents to support such a selfless, heroic decision?

Nothing.

Kmiec claims that Catholics can support Obama. As Catholics, we are called to proclaim Truth - not to be willing to settle for the relativistic terms of the culture. Adoption and abortion are not alternatives. Abortion is the unjust killing of an innocent life. Adoption respects the child’s right to life, and represents a selfless decision to make a plan to find a loving and secure home for one’s child. Adoption will only become more widely acceptable if our society understands that abortion is not an acceptable alternative, and if we reach out to concretely help women in need. Our culture, and yes, Senator Obama, our laws, must “guarantee respect for the inalienable dignity and rights of each man, woman and child in our world – including the most defenseless of all human beings, the unborn child in the mother’s womb” (from Pope Benedict’s Sermon on the Mound at Yankee’s Stadium). This is the only true choice.

Comment on On loving your political opponent by Feddie

Feddie — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:00:12 +0000

Jay, Rebunga, and Paul-

I don’t disagree with any of the points y’all have made.

Comment on On loving your political opponent by Paul, Just This Guy, You Know?

Paul, Just This Guy, You Know? — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:54:49 +0000

I’ll readily admit that the vast majority of people who’ll be lining for licenses to “marry” have no malice in their hearts.

But the people who are driving this bus? They’re out to destroy our culture, and they’ve chosen the destruction of marriage as an effective vehicle to reach their goal.

I have no doubt of this.

Comment on On loving your political opponent by Rebunga

Rebunga — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:18:32 +0000

If youre asking me whether I will ever accord a gay couple the same respect I have for a hetero couple, the simple answer is “every day of the week.” Ive got a gay couple living on my street, and they are just as much a part of our community as any other.

If you’re asking me whether I consider the gay couple “married,” the answer is “never.” Marriage means a very specific thing - not just a long term civil contract between two “people” that accrues civil benefits and legal effects. It obviously has religious and sociobiological elements that can only be satisfied by a man and a woman.

I dont consider them “married” any more than I consider “up” “down.” You can call it “”marriage”; you can call it “civil union;” you can call it “Curley Hallman;” It will never be marriage to me.

Neverthelesss, as far as the official legal record of human beings is concerned, what the courts say an a final judgment is “reality.” So for example, as far as the State of California is concerned, O.J. Simpson is innocent of murder, and two people of the same sex have a fundamental right to be called “married.”

Rebunga lives in a very clear cut world and he sleeps very well at night. I dont imagine that many gay couples are worried over the fact that my kind of people don’t accord their marriages the same respect due to traditional marriege.

Comment on On loving your political opponent by Jay Anderson

Jay Anderson — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:16:50 +0000

“… I simply do not believe that the overwhelming majority of homosexuals are motivated by malice. They seek what every person seeks: love.”

Feddie,

I agree that we should love our political opponents and assume that they act with pure intentions and not out of malice.

Nonetheless, I think we need to face our opponents with eyes wide open as to the ultimate ends of their agenda. Todd Aglialoro writes today at InsideCatholic:

I’d like to recommend Dale O’Leary’s book, One Man, One Woman, as the best elucidation both of the philosophy behind the gay agenda and of the roots of same-sex attraction, I have ever seen.

In it she shows, with evidence from the horses’ mouths, that although at the grassroots level there is a small contingent of same-sex couples who do desire “marriage” in a sense more or less comparable to or derivative of traditional heterosexual marriage, at the activist level the barely-veiled intention is the destruction of marriage. The ideologues who drive the movement hate marriage — with its traditional goods of fidelity, indissolubility, procreation, conjoinment of assets — and have little but disdain for same-sex couples that want, more or less, to conform themselves to that outdated, “heteronormative” construct. (Even as, it should be noted, they shrewdly maneuver such couples in front of the camera in order to give the movement a sympathetic and unthreatening face, providing cover for their own more radical plans.)

Comment on On loving your political opponent by Gabe

Gabe — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:42:24 +0000

Right on, Feddie.

Comment on On loving your political opponent by JonathanR.

JonathanR. — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:36:43 +0000

“but I simply do not believe that the overwhelming majority of homosexuals are motivated by malice.”

I think it was St. Thomas who said that every human being desires good, which is in itself a reflection of the higher dignity of our human nature. However, the fall of man has rendered him blind, causing him to seek out corrupted goods to reflect his corrupted nature. Thus, gay marriage is a reflection of probably the greatest corruption of all, the corruption of love itself. (I think the same can be said of mercy killing / euthanasia.)

That in itself ought to strengthen our resolve to hold the line. And there should be no hatred on our part, for the beauty of our cause does not deserve to be defended by ugly means. Besides, whatever happens on the ground here, we are blessed with the certainty that come Judgment Day, (no, not the Skynet one) we will have won where it counts.

Comment on “Chaplain Refuses Kmiec Communion” by Jay Anderson

Jay Anderson — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:34:23 +0000

Ed Peters says Kmiec is owed an apology because the priest wrongly denied him Communion:

http://www.canonlaw.info/2008/05/was-prof-douglas-kmiec-really-denied.html

Comment on On loving your political opponent by Marriage Decision in California | The Cranky Conservative

Marriage Decision in California | The Cranky Conservative — Fri, 16 May 2008 13:23:29 +0000

[...] post about an opinion that I have not read, and have no time to read in the near future, I merely link to Feddie and say, “What he [...]

Comment on Gay “marriage” comes to California by Roger H.

Roger H. — Fri, 16 May 2008 06:19:31 +0000

It’s now even more imperative that the California Marriage protection Act qualify for the ballot this November.