Anti-abortion rights activists target “personhood” amendments
When Americans go to the polls for the congressional elections in 2010, in some places they may also be asked to vote on state ”personhood” amendments that would effectively define life as starting at fertilization or the “start of biological development.”
A proposal like this was rejected by voters in Colorado in November but anti-abortion rights activists hope to get similar ballot measures together in at least a dozen states for 2010.
This could have broader political implications as initiatives in the past on so-called hot button social issues such as gay marriage have brought conservative Christians — an influential voting block in the out-of-power Republican Party — to the polls.
One of the groups involved is the “American Life League” or ALL, a socially conservative Catholic organization that had a booth on Saturday on the sidelines of a summit of self-styled “values voters” in Washington.
Among other things, ALL would like to see an amendment to the U.S. Constitution (which won’t happen any time soon) “to establish that legal personhood is granted to all human beings in the United States from the beginning of their biological development.”
Communications director Katie Walker said, “It is a very simple concept that is fulfilling the civil rights movement.”
U.S. conservative Christians rally against Obama agenda
U.S. conservative Christians, a key base for the out-of-power Republican Party, gathered in Washington on Friday to rally the faithful against President Barack Obama’s agenda, including his top domestic priority of healthcare reform.
Obama’s falling poll numbers and what they depict as his ultra-liberal views on abortion rights, healthcare and climate change are galvanizing a group that could prove vital to Republican prospects of taking back control of Congress in the 2010 congressional elections or the White House in 2012.
Conservative activists see exploitable opportunities in Obama’s policies and performance that also can stir more centrist voters, such as suspicions of “big government” and the almost uniquely American skepticism of global warming that prevails in much of the heartland.
You can read the whole story here.
(PHOTO: President Barack Obama holds a rally on health insurance reform at the Comcast Center at the University of Maryland in College Park, Maryland, September 17, 2009. REUTERS/Larry Downing)
Vatican editor defends himself against U.S. conservatives
When Gian Maria Vian took over as editor of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano in late 2007, most observers yawned. No-one really expected much change at the staid newspaper. But within a few months, the paper started to rock and roll — at least as much as a paper like that can.
Slowly but surely, change has come to the 148-year-old mouthpiece of the Vatican, considered by many in the past a bland broadsheet at best and once called the “Catholic Pravda”, a reference to the communist party organ in the former Soviet Union.
It started publishing color pictures and more articles by and about women — not bad for an institution that is still a male bastion. It also began including more international cover, war cover and economic cover. Some of its unorthodox commentaries have also been lighthearted and provocative. To wit: it ran an editorial saying that perhaps the washing machine had done more to liberate women than the pill or the right to work. It post-humusly forgave John Lennon for once boasting that the Beatles were more famous than Christ. And, it finally set the record straight that no, the pope does not wear Prada.
Vian has become a player in his own right, giving interviews on a range of topics from Pius XII (Vian has just written a book defending him) to President Barack Obama. He came under fire from Catholic conservatives in the United States after he stated that Obama was not a “pro-abortion” president. He has now given a very interesting interview to Rome-based religion expert Delia Gallagher in the National Review. The interview, which is very readable and insightful, is worth reading in its entirety.
Gallagher, a Californian with a masters in philosophy and theology from Oxford University, has returned to Rome, where she started her professional career as managing editor of the magazine Inside the Vatican in 1998. She was a Rome-based Vatican analyst for CNN from 2002-2005 and was CNN’s Faith and Values Correspondent from 2005-2009, based in New York.
I would say it’s well past the time for Gian Maria Vian to go to work for the New York Times, the Washington Post, or CNN, and quit bringing shame upon the Catholic faith.
Have culture war issues returned to America?
America’s seemingly dormant culture wars reignited this week as the issue of gay marriage competed with the sour economy and volatile markets for media attention.
The emotive issue was thrust back onto center stage by Vermont lawmakers on Tuesday, who overode a veto from the governor by a wafer-thin margin, making the New England state the fourth in the United States where gays can wed. You can see some of our coverage from earlier this week here and here.
Known for picturesque foliage, quaint dairy farms and socially liberal politics, Vermont joins New England neighbors Connecticut and Massachusetts in allowing gay marriage. Iowa legalized gay marriage last week.
Vermont is the first to do so through legislative action instead of the courts. Social conservative critics of gay marriage often decry “judicial activism,” maintaining that unelected courts are forcing social change that most Americans do not want.
Courts briefly allowed gay marriage in California before voters banned at the polls.
Gay marriage has emerged as a key battleground in America’s culture wars. Opponents, who are mostly religious conservatives (evangelicals, Catholics and Mormons) see it as a threat to the “traditional family” which they say is ordained by God and is the foundation of civilization. They also see same-sex acts as a biblical sin.
as the downfall of the educcational system in america continues, these culturual issues in society become more and more impportant to people. instead of worry about things like the economy, national secuirty, and education that affect a nation on a broad level, them media, government, and people choose to spend time debating these petty issues that really have no bearing on the over all well-being of the society.
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Resident FaithWorld Expert
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This counting your chickens before they are hatched proposal will fail big time. It is well established in law, tradition and religious practice that fetuses are not persons. Even babies and children do not have the full rights of an adult. These adult rights are achieved in a series of steps and until they are parents are held accountable for children.
What is going to happen at the next census if this should become law? Are women going to have to submit to a pregnancy test to get a accurate count for the census? Maybe census takers will have to all be gynecologists. Or do backers of this nonsense propose that there should be two classes of persons? One that counts if an abortion is performed but doesn’t count at census time.
Most religions do not recognize fetuses as persons because they do not perform funerals for miscarriages and still births for example. They may say life begins at conception but they don’t walk the talk.
If a fetus is a person, then clearly pregnant women should be given a double vote for example. And who in their right mind is going to risk pregnancy when a miscarriage or some other injury to the fetus could result in murder or bodily injury charges?
The whole idea of fetus person hood gets the government into a very private and personal area. This extension of government and the law into a person’s private life and control of their own body is intolerable. Mommas and Daddies make babies or not and it is nobody else’s business what they do until after the birth of the baby when its existence and rights are obvious to everyone.