Posts filed under 'Life Issues'
If you can’t even vote to protect children outside the womb, then there’s not much chance that anyone pro-life will be able to justify a vote for you:
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — A new Gallup poll finds pro-life Democrats are abandoning Barack Obama now that more evidence has been presented that Obama takes a hardcore pro-abortion position. The drop in his support from pro-life Democrats also comes as John McCain has been more active promoting his pro-life views.
As the election draws closer and more voters are paying attention to it and learning where the candidates states, a Gallup poll finds pro-life Democrats are less inclined to support Obama.
The Gallup survey shows Democrats who say they are conservative on issues like abortion supported Obama at a 72 percentage point clip in mid-July.
Now, that level of support has fallen to just 63 percent — dropping steadily since then during a time Obama has come under fire nationally for his opposition to a bill to provide medical care for newborns who survive abortion.
Our issues are many in 2008, and each of them takes a piece out of the Obama narrartive. On life issues, Obama is an out-of-the-mainstream supporter of the most extreme, pro-abortion position. On foreign policy, Obama has absolutely zero experience. On defense policy, Obama has absolutely zero experience. On the War on Terrorism, Obama not only has no experience, but has also been proved absolutely wrong on the surge. On economic policy, Obama has nothing but the failed policies of a liberal past. On energy policy, Obama has mostly set aside those concrete steps we can immediately take to ease prices and set the stage for alternative fuels. Each of these issues works against Obama, and each of them will be used - in various ways at various times - against Obama from now until November.
Obama has the money, the friendly media and an anti-GOP sentiment in the nation at large - and yet the chances of him winning are, right now, no better than 50/50. We owe this amazing fact to good campaigning by McCain and the GOP, and the fact that the Democrats nominated the weakest man to be President.
UPDATE: Here are some stories which show why Obama is losing pro-life support:
Denver Bishops on Church’s Stance Against Abortion
Archbishop Wuerl on the Church and Abortion: It “Is the Same Teaching as It Was 2,000 Years Ago”
Cardinal Egan’s Comments on the Unborn: “They Are Human Beings With an Inalienable Right to Live”
Democratic National Convention: Obama Receives Ringing Endorsement from Planned Parenthood Action Fund President
US Bishops: Speaker Pelosi Got Church Teaching Wrong, Misrepresents Catholic Understanding of Life
Democratic National Convention: Abortion Leader Rails against McCain
Biden Selection Pleases Delegates, Abortion Activists
Tags: abortion, Barack Obama, culture of death, Culture of Life, John McCain
August 28th, 2008
And, no surprise, its Nancy Pelosi:
Meet the Press this morning:
Brokaw: …“I if [Obama] were to come to you and say ‘help me out here, Madam Speaker, when does life begin,’ what would you tell him?
Pelosi: “I would say that as an ardent practicing Catholic this is an issue that I have studied for a long time, and what I know is over the centuries the doctors of the Church have not been able to make that definition. And St. Augustine said three months. We don’t know. The point is it that it shouldn’t have an impact on a woman’s right to chose.”
It shouldn’t have an impact? Tell that to parents looking at sonograms. Look, it’s obviously alive. Nevermind. “Shouldn’t have an impact.”
Err, no…Nancy, you might want to check things out a bit more given that since the 1st century (and that, for you lefties out there, is from the year 1 to the year 100…which means this goes back to before the year 100, and thus very swiftly upon Christ’s ministry on earth) the Church has forbidden absolutely the intentional taking of an innocent human life from conception to natural death. Basing itself upon Scripture and the teachings of the Church Fathers, the pro-life opinion is well known, easily ascertained and absolutely obligatory on Catholics, and trumps the absurd notion that there is a right to an abortion. Next time you decide to study something about our mutual faith you might want to shy away what pro-abortion fanatics say about Catholic teaching and actually, ya know?, check with what the Church has to say…
The sad thing about this is that Pelosi is putting herself at horrific risk just to provide a dodge for Barack Obama’s cowardly answer on the question of when life begins. Sad, too, is how Obama is essentially setting it up so that confused Catholic women like Pelosi are forced to go out and defend him…
Tags: abortion, Catholic Church, culture of death, Culture of Life, Nancy Pelosi
August 24th, 2008
The other day at the Saddleback affair, when asked at what point a baby would be deserving of human rights, Obama responded, “Well, I think that whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade.”
From a theological perspective, the question remains a no-brainer:
Thou shalt not kill.
Pretty black and white, if you ask me. Especially given the innocence of the developing life in what should be the safety of a mother’s womb. So unless Barack Obama’s pay grade is below that which one would consider literate, it is my opinion that he is unfamiliar with his job description.
Obama’s theological ignorance aside, his reliance on the cloak of science from which to hide from his inequities hardly provides any meaningful cover.
Science is a discipline of facts, not of values. It is within the purview of exploring our ethics and values to determine how to interpret scientific data in the context of human interactions and the values of society. The question of what stage to assign a developing life form the title of “human being” and when to bestow all rights and privileges therein is necessarily a question of values, not of science.
Recognizing a child as a “human being” with the right to live from the moment of conception is most assuredly a values decision, just as assigning only live-born children rights concomitant with humanity is also a values decision.
But let’s take a closer look at the “values” involved in each of those mindsets, shall we?
In the former circumstance, assigning the title of “human being” to a child beginning at the moment of conception is a values decision, born of the belief that every human being, regardless of stage of development, or of ability to independently or otherwise function, is a manifestation of human life, must be held sacred, and is necessarily worthy of protection under the law.
In the latter circumstance, assigning the title of “human being” exclusively to children who are born alive (and I’m giving Obama wayyy too much credit for even this) necessarily stems from a value that the title “human being” and privileges thereof should be bestowed based solely on functionality; not on the mere existence of the child.
To assign humanity based solely on functionality rather than on merely “being” is a decision based on values, not on any “facts,” nor on any “science.”
When you assign humanity exclusively to born-alive infants, you have made the value judgment and choice to limit humanity and/or the value of a person based exclusively on functionality. At the risk of evoking Godwin, wasn’t that mindset pretty much the underpinnings of the eugenics movement? (Not ironically, Planned Parenthood’s founder, Margaret Sanger, was a big fan of eugenics)
Obama at once tried to justify his moral malfeasance by claiming both religious and scientific ignorance; it is quite apparent that he failed in his attempted justification on both counts.
If this is indeed the extent of his “pay grade,” it may behoove the Obamessiah to set his sights on a somewhat more lowly ambition than POTUS.
Tags: abortion, Barack Obama, Obama Deceptions
August 20th, 2008
The problem, my friends, is that Obama grew up in the political hot-house of the kook left, and now has to try to fit into mainstream America, and it ain’t working:
In response to the new evidence which reveals that Senator Barack Obama has misrepresented his position regarding his opposition to the Born Alive Infant Protection Act, the Obama Campaign has continued to deny that the Illinois state bill included a neutrality clause.
On Thursday, the ChicagoTribune.com posted a “fact check” on its website regarding Sen. Obama and his opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act (BAIPA) when it was proposed in the Illinois Senate. The site quotes a Susan B. Anthony List press release from August 12 as stating:
“Official legislative documents released this week show that Obama in fact presided over a committee hearing where “neutrality clause” language – identical to the federal language – was added to the Illinois version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. After voting in support of the “neutrality clause,” Obama then joined fellow Democrats to oppose the bill, killing it by a vote of 6-4, even after the addition of the ‘neutrality clause.’ The bill Obama killed is nearly identical to the federal version of the Born Alive Infant Protection Act signed by President Bush in 2002 – legislation Obama has said he supports.”
ChicagoTribune.com quoted the Obama Campaign’s response as:
“There are major differences in state and federal bills, including the fact that the federal bill included a ‘neutrality clause’.”
President of the Susan B. Anthony List, Marjorie Dannenfelser responded to the article saying, “The Obama campaign thinks if they continue to repeat their flimsy story about Barack Obama’s opposition to the common sense Born Alive Infant Protection Act that their thin explanation will become true. The reality is that actual legislative records directly contradict their story.”
She continued, “Here’s the truth: Barack Obama killed the commonsense Born Alive Infant Protection Act in the Illinois Senate, and his campaign continues its game of hide and seek. That’s because his position is heartless. There is no baby at any stage - even born accidentally - that he finds worth protecting. Where is his heart for the downtrodden when it comes to the most vulnerable human beings? It is no wonder he cannot admit to the truth of his ‘leadership’ as a State Senator.”
Heartless, indeed. As a matter of fact, that is what the whole so-called “pro choice” position is - heartless. To think that abortion - the killing of an unborn child - is a good or even reasonable reaction to the temporary condition called pregnancy is absurd. It is only the love of lies and the cowardice of our times which allows this position to be professed, and the people professing it to continue on in politics as if they held reasonable opinions worthy of merit.
What I wonder is just when sensible Democrats will realise that they have signed on to a monstrous crime - there is a great deal to be said for such Democrats ditching the far left and setting up a Christian Democratic party…a party which will advocate for great amounts of social welfare, but which won’t be beholden to the wickedness of abortion, nor in thrall to those who seek by one means or another to undermine the family and traditional morality. Welfare has all sorts of problems with it, but someone who wants to help the poor has his heart in the right place - but no heart at all if an alleged concern for the poor is joined to an unconcern for the women and children who fall victim to the abortion industry.
Tags: abortion, Barack Obama, Born Alive, John McCain
August 19th, 2008
There’s really no other way to put this:
A quick reading of the measure that will go before San Francisco voters in November to decriminalize prostitution easily could leave you with the misimpression that the measure is an exercise in fairness that demands that prosecutors go after men who abuse prostitutes and implement policies “to reduce institutional violence and discrimination against prostitutes.” A careful reading of the initiative, “Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Workers,” however, shows a measure that shields child prostitution and traffickers of human beings.
“If I had just heard from the proponents, I would probably vote for it myself,” said the Rev. Glenda Hope, whose San Francisco Network Ministries helped found the Tenderloin AIDS Resource, in the mistaken belief the measure is meant “to protect women.” But as the executive director of SafeHouse, a residential center that helps women get off the streets, Hope knows too much.
…the San Francisco ballot measure completely ignores the prostitution of children. The measure simply states, “Law enforcement agencies shall not allocate any resources for the investigation and prosecution of prostitutes for prostitution.” Astonishingly, there’s no exemption that encourages police to enforce the law for minors.
If the measure passes, the city is likely to become an international haven for pimps who peddle girls and boys, and perverts seeking sex with minors.
And where does that leave Bay Area youth? “They want new and young,” Jasmine, a former teen prostitute from Oakland who now volunteers for the nonprofit SAGE Project, which fights sexual exploitation, explained to me.
Thus the tail end of the sexual revolution - a ballot measure to allow men (and it will be almost exclusively men) to legally procure boys and girls for sexual gratification. When you de-couple sex from marriage and child-rearing, this is precisely what you get as was predicted back in the 60’s when the concepts underlying the sexual revolution first gained a mainstream foothold. This is absolutely no surprise at all - its digusting, but not a surprise. The piece goes on to note that some are expecting the ballot measure to pass rather handily as San Francisco is a “sex-positive” city - meaning, presumptively, that there is so much selfishness and demand for personal gratification that San Francisco may very well cut itself entirley off from civlization and descend to a level of depravity untouched since the worst of Nero.
You see, back when it was first seriously proposed that we de-stigmatize pre- and extra-marital sex and all manner of sexual deviation those who opposed it weren’t just a bunch of squares with sexual hang-ups who just didn’t want anyone having fun. Not, it wasn’t like that at all - the concept was opposed because it was already known what would come of it. It was known - not guessed-at, not theorised over; known. This is because, waaaay back when, Christianity was (among other things, of course) the cure for a society which had allowed sexual licentiousness to descend to such a level that child-bearing and -rearing was considered a burden and personal sexual gratification trumped all, no matter how sterile and un-fulfilling it steadily became. Christianity knew this in 60, 560, 1060, 1560, 1960 and will continue to know it in 2060 - sex is a powerful thing, and unless carefully contained within proper limits this great gift becomes a taskmaster and a means of self-destruction.
And now San Francisco proposes to legalise the worst of it - because people want it and want it now and exactly how they want it and everyone else can go to Hell as far as they are concerned, San Francisco may do this horrible thing. And then we’ll await the inevitible lawsuit, claiming that the right to privacy means that not only San Francisco, but the whole nation must turn a blind eye to the sexual exploitation of youth. How it will come out will remain to be seen - unless, of course, it turns out there is some remaining level of human decency in San Francisco and this terrible, anti-human initiative is defeated.
UPDATE: And the Democrats endorse.
Tags: child abuse, Christianity, Enforcement of Laws Related to Prostitution and Sex Wor, morality, San Francisco
August 17th, 2008
I missed all of Obama and part of McCain, but the part I saw of McCain was very good - clear, humorous at times, willing to stake out strong positions. While I don’t want to comment too much until I have a chance to read the transcripts, I thought this news report interesting in the contrasts between the two men:
DALLAS - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama side-stepped a pointed query about abortion on Saturday by “mega-pastor” Rick Warren during a televised forum.
Asked at what point a baby gets “human rights,” Obama, who strongly supports abortion rights, said: “… whether you’re looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity … is above my pay grade.”
He went on to reiterate his view that it was important to reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies.
Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who followed Obama onto the stage of the nationally televised event, was more blunt and more emphatic.
He said a baby’s human rights began “at the moment of conception … I have a 25-year pro-life record.”
Sorry, but that was a bit gutless on the part of Obama - he either believes an unborn child has no rights (and thus that elective abortion is ok), or he believes that the unborn child has rights (in which case he would have to switch to the pro-life side, and thus not be nominated in Denver). Obama’s dodge on the issue is a disgusting bit of political gamesmanship - he doesn’t want Joe Average to understand the fanatic pro-abortion positions he’s staked out but he also doesn’t want to give even a hint of pro-life opinion for fear of angering that tiny, but noisy and well-funded, minority in the Democratic party who view abortion as some sort of sick sacrament in the Church of Liberalism.
McCain, on the other hand, went right at it and told everyone where he stands - you might disagree with McCain (and he’d be the first person to say thats ok with him), but you can never oppose McCain because you are unsure of what he believes. In my view, always take the man who has the courage to stake out a position - even a wrong position is better than refusal to take a position.
UPDATE: Mark Hemmingway over at NRO’s The Corner chimes in:
I don’t want to get to overheated about what occurred tonight, but I do think McCain had a clear and decisive victory over Obama. It all comes down to something that Phil Bredesen, the Democratic governor of Tennessee recently said about Obama: “Instead of giving big speeches at big stadiums, he needs to give straight-up 10-word answers to people at Wal-Mart about how he would improve their lives.”
By that standard, McCain did extremely well and Obama did very poorly. McCain’s answers were direct, confident and, most importantly, serious. When asked about what leaders he would consult as president, he first suggested Gen. Petraeus, architect of the surge, who he correctly praised as one of America’s all-time great military leaders. By way of contrast, Obama suggested he would seek out the advice of a typical white person, er, his grandmother and his wife Michelle, who’s still trying to decide whether she’s proud of her country.
When asked “At what point does a baby get human rights, in your view?,” McCain answered “At the moment of conception.” Obama’s answer here was flaming-dirigible bad:
Whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity is, you know, above my pay grade.
That spectacularly inept metaphor is going to haunt Obama throughout the rest of the campaign. News flash: There’s not a job on the planet above the pay grade of the President of the United States.
As I said, I didn’t see any of Obama - anyone here see Obama and have a comment on his performance?
Tags: abortion, Barack Obama, culture of death, Culture of Life, John McCain, Saddleback Church
August 17th, 2008
And one does wonder what effect this may have on Presidential voting in November:
ProtectMarriage.com, the campaign favoring Proposition 8, the California initiative that would ban same-sex marriage, on Tuesday announced the launch of the official grassroots effort dedicated to supporting the campaign. The organization Catholics for ProtectMarriage.com is led by the Knights of Columbus, the California Catholic Conference and Catholics for the Common Good.
Catholics for ProtectMarriage.com is chaired by Bill May, who is also chairman of Catholics for the Common Good.
“Our strong Catholic faith teaches us the importance of treating all of God’s children with love and respect, it also teaches us that marriage between a man and a woman is the foundation of the family - the first school of love, peace and justice,” May said in a statement. “The ruling by the California Supreme Court nullifying the legal definition of marriage in state law was a shock to Catholics and other citizens who are concerned about how this will affect their own children’s understanding of marriage.”
California Catholics reportedly played a large role in the passage of Proposition 22 in 2000, which defined marriage as being between one man and one woman. The proposition was approved by more than 60 percent of California voters.
I’ll ask you non-Catholics - especially you liberals out there - to rely on my word here when I say that Catholics in California will vote very heavily in favor of this amendment…and it is a complete question of whether a hispanic Catholic in California will pull the Obama or McCain lever after pulling the lever in favor of traditional marriage? Could split their ticket, as it were, or could decide that while they are voting for preserving marriage they might as well vote in favor of the guy who also wants to preserve marriage, John McCain.
There is a lot up in the air here in 2008, not least being the question as to whether or not “values” will rate as high in 2008 as they did in 2004. The more they do so, the better for McCain - because the GOP owns traditional morality in much the same way Democrats own defeat in Iraq. Both sides have tied themselves too tightly to their positions to triangulate their way out of them - and I think that a least a portion of our 2006 defeat stemmed from the number of GOPers who ran afoul of law and/or morality in direct contravention of established GOP practice. But what worked against us in 2006 can work for us in 2008 - with the Democrats suffering the series of sexual political corruption scandals and a Presidential candidate pledged to very liberal social policies opposed to a GOPer pledged to a vigorous defense of morality in the public square.
Tags: Barack Obama, California, gay marriage, John McCain
August 14th, 2008
Linda Hirshman gives is a shot - first noting that the Democrats have come out for federally funded abortion on demand:
The Democratic Party platform of 2008 finally dropped its old abortion language (”safe, legal and rare”), which had asked that women not have abortions unless they absolutely must. The 2008 platform, just announced, says instead, “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.” Should a woman desire to bear her child, the Dems advocate prenatal care, income support, and adoption programs to help her there, too. But in the world of the new Democratic platform, it’s the woman’s decision to make.
She then winds up her argument by figuring that the reason abortion is viewed with distaste is the unwillingness of pro-abortion people to argue in favor of abortion, as an act, in relation to the conception that a woman’s happiness is dependent upon her ability to killl her unborn child at will:
In the absence of a robust description of the value of women’s lives—their ability to develop their capacities through education, to use them to achieve economic independence and political citizenship, to take on only the relationships they can manage—there is no moral argument for their “choice” to have an abortion. Set against the sound of nothing, the smallest moral claim of the potential human life looms large. Such an immoral act, moral thinkers conclude, must always be a mistake, the product of incomplete information or logic, and, in time, must produce regret, depression, and loss of self-esteem.
The wrong question will always lead to the wrong answer. Not coincidentally, the founding text of the Post-Abortion Syndrome movement is called “Making Abortion Rare.” The Democratic platform of 2008 offers an opportunity to put an end to this self-destructive cycle of Safe, Legal, and Rare, otherwise known as regret, depression, and self-denigration. In its place, it can finally argue for the value of women’s lives.
I guess as we argue for the value of women’s lives we will conveniently ignore the women we abort - their lives having no value unless, I presume, they are capable of having an abortion. There is something exceptionally nauseating in all this - the final plunge into the depths of the Culture of Death, the Orwellian transformation of a right to life into a right to kill. Hirshman, elsewhere in the article, stands aghast at the thought that a majority of people would ban abortions except in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother - and entirely fails to draw the conclusion that if a majority are so disposed, then there must be some substantial number of women (who, under Hirshman’s definition, cannot be free unless they are also free to kill their children) who believe that abortion is wrong in all or most cases (few pregnancies are the result of rape or incest, and the number of women who risk their lives by giving birth grows vanishingly small these days). There is no understanding on the pro-abortion side - just a bloody-minded determination to keep the practice legal and enshrined in law as a human right. This probably stems from a very large number of very guilty consciences on the pro-abortion side.
Hirshman, like all the secular liberals, fails in her worldview because she doesn’t understand what life is for. For people like Hirshman, life is for personal gratification. That which is irksome or difficult is to be shoved aside and the individual is to enjoy maximum resources to alllow for a maximum of self-gratification and anything which stands in the way of this is inherently a violation of the rights of the individual. But that is not what its for - our purpose here, on this world in the here and now, is to live.
Yes, I know, seems pretty simple - but living means living life as it is, not as one might wish it to be. One might wish that in life it rained beer, but the facts of life are that you’ll either have to make beer or go buy it, and the very fact that you have to do one of these two things in order to obtain your beer means that you’re life has a limitation - and this would be only one of ten thousand we each have. Some woman might not have wanted a pregnancy to result from that tawdry affair, but if one results then that is part of the life she is to live - and a wonderous, glorious thing it is, if taken with the right perspective. Once, you see, you decide to have a tawdry affair you also accept all that may result from that tawdry affair…death, jail, bankruptcy, lawsuits, venereal diseases, pregnancy, what have you. We’ve grown too fond of the notion that anything difficult is wrong - that what is right and good must be what is easiest and most pleasant…so fond of this notion have we grown that there are amongst us those like Hirshman, who advocate a permanent - dare we say, “final”? - solution to a temporary condition.
I feel sorry for Hirshman and those like her who have mired themselves in this mindset - there is not much I can do in the way of argument to reach them, all I can do is have pity and, of course, work to end abortion. This will be a great relief - not least to those who have locked themselves into advocating the practice.
Tags: abortion, culture of death, Culture of Life
August 14th, 2008
Europeans Moslems can’t seem to decide if gays should be executed, or not; rather run of the mill stuff for Moslems these days, but the real problem is how the government of Norway reacts:
For a case in point, I will refer the reader to an episode I’ve mentioned previously in this space — an Oslo debate last November at which the deputy chairman of Norway’s Islamic Council, Asghar Ali, refused to reject the death penalty for gays. When Senaid Kobilica, the head of the Islamic Council (which represents 60,000 Muslims), was asked where he stood on the question, he replied that he couldn’t give a definitive answer until he got a ruling from the European Fatwa Council. This week it was reported that he’s still waiting…
…What’s most chilling about all this, however, is not the positions of these Muslim leaders but the reactions of the Norwegian establishment. Or, one should say, the lack of reaction.
Consider this. After last November’s debate, it emerged that Asghar Ali not only was deputy chairman of the Islamic Council but was also on the board of the Oslo Arbeidersamfunn, the largest and most influential association within Norway’s ruling Labor Party. Asked about Ali’s views, the head of the Oslo Arbeidersamfunn, Anne Cathrine Berger, lamented that some people “can’t see the difference between a board member’s views and the organization’s views.” Despite scattered calls for his dismissal, Ali remained on the board. (When a new board election was held in February, Ali chose not to run again.)
That’s not all: Ali is, in addition, secretary of the 37,000-member Electricians’ and IT Workers’ Union…
…As for the Norwegian government, there has been no serious effort, as far as I know, to rescind from the Islamic Council its half million kroner a year in state support.
Does anyone in Europe realise that these peoples’ intentions are serious? They do propose to out-breed and out-immigrate non-Moslems and eventually take over and force through Islamic law. While European governments put the final touches on gay marriage the Islamists look forward to the day when they can hang all the gay people - the decision Europe made after World War Two to entirely secularise and welfarise Europe has proven disasterous on all levels, but the worst part of it seems to be that the will to live has gone out of the European population (or is it that during two world wars the best and bravest sacrificed themselves so much that there wasn’t enough physical strength to continue?).
There still is a living remnant in Europe - that small segment of the population which refused to surrender its Christian European identity. What remains to be seen is whether this remnant will be able to take over from dying secularism before the Islamists do. And we’ll also find out whether the United States will have to come to Europe’s rescue, again.
Tags: Europe, Islam
August 10th, 2008
Social issues are driving it:
The latest Associated TV/Zogby International poll reports a significant change in Catholic support for the leading presumptive presidential nominees of both major U.S. political parties. Zogby analyst Fritz Wenzel explains that the shift amongst Catholics is due to increased concern about “social values.”
In mid-July, Catholics polled by Zogby International favored Democratic Sen. Barack Obama by 11 percent. The latest poll now shows they favor Republican Sen. John McCain by a margin of 50 to 34 percent.
Zogby International said in a Tuesday press release that McCain leads Obama among all voters by 42 to 41 percent, as measured by a telephone poll of 1,011 likely voters. The poll, commissioned by Associated TV and conducted from July 31 to August 1, claims a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
On the other hand, an Associated Press/Ipsos poll conducted between July 31 and August 4 finds Catholic support evenly divided between both candidates.
Fritz Wenzel, a Zogby Polling Analyst, gave CNA a statistical breakdown of the 269 Catholic respondents’ answers.
About fifty percent of the Catholics favored McCain, while 34 percent favored Obama. Twelve percent were undecided, while two and one percent favored third-party candidates Bob Barr and Ralph Nader, respectively.
“Catholics vote largely on a set of conservative values and on social values. On social values McCain has a natural advantage because of his pro-life stance, compared to Obama’s pro-choice stance,” Wenzel told CNA.
“This is a dominant issue in voting for Catholics because of the balance of the Supreme Court. The other issues are also important. When you start thinking about the conditions in the Iraq War, that was a concern for Catholics earlier. It’s becoming less so, so voters are turning to other, more domestic concerns.”
The push is rapidly coming to a shove and I think that, in the end, a very large majority of devout Catholics will give their votes to John McCain. There’s just too much riding on this election to think that Obama is the man for the times. While a lot of Catholics very much want large increases in social spending (heck, in a way even I do - though I don’t want to pour it into the failed, liberal programs; I have other ideas), with the Supreme Court in the balance and the Culture of Life poised for some real victories under continued Republican government, the thought of a few more billion for social spending drops in the scales of relative values. Lets first save life, then we can worry about what to do with the life once here.
There is also in Obama that very off-putting arrogance and self-centeredness. While we’re not better than anyone else, there is in Catholic attitude a demand of humility, and the higher you go the more humble we want you to be. As Obama rises, so does his ego, and Pride isn’t a deadly sin for nothing, you know?
All in all, this year is shaping up to have a lot of surpises in store, and the fact that the Catholic vote might go decisively for McCain - and perhaps hand him the White House - is just one of a dozen oddities…but it is good that my fellow Catholics are wise to the needs of the day.
Tags: abortion, Barack Obama, Culture of Life, John McCain
August 9th, 2008
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