Good News!...and not so good...

As a follow-up to my ranting about the Democratic party, I was pleased to find that such an organization exists as Democrats for Life of America.

Their website is here. Why can't they show up in my district?!

Of course, there's also the small consideration of other elements of the Democratic platform. Sure, these Democrats are pro-life, but where do they stand on protecting marriage & the family? Will they vote down embryonic stem-cell research? Would they have appointed conservative Justices who interpret the law correctly? These shouldn't be 'Republican' issues. And they shouldn't be considered any less problematic than global warming.

I suppose in many ways, it does come down to whose morals you support. Opposition to unjust war, protection of workers, solidarity with the poor, and stewardship of the environment are only threads within the fabric of Catholic Social Teaching, but I hesitate to give the Democratic party gold stars on all counts.

Republican policies frequently ignore the dignity of the human person, but isn't a re-definition of what it means to possess human dignity the greater threat to our civility? Republican policies support a military that violates trust-- yet Democrats will not hold inviolate the sanctity of marriage. Which is the greater threat to our civility? I want to elect persons who will commit to legislating morality that promotes the common good.

Where is the party that upholds the sublime truths taught by the Magisterium of the Catholic Church? It will simply never exist. Defense of the unborn is not only a human rights intiative; legislated abortion is the very epitome of moral vaccuum. I don't want to support any candidate who refuses to acknowledge that sucking unborn children into a waste receptacle constitutes murder. Shouldn't this be a no-brainer regardless of partisan pedigree?

In the meanwhile, so many issues will come and go. But it sits in our legal precedent that children are defined as the property of their mother and their fate is subject to her emotional and financial sense of well-being. And laws are precisely the sorts of things we ask our elected officials to change. We can't expect them to change the world, save the planet, or make people virtuous. But we can demand that they uphold the Consitutional right to life. We can demand that they cease defining human beings as property.