Who Runs Right?
February 25, 2007, 1:00 pm
Posted by Cathleen Kaveny
The Christian Right is having a hard time coming up with a candidate for president.
What will happen to the Christian right if it’s Rudy v. Clinton?
Speaking as a member of the Christian Right, 3rd Party or abstaining. I can’t vote for either of them.
Some might go on the lesser of two evils approach, which I can understand, but I can’t in good conscience vote for either.
Here are some facts as to how the Christian Right upheld integrity. This is just one example. When Robertson made the asinine comment about the assasination and Delay was indicted. Out of their own mouths do we judge them.
Family Research Council
Robertson: No comment.
DeLay: “Tom DeLay is a great leader for pro-family public policies of enduring importance to the nation.”
Focus on the Family
Robertson: No comment.
DeLay: “Today’s indictment of Majority Leader Tom DeLay bears all the signs of a trumped-up, political witch-hunt. The extreme left has seized this chance to take a swipe at one of America’s leading advocates of family values.”
Traditional Values Coalition
Robertson: No comment.
DeLay: DeLay is “a Christian man” and prosecutor Ronnie Earle is exacting “political retribution.”
Christian Coalition of America
Robertson: No comment.
DeLay: “Yesterday’s indictment of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay on an unsubstantiated charge of conspiracy… [has] been a major objective for the past several years of the extreme left wing and enthusiastically supported by their sychophants in the ‘Old Media.’”
I thought Norquist’s “secondary virginity” comment was interesting. Having been subjected to the diatribes of my Robertson/Dobson/Falwell-loving Baptist in-laws for 23 years, I can tell you that there is no issue these people can’t think of in sexual terms or describe with a sexual analogy.
It’s creepy.
Will the media follow Rudy around every weekend to see whether he is denied communion at Sunday mass? Will he be declared persona non grata in the same diocese where Kerry was not welcome. Somehow, I doubt it.
Does Rudy Attend Sunday Mass?
That’s the same question I have, Joseph. I don’t pretend to know what’s in his heart, but I’ve seen Rudy described as a “supposed Catholic.”
Beyond any of his views on issues that are counter to Church teaching (e.g., abortion), Rudy’s complicated marital history may (and I stress “may–I’ll leave it to canon lawyers to construe the applicable law) be more than enough to disqualify him from receiving Communion. If I remember correctly, his first marriage, to his second cousin, was annulled after a decade or so of marriage. He then married Donna Hanover. They had two children, and he divorced her after a very public affair with his eventual third wife, Judith Nathan. The ceremony was presided over by the current NYC mayor, Michael Bloomberg. Nothing against Bloomberg, but I don’t remember reading anywhere that he is an ordained Catholic cleric. ;)
As I said, I’ll leave it to the Church’s experts to sort out Rudy’s compliance, or lack of compliance, with Church doctrine, but if there is a bishop inclined to deny Rudy Communion (assuming Rudy seeks to participate in the sacrament), then the bishop may have several hooks on which to hang his denial. As Eduardo notes, it will be interesting to see if Rudy’s Republican pedigree protects him from the Communion issue that engulfed Kerry. My hunch, however, is that Rudy won’t push the envelope on this. Why bother to make reception of Communion a potential political hornet’s nest? He probably figures that there are substantial numbers of Catholics who will overlook his position on abortion and his marital problems, and who will vote for him simply because of his law-and-order reputation and the “America’s Mayor” appellation that attached to him after 9/11.
And what about the Christian Left? Where are they? Do they have a candidate?
Good question. I don’t know if the Christian Left (what’s left of it) thinks it has enough control over the Democratic party to expect that there will be one candidate who conforms to all of their requirements. The point of the article, I guess, was to show that the Christian Right justifiably had those expectations under Bush. But things have changed.
I think the Christian Left may be the Commonweal subscription list. The base is too small.
As for Giuliani, he had a good mix of virtues and vices to be Mayor of New York at a difficult time–and I am not thinking especially about 9/11–but I do not think the same mix would make him a good president.
Recently someone quoted Adlai Stevenson–remember him?–as saying something to the effect of this: the problem with running for office is that what you may need to do to win may leave you unworthy to win. In our present style of two year campaigns for the presidency this is worth thinking about.