Not that long ago, there was no love lost between evangelicals and the Catholic Church. But underscoring how politics makes strange bedfellows (in this case, chaste and heterosexual), they are now united in their prayers for the defeat of Barack Obama, as articulated by Mark Smith, president of Ohio Christian University and the Ohio branch of the "Faith & Freedom Coalition" a group that, like Catholic bishop Daniel Jenky, has compared Obama to Hitler. This morning, Smith appeared on Fox & Friends where he was interviewed by Steve Doocy who, as a devout conservative Catholic, is part of Fox News' undying support for the Catholic Bishops' opposition to the Obama administration's birth control mandate. Doocy, along with fellow Fox propagandist and devout conservative Catholic Peter Johnson Jr., has done a *plethora of segments in which he validated the bishop's talking points. And clever fellow that he is, he was able to work in more validation this morning!
Doocy reported that the evangelical vote could help Mitt Romney win the election. He introduced his guest, the Rev. Dr. Mark Smith. Smith is a head honcho of the Ohio branch of the "Faith & Freedom Coalition," a group founded by Jack Abramoff pal and former head of the Christian Coalition Ralph Reed. Their new voter's guide would seem to violate that Commandment about lying as it contains three big lies about Medicare, "cap and tax," and supposed government funded abortion. But that didn't seem to be a problem for Smith who said that the evangelical opposition to Obama is because he "endorsed same sex marriage and took away a lot of religious liberties with the affordable care act." He gushed over how "engaged" the rural, evangelicals and their pastor's are. He mentioned that the aforementioned voter guides are being distributed.
Doocy worked in the requisite Fox promotion of the US Conference of Catholic Bishop's opposition to the HHS birth control mandate: "I know that there are a number of Catholics who are reallllly upset because one of the mandates says that, uh, employers, aside from churches, even though they may have connections to, uh, religious institutions like Catholic Charities, like schools and things like that. They have to pay for, you know, contraceptives and things like that. The Catholic Chuch has hauled the government court over that. Sst, sst, you're infringing on our religious liberties. So you're saying that you're watching what this administration is doing to the Catholics and saying "wait a minute, way wait a minute, we're all in this together."
Smith agreed and stated that his group is working with Catholics who are "engaged." He noted that "Catholic bishops are issuing letters about the election and ordering their priests to read them." (It's just one bishop, the aforementioned Daniel Jenky who, in the letter, compares pro-choice Catholic politicians to the Jews who rejected Christ) Smith said that the evangelical pastors became "engaged" after they "watched what has happened these last four years" during which President Obama's left leanings "impacted the church and all of the biblical stances of the church on marriage." He informed us that there is veritable horde of Ohio "values voters" who are having metaphorical orgasms over an Obama defeat. Doocy scrunched up as face as he agreed about the Ohio enthusiasm for Romney because of yesterday's "extraordinary" Romney rally in Ohio.
What neither Doocy nor Smith said is that IRS complaints have been filed against Bishop Jenky and the US Conference of Catholic Bishops. While Doocy said that Catholics are "really upset" about the birth control mandate, he didn't mention that "not all Catholics are comfortable with the church’s involvement in politics this year" and that the gay marriage issue has deeply divided Catholics. He certainly didn't say that there is a group of Washington Catholics who support gay marriage. But he did, once again, reduce the HHS issue to a simplistic message of how requiring the Catholic Church to provide coverage for birth control is bad which is, of course, the message of the bishops. I don't know if Doocy has earned any get out of Purgatory free cards; but I can safely assume that he's earned the undying gratitude of Roger Ailes and Cardinal Dolan, so it's all good...
*here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here,
Churches that want a say in politics like the rest of us should pay taxes like the rest of us.
At services last weekend, Father Richard T. Lawrence, pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church, first read parishioners Baltimore archbishop William Loriâs letter urging them to vote against Question 6, which would affirm the marriage equality law passed by the Maryland legislature. But he followed that with his own thoughts on the subject, according to the National Catholic Reporter.
Lawrenceâs statements were a hit with parishioners, who gave him a standing ovation, notes the Reporter, and he subsequently posted the text on the parishâs website. However, Archbishop Lori was not pleased, and he asked Lawrence to remove the statements from the site, reports BuzzFeed. Lawrence did so.
(Full article can be read at www.advocate.com/politics/marriage-equality/2012/11/02/baltimore-catholic-priest-takes-risk-supporting-marriage )
Not surprisingly, the majority of comments are positive. Of course, since “The Advocate” decided to move its comments system to Facebook, any moron with a Facebook account can post a comment (ironically, the site went to Facebook-only comments so that people would be prevented from “hiding” behind a fake name; one of the most negative comments on this story comes from a poster using an obviously fake name—so much for “owning your comments”). And there have been a LOT of homophobic comments posted (IMO, far more than there used to be under the old commenting system; then, you had to actively seek out “The Advocate” to post your comment—now, of course, all you need is some anti-gay site referring to the story and sending their followers to “The Advocate” story and the site is hit by the trolls).
