The Kerry Doctrine - A Lighter Shade of Pink

[DrFunkenstein]

The Kerry Doctrine: The Separation of Church and Morality

Sen. John Kerry just told the Pope to back off. One of the most significant signs of America's increasingly secularized public culture is the fact that politicians no longer fear the censure of their own churches. In fact, some wear the outrage of the faithful as a mark of honor.

This past July, the Vatican released a bold statement calling on Catholic legislators and politicians to oppose homosexual marriage as a matter of Catholic duty. The statement bears papal authority and is official church teaching. It not only instructs Catholic politicians to oppose homosexual marriage, but also provides a moral argument as foundation: "Given the values at stake in this question, the State could not grant legal standing to such unions without failing in its duty to promote and defend marriage as an institution essential to the common good."

Sen. John Kerry is Catholic, a matter of no little consequence in Massachusetts politics. But the Kerry campaign quickly insisted that the candidate's Catholicism would have nothing to do with his political decisions.

"John Kerry believes deeply in separation of church and state and does not accept edicts from any religious leaders," retorted Kelly Benander, a spokeswoman for the senator. Obviously not. Kerry supports abortion, homosexual rights legislation, and the legal recognition of homosexual unions.

"I believe in the Church and I care about it enormously," Kerry later claimed. "But I think that it's important to not have the Church instructing politicians. That is an inappropriate line in America." That line was drawn by President Kennedy, Kerry argued, "and I believe we need to stand up for that line today." Like Kerry, Kennedy invoked the doctrine of the separation of church and state.

Of course, what Kennedy and Kerry really mean is not just the separation of church and state, but the separation of church and morality. Following their logic, the church should simply shut up about moral issues when it comes to legislation. Leave the political process alone, and go back to the confessional, they charge.

We now know that President Kennedy not only did not let his Catholicism get in the way of his politics, he didn't let Christian morality stand in the way of his sexual liaisons. The Pope had no influence over President Kennedy in the Oval Office or the bedroom.

How can anyone expect the likes of Kennedy and Kerry to support the institution of marriage when Kennedy was a serial adulterer and Kerry divorced his first wife? As the feminists constantly remind us, the personal is the political.

All nine of the major Democratic presidential candidates have thrown their support to the homosexual agenda, with Sen. Kerry bragging before the Human Rights Campaign that "Before Ellen Degeneres, before Will and Grace, before anyone knew who Melissa Etheridge was, before there had been a march on Washington when it was radioactive, I was the only United States senator . . . to vote against the Defense of Marriage Act."

Clearly, we are not dealing here with a tortured conscience. These candidates are brazen in their disobedience to Church and Scripture. And they are getting away with it.

The victory of the Kerry Doctrine will mean a fully secularized America. Is this what Americans really want?

http://www.crosswalk.com/news/weblogs/mohler/?adate=8/14/2003#1214693

I mean, do you really want these slick liberal politicians telling your children that condoms are acceptable?

[Parche]

1. religion

WE NEED FREEDOM FROM RELIGION

[musiclawyer]

2. Duh, Yeah....

That's what we want a fully secular/political America. Politics in a real democracy should be about the common good and common sense, always respectul of the minority that disagrees with the majority. Faiths runs deep in this country and they're all welcome here in homes and in places of worship........ and that's it. Anyone who is progressive, thoughtful and reasonable does not want religion anywhere near politics because religion poisons politics--always has, always will. And I happen to have strong religious convictions that I would never impose on some other person--heaven forbid the state trying to do so.

[styersc]

7. This is silly.

My liberalism is rooted in my religious beliefs. Since my religion dictates my political instincts and those instincts are liberal does your comment mean I should not vote for liberal candidates? In the context of your comment I would be "poisoning" politics.

You state that you do not impose your religious convictions on anyone else but if you vote your conscience and your conscience is driven by your "strong religious convictions" aren't you imposing your convictions on other people with your vote?

[DrFunkenstein]

3. Kerry Explains His Religious Convictions

Spirituality is a fundamental for us. I mean, it's the-it is the overpowering, driving foundation of most of the struggles that we go through here on earth, in my judgement.

I am a believer in the Supreme Being, in God. I believe, without any question in this force that is so much larger and more powerful than anything human beings can conceivably define.

I think the more we learn about the universe, the more we learn about black holes and the expansion of the universe and the more we learn what we don't know about: our beginnings and-not just of us, but the universe itself, the more I find that people believe in this supreme being.

I'm a Catholic and I practice but at the same time I have an open-mindedness to many other expressions of spirituality that come through different religions. I'm very respectful and am interested-I find it intriguing.

I went to Jerusalem a number of years ago on an official journey to Israel and I was absolutely fascinated by the 32 or so different branches of Catholicism that were there. That's before you even get to the conflict between Arabs and Jews.

I have spent a lot of time since then trying to understand these fundamental differences between religions in order to really better understand the politics that grow out of them. So much of the conflict on the face of this planet is rooted in religions and the belief systems they give rise to. The fundamentalism of one entity or another.

So I really wanted to try to learn more. I've spent some time reading and thinking about it and trying to study it and I've arrived at not so much a sense of the differences but a sense of the similarities in so many ways; the value system roots and the linkages between the Torah, the Koran and the Bible and the fundamental story that runs through all of this, that connects us-and really connects all of us.

And so I've also always been fascinated by the Transcendentalists and the Pantheists and others who found these great connections just in nature, in trees, the ponds, the ripples of the wind on the pond, the great feast of nature itself.

I think it's all an expression that grows out of this profound respect people have for those forces that human beings struggle to define and to explain. It's all a matter of spirituality.

I find that even - even atheists and agnostics wind up with some kind of spirituality, maybe begrudgingly acknowledging it here and there, but it's there. I think it's really intriguing.

For instance, thinking about China, the people and their policy-how do we respond to their view of us? And how do they arrive at that view of us and of the world and of life choices?

I think we have to think about those things in the context of the spiritual to completely understand where they are coming from. So here are a people who, you know, by and large, have a nation that has no theory of creationism. Well, that has to effect how you approach things.

And until we think through how that might effect how you approach things, it's hard to figure out where you could find a meeting of the minds when approaching certain kinds of issues.

So, the exploration of all these things I find intriguing. Notwithstanding our separation between church and state, it is an essential ingredient of trying to piece together an approach to some of the great vexing questions we have internationally.

http://www.americanwindsurfer.com/mag/back/issue5.5c.html

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[sandnsea]

4. Geez, let's not elect him

nah, he thinks and stuff.

(Thanks for the awesome post!)

[Octafish]

5. I just want someone angry to tell me how come I'm so angry.

That way I'll know what it is that I'm supposed to be angry about.

(Hey! This sarcasm stuff is really therapeutic. LOL!)

[AntiCoup2K4]

6. So if this writer is saying that religious doctrine should be govt policy

......then let him move to fucking Iran where they do exactly that.

And if this obviously right wing columnist wants to condemn Catholic politicians who are "serial adulterers", then why single out JFK?? Why not include some Repukelican Catholics in his condemnation and be "fair and balanced" about it? Henry "Youthful Indiscretion" Hyde comes to mind...... :grr:

[Octafish]

8. Hyde's different. He's a homewrecker.

Turd with a Married Woman on His Lap (ca. 1972).

A Flash multimedia board game based on the events:

http://www.barminski.com/newdcr/politics/pank.html