AL ADINOLFI’S ANTI-CATHOLIC OPPONENT
October 5th, 2006 by Peter
Al Adinolfi of the 103rd district (Cheshire, Hamden, Wallingford) is one of the most pro-family state representatives in our state legislature. And his opponent is possibly the most anti-Catholic candidate in the 2006 campaign.
Earlier this year pro-abortion activists tried to pass a law forcing Catholic hospitals to provide “Plan B,” which can induce chemical abortions—a major assault on religious freedom that even Gov. Rell and the Hartford Courant opposed. On the website of Adinolfi’s opponent, Dr. Phil Brewer, he describes “Plan B” as “prevent[ing] conception.” But it can also induce abortions by preventing implantation of a fertilized egg—something Dr. Brewer never mentions.
Having misled the reader about “Plan B” Brewer then frames the issue this way:
A small number of hospitals refuse to provide Plan B to rape victims on grounds of “religious freedom.”
Why does Brewer put sneer quotes around “religious freedom”? It is because he is pushing the same agenda that was exposed by state Victim Advocate James Papillo in his courageous testimony against “Plan B”:
“I see this for what it is. It is not a victims’ rights issue. It is not a victims’ services issue,” Papillo said. “Victims here are being used as a hook to further an agenda they are hiding … The issue is an attack on the Catholic institutions.”
Adinolfi saw it for what it was too and fought against it. Dr. Brewer responds by saying that, unlike Adinolfi, he would not “be so callous as to impose my personal religious feelings” on patients. Brewer is attempting to marginalize reasonable—and widely held—concerns about attacks on religious liberty and the right to life as mere “personal religious feelings.”
It gets worse. Brewer falsely accuses Adinolfi of “spreading misinformation”—for speaking honestly of “Plan B” as an abortifacient—and accusing him of “protect[ing] a special interest group that wants to make intimate decisions for everyone.” That’s the Catholic Church that Brewer is talking about—an entity that provides more charitable services than any other private organization in Connecticut and that only asked not to be forced against its beliefs to kill unborn human persons.
Brewer also chastises Adinolfi, an opponent of same-sex “marriage,” for his “religion-based definition of marriage.” But the one man-one woman definition of marriage transcends any one religion, is deeply rooted in almost every culture throughout time and uniquely benefits children in ways that are quantified by social science. Again, Brewer is trying to marginalize Adinolfi as a mere proponent of “religion” when it is actually Brewer who wishes to push his own idiosyncratic view of marriage on an unwilling public.
Brewer ends by citing President Kennedy’s quote on how he and the Church do not speak for one another. But Adinolfi is speaking for all of us who respect religious liberty and the sanctity of marriage. Brewer, on the other hand, is speaking for the same people that Lt. Gov. Kevin Sullivan did when he called for Papillo’s resignation: bigots who think that faithful Christians are unfit to hold public office.
The people of the 103rd District in Cheshire, Hamden and Wallingford should do all they can to support Al Adinolfi and to oppose the anti-Catholic bigotry of Dr. Phil Brewer.
