FAITH, LIEBERMAN AND THE BLOGGERS
November 2nd, 2006 by Peter
The Archdiocese of Hartford aired a fascinating set of interviews with the U.S. Senate candidates last weekend. You can view it here (click on “Crossroads Magazine” and then on “Oct. 28/29 2006”).
We won’t be making an endorsement in this race and I personally have not decided who I am voting for. Schlesinger did come off better than Lieberman or Lamont in the interviews with the Archdiocese.
But under the auspices of Connecticut Choice Voice the most radical pro-abortion and pro same-sex “marriage” activists recently sent out an appalling mailer against Lieberman because he supports religious liberty. “Joe Lieberman thinks it’s okay if certain hospitals refuse to provide this care to women who have been raped,” the flier says. That’s a reference to Lieberman’s opposition to the exploitation of rape victims as a way of forcing Catholic hospitals to provide abortifacients. As Victim Advocate James Papillo testified, no rape victim has ever said she was denied “Plan B” at these hospitals.
Referencing the words of a priest, he said, “If you take religion and God out of the public square … it’s not going to remain empty. Something else will fill it up. It’ll be the junk that’s, and the entertainment culture, or something else.”
“The constitution promises freedom of religion, not freedom from religion,” Lieberman continued.
Asked to clarify later, he said he would support a measure to bring religion back into schools. “I’d vote for a moment of silent mediation as a way to give an opportunity for people to pray without violating the Supreme Court ruling about prayer.”
This mild gesture was, of course, enough to drive the Left batty:
Lieberman seems to be lurching further and further to the right the longer the general election campaign drags on. I wonder if he has always thought this way?…
It’s amazing to me that this man was just months ago actively seeking the Democratic nomination…
That first quote, by the way, is from Connecticut Local Politics’ Genghis Conn/Chris Bigelow, who is unhappy with my Oct. 27th reference to him:
Not the first time they’ve attacked me. They seem to enjoy taking comments from this site and posting them out of context.
But I see no reason to waste my time responding to religious extremists, except to say that almost no candidates in this state have made opposition to civil unions and/or gay marriage a major and visible part of his or her campaign.
Ah yes, “context.” Perhaps Bigelow’s constant references to FIC as “religious extremists” are actually another sign of that “independent thinking” he’s so renowned for and not the lazy slur it appears to be. It must be that I’m just missing the context.
Regardless, the reaction of Bigelow and others on his site to Lieberman’s slight nod toward religion’s public role is another reminder that Ross Douthat was right about lefty bloggers:
in reality, it’s not clear that Internet liberals are really pacifists, and certainly not in the way that McGovern was; they’re against the Iraq War, intensely and occasionally to the point of derangement, but I’m not so sure that this reflects an abiding dovishness so much as a visceral hatred for the Bush administration and all its works. And on fiscal issues, they’re definitely more center-left than lefty…But religion—ah, religion. Take a stroll through the lefty blogosphere, and it’s pretty clear that long after George W. Bush has passed (mercifully) into history, the Kossack hordes will still be united on at least one burning issue: the need to resist the looming theocracy. And these folks don’t just view religious conservatives as their political opponents; they actively loathe us, with a passion that exceeds even the sometimes over-the-top fear and loathing of secular humanists that you find on the Religious Right.
