Democrats devise Catholic scorecard

http://www.thehill.com/news/041404/catholic.aspx

House Democrats are preparing a “Catholic Voting Scorecard” in an effort to show that Catholic Democratic lawmakers have adhered more closely to the position of the U.S. Catholic hierarchy on key issues than their Catholic Republican counterparts.

Democratic sources say Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Nicholas Lampson (D-Texas), both Catholics, are spearheading the project, which will compare the votes of Catholic members of both parties on a number of key issues that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops identified as its legislative priorities. Nearly 27 percent of House members are Catholic.

The votes, some of which go back several Congresses, include partial-birth abortion, human cloning, child tax credit refunds, the Defense of Marriage Act, global AIDS relief and HIV/AIDS funding, assistance to needy families and raising the minimum wage.

“Under the misconception that single issues such as choice or gay rights best represent their interests, Catholics are voting for Republican candidates with increasing frequency,” a document accompanying the scorecard stated. The document concluded that “Democratic House members vote with the Catholic interest much more often than their Republican counterparts.”

that the Church's single-issue fatwah on Dems denies the 99 other social justice issues it shares, and often has led, with the overall Dem agenda.

I was raised Catholic, and fully recognize that, outside of abortion, the liberal - dem's are a perfect fit.

In my mom's world, issues lose out to religious affiliation. Kerry is a Catholic and that ends the discussion.

When ministers and the pope or cardinals get into this political landscape they are asking their congregations to vote for repubs because of a narrow minded focus. The dems are more for the good of the whole.

The churches don't see the damage they are doing to their own people by asking them to vote against their own self interest. The people can vote dems but just not partake of the issues that are against their churches views.

For some reason, these churches 'believe' they must impose their beliefs on all. If God is against what someone is doing, let God be that judge.

Getting a abortion is one persons decision. IT does not affect the whole society.

Having the child does. But I don't see repubs willing to jump in and take care of that child after it is born. They are doing everything they can to make sure the people on the bottom of the rung go lower. I don't see the repubs wanting better education for that child, I see them wanting to disassemble the educational system so they don't have to pay for it.

I see the repubs saying they are pro life yet they do the most killing. They are the ones doing pre emptive war on a people and calling it liberation. They free the poeple now leave but instead they are killing them.

They plan on staying in the country for ever. They are building permanent base in the country. Another country, another base. They have to get out of saudi arabia so they needed some where else for a base. They do not want to leave, turn over until the base is ready. Another sovereign base in the middle of a country. We have them all over the world.

So the churches are hurting their own people by telling them they have to vote repub because of church issues. This same thing happen in the run up to getting hilter elected in a democratic society. The churches and right were so against progressive issues they pushed people to vote against their own interest. Their is a book at barnes and noble called the Coming of the Reich.....it is about the one in Germany but the last half of the book read like many of the same issues as today.

I agree with you completely; the churches have no business telling the membership who they should vote for. I don't have the same problem with churches taking on issues.

I guess the point of my post was simply to relate that there are Catholics who will vote for the Catholic, regardless of which way the Church is trying to push them.

A psychological study :

College kids are talked into doing a psychology research experiment. They are told it will be fun, interesting and very important.

They actually go through some intentionally tedious and meaningless process based loosely on valid psych tests.

Then the real experiment begins: The subjects are convinced to recruit new subjects. They will need to promote the study as fun and interesting. They still believe that the boring task is an important study.

Half them are paid for their time, half are convinced to volunteer

The ones that volunteer are much more convincing in portraying the study as fun, interesting, important and recruit far more effectively than the ones that get paid.

So, as soon as you convince someone to go against their own interests, they mentally adjust themselves, ?memory revision? more to the lie that it IS fun and interesting.

This is a pretty damning indictment of capitalism...

http://www.learner.org/resources/series138.html?pop=yes&vodid=52057&pid=1511#

about 20 minutes into the 11th segment

Watch it, I see I misremembered it a bit, the groups were paid $20 or $1 They use it as an example of cognitive dissonance

#19 and #20 were especially good as well, though most of the series is worth watching.

This is a pretty damning indictment of capitalism...

To the extent that a person believes abortion = murder, how does it compare to war or to fascism? A society which leaves room for 'free will' leaves room for goodness -- for the possibility that people will make the 'right' choices; but a society built on war, that trains death squads -- on organized evil like Nazi Germany -- suffocates goodness before it ever has a chance to grow.

He could have done more but MANY Catholic leaders actively opposed it!

Fight back, and hit them hard with their own bullshit.

there is a pro-life scorecard giving GW very high marks in the vestibule of my church. We need to counter this.

You can't be a good Catholic and believe in the GWB war, can you? Pr a good Methodist either really, Mr. Bush...

:kick:

is happy to see this. Catholics agree with Dems on so many issues, and I'm glad to see someone pointing this out.

Glad to see him involvedin this idea!

..for a "papist" like myself. What many non-Catholics don't see (or are told by the media what not to see)is that Catholics are more concerned with social justice & human rights issues than anything else. We are not all anti-abortion zealots, nor are we scurrying to cover up or defend the sex abuse scandals that are (rightly) prevalent in the Church today.

what I meant by "rightly prevalent" is that it's about time the sex abuse problems are finally being addressed.

I kept reading your first sentence thinking that I doubted you meant that. BTW, you can edit your post during the initial hour.

It's too easy for the right to yell "Baby-killers" and as liberals, we support a woman's right to choose, it makes us look uncaring and cold to moderates who think that abortion should be legal with limits.
The problem has never been that there are too many abortions. The problem is that too many women are getting pregnant who don't want to be pregnant, and are in a position where they are considering having an elective abortion. There are three major causes of this:

1. Sexual irresponsibility by women and men.
2. Sexual violence, perpetrated by men. This is not saying all sex offenders are men, but the argument is about pregnancy/abortion.
3. Failure of contraceptive methods.

Those are the issues that society (not necessarily government)need to address. We don't want to because it goes to the heart of our culture-our entertainment, advertising, and music all send a very different message about sexuality than parents, schools and churches teach kids(I'm not advocating censorship, just awareness). The same applies to rape issues (anyone who watched GH's romance of Luke and Laura can vouch for this). Some contraceptive measures are better than others, but none is 100% effective.
Abortion should be legal because a woman should have dominion over her own body and it's functions and her rights supercede those of the potential life within her.

It's too easy for the right to yell "Baby-killers" and as liberals, we support a woman's right to choose, it makes us look uncaring and cold to moderates who think that abortion should be legal with limits.
The problem has never been that there are too many abortions. The problem is that too many women are getting pregnant who don't want to be pregnant, and are in a position where they are considering having an elective abortion. There are three major causes of this:

1. Sexual irresponsibility by women and men.
2. Sexual violence, perpetrated by men. This is not saying all sex offenders are men, but the argument is about pregnancy/abortion.
3. Failure of contraceptive methods.

Those are the issues that society (not necessarily government)need to address. We don't want to because it goes to the heart of our culture-our entertainment, advertising, and music all send a very different message about sexuality than parents, schools and churches teach kids(I'm not advocating censorship, just awareness). The same applies to rape issues (anyone who watched GH's romance of Luke and Laura can vouch for this). Some contraceptive measures are better than others, but none is 100% effective.
Abortion should be legal because a woman should have dominion over her own body and it's functions and her rights supercede those of the potential life within her.

I appreciate the fact that they're taking the bull by the horns. Too often the discussion is boiled down to pro-life versus pro-choice, which is simply cherry-picking issues. Even Cardinal McCarrick of Washington (too cozy by half with the Bush administration, as far as I can tell) is reportedly uncomfortable with the suggestion that pro-choice polliticians should be kept from receiving the Eucharist.

At least the DeLauro-Lampson effort revives the discussion around social policy. It's high time! A lot of right-wing groups have gotten away with labeling particular stances "Christian" when there's little evidence that the label fits. For example, the Christian Coalition publishes scorecards on Congress, predictably supporting those who reject the NEA and favor medical savings accounts, as though there were some Biblical endorsement of either position.

And for all that Bush is courting the Catholic vote, you'll never find him so much as EXPRESSING DOUBT about the use of the death penalty, even though the Catholic Church rejects it. He did receive the Vatican representative during the run-up to the Iraq war but kept the door shut to the Congressional Black Caucus, an equally antiwar body. So who's closer to the church doctrine, Bush or the CBC?

If we have to create a "scorecard" to convince Catholics that we are better on their concerns than Republicans, then our Catholic support must be getting shaky. What's next? A scorecard for Blacks? A scorecard for unions?

Kerry needs to develop some sort of flexible position on choice, i.e. personally opposed but will fully support law, respect rights of women, welcome open debate, etc. (He can move back to strong pro-choice after the election.)

The AFL-CIO and NAACP are among numerous organizations that put out congressional scorecards on issues that are important to them.

You're right. I didn't think of that. Okay, maybe a Catholic scorecard isn't that troubling. But will we have one for Prots? Jews? Sometimes I just wish we would make our case to "Americans" and ease up on all this interest group stuff. The GOP is worse.

I'd like to see how the AFL-CIO writes up their scorecard for Kerry. I read that their three biggest issues are anti-NAFTA, anti-China trade agreement, and pro-Anwar oil drilling. The unions are in the bag, of course -- at least the leadership -- but Kerry may have to do a little clarification of his votes on these issues.

The scorecards are often deceptive. Sometimes the people who run the scorecard will use issues that aren't really that directly related to their official issue, but when you hear a candidate's rating from NARAL or NRA or AFL-CIO or ACU or some other organization you don't always know what those votes really are about. Also, they can include votes are larger bills that only have a provision on that issue. So, it makes it difficult for some congressmen to comprimise because the interest groups will use their scorecards to attack the congressman for their comprimise.

People should look at individual votes and not depend just on the score. People should always look at the votes that are included to truly understand the situation.

AFSCME gave Kerry an 85 rating in 2002 and a 95 rating in 2001.
Kerry has a 90% lifetime rating from the AFL-CIO.

there have been pro choice Catholics that have done well with faithful. Much ado about nothing IMO.

This new strategy is NOT a bad development...the bad development is that some Catholic voters have been conned by single issue opportunists in the Republican party, and yes, CAtholic support for the Dems IS shaky because of it. (Where have you been for the last 25 years?) I'm a lapsed Protestant (I'm really tired of all religion at the moment, although I do pray in a crisis...the "No Atheists in Foxholes" syndrome) but some of my very best politicalallies and personal friends are die-hard social justice Catholics AND Democrats who see through the con but are frustrated by some liberal tendencies to refuse to acknowledge the sincere concerns of people of faith. Somebody pointed out somewhere (probably here on DU) that Catholics had better remember before they vote for Bush as Mr PRoLife and Mr No Stem Cell Research that he is also just fine (MORE than fine) with the death penalty AND he made war on Iraq--two positions that the Pope himself is strongly against.

But the point is not about overcoming Republican cons or building support with social justice Catholics. (I simplify. You made great points and your post was much more in depth.)

The leadership of the Catholic Church and the Democratic party are in direct, inflexible opposition on choice. This is not going to change, but historically the priests have remained fairly silent. By putting out some sort of "scorecard", our party may be calling them out to comment. Just imagine... two weeks of some Father O'Malley on faux news going through the scorecard point by point.

I don't know. Sometimes I think the wise course would have been to just honor the truce and keep quiet.

to win. I don't like my lawmakers touting how religous they are.

When I see people advertising their faith, like some kind of merit badge, I say "Blaspemy".

I've always been struck by how much more in line with Church views the Dems are.