Entries for May 2009

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

You can watch last night's debate between prominent Catholic legal advocates Doug Kmiec and Robby George here at C-SPAN's website.

The format of the debate, staged at the National Press Club and moderated by former Vatican Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, was disappointing: long opening statements by the two combatants, followed by questions that were directed toward one of them. They never had the opportunity to answer the same question, and there was none of the kind of one-on-one debating that would have allowed the two men to work though some of the issues.

Instead, they largely talked past one another.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

This is something I haven't seen before: the conservative Colorado Springs-based Christian group Focus on the Family praising the Obama White House. Check out this article that's up on CitizenLink, the politics-focused website that Focus sponsors:

The White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships hosted adoption leaders from across the country Wednesday to talk about how to better serve the needs of kids in foster care.

Kelly Rosati, adoptive mother of four and senior director of Focus on the Family's Sanctity of Human Life department, was among those in attendance.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

As religious conservatives are receiving some cold shoulders from the Republican Party, they're beginning to launch new political organizations of their own. Tonight, coinciding with his debate with Doug Kmiec at the National Press Club—an exchange that began here on God & Country—conservative Catholic legal scholar and activist Robby George will be unveiling one of them: the American Principles Project.

The group's website says it will hold Republicans to account on conservative positions:

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Like I said shortly after Sonia Sotomayor was nominated:

On Sotomayor, Some Abortion Rights Backers Are Uneasy
By CHARLIE SAVAGE

WASHINGTON—In nearly 11 years as a federal appeals court judge, President Obama's choice for the Supreme Court, Sonia Sotomayor, has never directly ruled on whether the Constitution protects a woman's right to an abortion. But when she has written opinions that touched tangentially on abortion disputes, she has reached outcomes in some cases that were favorable to abortion opponents.

Now, some abortion rights advocates are quietly expressing unease that Judge Sotomayor may not be a reliable vote to uphold Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 abortion rights decision. In a letter, Nancy Keenan, president of Naral Pro-Choice America, urged supporters to press senators to demand that Judge Sotomayor reveal her views on privacy rights before any confirmation vote.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

In announcing his selection of a Hispanic Roman Catholic theologian as Vatican ambassador last night, days after picking a Hispanic Catholic for the Supreme Court, Barack Obama continues his campaign to acknowledge the new Latino complexion of the Catholic Church in America in a big way.

Obama's selection of the Cuban-born Miguel Diaz as ambassador to the Holy See offers a striking contrast to the Vatican's own recent decision a few months ago to forgo a Latino figure to serve as archbishop of New York, the closest thing that America has to a pope. The church instead chose Timothy Dolan, a white Irish-American who represents the fastest-shrinking component of the Catholic Church in America.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Prominent Democratic strategist Steve Elmendorf calls him "probably the most pro-gay president in history." The antiabortion website Life Site News calls him "The Most Pro-Abortion President in History." The right and left agree that President Obama is the most socially liberal president to date.

Except that he hasn't governed that way. At least not yet.

Compare Obama's actions on three major social policy fronts with those of President Bill Clinton, who is viewed as much more of a cultural conservative than is Obama:

1. Supreme Court nominations. For his first high court pick, Clinton chose Ruth Bader Ginsburg. A former chief litigator for the American Civil Liberties Union's women's rights project, Ginsburg had written extensively on her view that a woman's right to abortion should be "grounded in the concept of women's right to equality rather than in the right to privacy," according to the New York Times.

By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country

Sonia Sotomayor's Roman Catholicism hasn't received much attention in the first-day stories about her nomination to the Supreme Court, but religion reporters have taken note, pointing out that she'd provide the sixth Catholic vote on a nine-person court.

The White House isn't pushing Sotomayor as a Catholic nominee, at least not in the way George W. Bush's White House pushed current Chief Justice John Roberts as a committed Catholic (to reassure social conservatives worried about his abortion position) and failed nominee Harriet Miers as a Bible-believing evangelical (ditto).

Obama did mention Sotomayor's Catholic school upbringing in introducing her yesterday. And a White House aide told Beliefnet's Steve Waldman that "Judge Sotomayor was raised as a Catholic and attends church for family celebrations and other important events."