A DANGEROUS TREND

I hadn't intended to write this item and thought we were beyond such things, but apparently the Roman Catholic Church wants to get involved in the American electoral process even to the point of publishing a dark, dreadful anti-Obama advertisement (although they do not mention him by name).  I am reluctant to cite the advertisement, but I guess I must for credibility  (http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=D9vQt6IXXaM&hd).  I address several concerns below.

It has long been my observation that aggressive minorities rule a nation.  This is true of Iraq where the minority Sunni's control the Shiites. Yes, both are Muslims, but they hate each other.  It is true of Syria where the Alawite Muslim minority control a country where 79% of the people are Sunni Muslims.

In the United State, the Roman Catholic Church is increasingly getting involved in U.S. Politics and trying to impose their religious restrictions on all of the U.S. citizens.  It looks like the Roman Catholic Church is trying to do the same in the U.S. as we see in Muslim nations and with only 22% of the population.  Note that 6 members of the Supreme Court are Roman Catholics, two are Jews, and one is Protestant.  Fortunately these justices do not vote as a block.  The Republican Party had a candidate running for the Republican nomination that seemed to be taking orders directly from the Pope - Rick Santorum.  Fortunately, he did not get the nomination, however, he did surprisingly well in the process.  Though U.S. Protestant  Evangelicals were formerly against Roman Catholicism, the Catholics managed to get their cooperation for Santorum.

The Republican Vice-Presidential  candidate Paul Ryan is Roman Catholic, however,  and has proposed bills that would restrict the American public from certain freedoms such as abortion which Ryan would criminalize even in cases of rape and incest and cosponsored the Sanctity of Life Act where a fertilized egg should have all the rights of "personhood!"  This act also would criminalize the right to in vitro fertilization* and some forms of birth control like the intrauterine device.  It used to be that life started at birth when the baby took a breath.

Not surprisingly he also opposes "Don't Ask-Don't Tell", same sex marriage and the right of gays to adopt.  He voted against the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.  Perhaps some solace can be taken in that Ryan as vice-President may be able to do less social harm than he could in Congress.

Although church's are exempt from requiring birth control items in health insurance for their employees, the Roman Catholic Church strongly opposes giving them to employees at non-sectarian organizations like hospitals and schools that they may own.  You might even get the impression from them that Catholic employees are required to take birth control methods, though such is definitely not the case.  It is said, however, that 98% of Catholic women have taken birth control measures at some point in their lives.  The Catholic church would take this right away by law for all of us.  Some like the Catholic church surrogates manage to warp this around to saying they are giving us more freedom not less!

The Catholic Church likes to say that their first amendment rights are being taken away; although religious rights of churches are not guaranteed by the First Amendment.  I have covered this elsewhere in an item called Church and State (http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/#uds-search-results), but to mention just a few, polygamy is against the law though the first amendment right was appealed to by the Mormon Church and the pacifist Quakers have to pay their full tax and not subtract something for funding our military.  They too claimed a First Amendment right.  Of course they are small denominations and perhaps with 22% of the population Roman Catholics can change the meaning of the law from its historical precedence.

If you aren't worried, you should be!

* According the Mother Jones, a least three of Ryan's sons have used IVF to have children.

Note added August 19, 2012: It seems that some of Ryan's stands are even too much for some Roman Catholic officials:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/19/opinion/sunday/dowd-beware-a-beautiful-calm.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20120819

Note added August 21, 2012:  Republican nominee Todd Aiken for the Senate in Missouri against Claire McCaskill came out with a gaff, "Legitimate rape rarely causes pregnancy" that have generated calls within the Republican Party to replace him.  He has also called for an end to the Ntional School Lunch Program, repeated his earlier claim that student loans are like stage 3 cancer, and that Civil rights should be re-litigated (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-fix/wp/2012/08/21/could-todd-akins-gaffe-actually-help-the-gop-in-missouri/)