Apostates all?

Hopefully anyone following the right wing's attempted religious blackmail of John Kerry has been tracking Atrios, who has done yeoman's duty, IDing Catholic Republicans who seem to be escaping similar treatment so far. Among the pro-choice Rs he's pointed out are George Pataki, Rudolph Giuliani, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Ridge.

Today, though, he delivered the coup de grace with an item culled from a WaPo piece, which points out that...

"...church leaders may appear hypocritical or partisan if they condemn Kerry because he favors abortion rights while they say nothing about Catholic governors who allow executions, Catholic members of Congress who support the Iraq war or Catholic officials at all levels who ignore the church's teachings on social justice."

Actually, those "church leaders" wouldn't "appear" to be hypocritical or partisan on those grounds - they would be hypocritical and partisan, and some of them, in fact, are.

In fact, there's possibly - even probably - not a single Catholic politician of either party who doesn't, whether as a matter of conscience or expediency, deviate from a pure doctrinal line. That is, in fact, as it should be in a country which respects personal choice in religious matters.

It's not just a Catholic thing, either. Bush's professed denomination, the United Methodist Church, has, for instance, taken a strong stand against his war policy. Of course, Bush, unlike Kerry, is apparently not a member of a congregation, so delivery of the sacraments may be a moot issue in his case.

But really, we just don't want to go there. On either side. For any reason.