In a victory that makes me want to cheer, "Touchdown Jesus!", a Detroit family got their neighborhood association to retreat from a request to remove a nativity scene from the front yard of their home.
In the face of a deluge of support for the Samona family on Web sites and reaction from people throughout Metro Detroit, the United States and abroad, the (Tollgate Woods) homeowners association that sought to ban the nativity scene backed off.Thanks and respects must go out to the Thomas More Law Center, that agreed to help the Samonas pro bono earlier in the week. No doubt the quick turnaround was orchestrated by the Center's deft use of old and new media to focus a withering torrent of criticism on the subdivision.Diablo dat password protected
Hat tip: Best of the Web
A comment in response to a post at Catholics in the Public Square got me a little riled up, as someone tried to continue the confusion of Church doctrine on the death penalty with other life issues - while cruelly judging the intentions of another Catholic, to boot.
Too bad Jeb likes to execute people so much - compromises his culture of life, no?Actually, no.
Some of us actually believe the death penalty supports the culture of life, by unambiguously proposing to execute those who hold life so cheap as to brutally take the life of an innocent. And thanks to Church teaching, there's nothing doctrinally incorrect with that opinion.
Canon law has always forbidden clerics to shed human blood and therefore capital punishment has always been the work of the officials of the State and not of the Church. Even in the case of heresy, of which so much is made by non-Catholic controversialists, the functions of ecclesiastics were restricted invariably to ascertaining the fact of heresy. The punishment, whether capital or other, was both prescribed and inflicted by civil government. The infliction of capital punishment is not contrary to the teaching of the Catholic Church, and the power of the State to visit upon culprits the penalty of death derives much authority from revelation and from the writings of theologians. The advisabilty of exercising that power is, of course, an affair to be determined upon other and various considerations.Even when the US Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a statement in opposition to the death penalty, they hedged. As Karl Keating put it:
Must Catholics adopt a particular view regarding the use (or non-use) of capital punishment? In short: no. They are free to endorse, as a political policy, the complete abolition of capital punishment, and they are free to endorse the use of capital punishment, even beyond the very narrow limits given in the prudential judgment in [the Catechism of the Catholic Church]. Contrary to what some people claim, there has been no revolution in Church teaching on the matter.If the state were to prevent a woman from killing a baby in her womb, they would be preventing someone from committing a violent act against an innocent. People who support that woman's right to murder cannot make that claim, because no one has a right to murder.
On the contrary, people who support a murderer's right to life are protecting someone who is guilty from suffering punishment at the hands of the state, which IT has every right to do - provided all laws are followed, due process is respected, and careful adjudication is taken.
Someone who asks that the people of the state protect the life of the guilty like we protect the life of the innocent are asking the people to forgive. For forgiveness to be truly Christian, one must give it freely - it cannot be forced.
Ironically, these are exactly the circumstances when "I can't impose my beliefs on others" actually applies: you cannot compel a victim's family to forgive the murderer of their loved one. You cannot force the people of a state to forgive murderers and let them walk free.
We can pray that one day we'll all be Christian enough that it would happen without asking - or better yet, so Christian as to not have any murders to prosecute. Until then, I'll remain firmly on the fence on this one.
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Is it time to fight fire with fire? Allen E. Parker Jr. thinks so. The human-rights lawyer is trying to reverse Roe v. Wade by invoking an obscure part of the law that allows a plaintiff to sue to have a previous ruling in his favor reversed.
Parker believes Doe and Roe were wrongly decided and that there is a promising way to challenge them using the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FCRP) that govern federal trials. Parker’s approach differs from previous challenges in not relying primarily on arguments about the right to life of unborn children and constitutional errors in the decisions. Those arguments are true—and tried. No majority of justices has heeded them, even in a challenge to the flagrant barbarism of partial-birth abortion. Something different is needed, that “gives the Supreme Court a graceful way out of the problem it is in” over abortion, as Parker says. Rule 60 of the FRCP and Parker’s plaintiffs may be that something.While I wish him good luck, I think Mr. Parker's human-rights background can lead him to an even more startling injustice resulting from abortion.
Rule 60 provides that “on motion and upon such terms as are just, the court may relieve a party … from a final judgment … for the following reasons: … it is no longer equitable that the judgment should have prospective application.” The original plaintiff may return to court to ask that a judgment be reversed if it is now unjust. There is no statute of limitations.
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Now we turn - merely as an interlude, of course - to the heart of the matter. Daniel Henninger lays out for us a scene very reminiscent of the last time the Supreme Court made a judgment over the worth of a human soul.
The men who made the American Constitution understood that nothing in the pristine vapors of their nation was so special or unique as to ensure that Jack would never despise the opinions of Tom--and more than anything would like to shut Tom up, for starters. It is clear in the Federalist Papers that the Founders, above all, tried to reduce the destruction often done to civil life by political factions. I don't know that James Madison is spinning in his grave over the factionalism washing through U.S. politics, but surely he is heaving heavy sighs.Of course, there are also differences. In 1860, the problem had permeated all facets of the two very different cultures that then existed in our country. The problem was resident in our homes, our fields, and our legislatures. Nowadays, it simply exists in our courts, where most people assume they have no rights other than those that are argued by a high-priced lawyer, or adjudicated by a federal judge.
I think many people who don't get paid for waging politics are becoming quite frustrated with dysfunctional legislatures that are now polarized--as in Congress or in California--essentially along the cultural faultlines created by 30 years of allowing judges to pre-empt the broader community's ability to discover, or re-examine, its social beliefs. These legislators have become little more than clerks to judges and the complainants in their courts--the law as not much more than a brief. When this happens, citizens lose their status as voters or electors and become mere courtroom spectators. How can this be good?The question is, will Americans continue to allow this "war" described by Mr. Henninger to rage in their courts? Or will they rise up in defense of their "public property rights"?
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Jacob Sullum surgically analyzes the differences (of which there were few) and similarities (of which there were many) between the ban on partial-birth abortion and (another) proposed ban on assault rifles.
Another difference between the two bans is that supporters of the abortion bill are more honest than the anti-gun activists about what they're trying to accomplish. President Bush, who is expected to sign the bill soon, called it "very important legislation that will end an abhorrent practice and continue to build a culture of life in America." That "culture of life" presumably will include the recognition that D&E abortions are just as bad as D&X abortions. If killing a fetus is murder, doing it hidden from view does not make it OK.Sen. Brownback has entered the realm of abortion debate that is seldom tread upon - the contention that in order to rationalize the practice of abortion, one is not required to prove that a woman has a right to "privacy" (a word that does not appear in the Constitution) - one must merely reason that abortion cannot be regulated because the woman controls the property rights to her own womb. I find it ironic that the clause that guarantees this right ends with the phrase, "without just compensation".
During the debate over the bill, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) displayed a photograph of a 21-week-old fetus who had suffered from a birth defect that was surgically corrected in the uterus. "Is little Samuel's hand the hand of a person," he asked, "or is it the hand of a piece of property?"
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
The Supreme Court will hear the pledge of allegiance case sent up from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. It was painful enough to imagine SCOTUS taking on this case, knowing how it butchered the last two rulings it made in May. (The sodomy and UM admissions cases.) But it became a real migraine when I got to this:
Justice Antonin Scalia said he will not take part in the case. He did not explain why, but Newdow had challenged Scalia's impartiality based of remarks Scalia made at a 'Religious Freedom Day' observance this year. Scalia said the issue would be better decided by lawmakers than judges.Considering the facts that the Court probably won't change course in mid-stream, and that they probably would have dispensed with it without hearing it if Scalia had been on the bench, expect them to issue another ruling that ignores the Constitution. I'm very afraid there'll be little of the document left before we're able to appoint new justices to replace the activists sitting there now.
Scalia's absence sets up the possibility that the remaining eight justices could deadlock 4-4. That would affirm the 9th Circuit's ban on the religious reference, which would apply to 9.6 million schoolchildren in the nine states the court oversees: California, Oregon, Nevada, Montana, Washington, Idaho, Arizona, Hawaii and Alaska, plus Guam.
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Bill Buckley, the Old Man of the Grand Old Party, has taken the lectern, and has he got a funny story to tell...
Attorney General Pryor has run into the high risk of sassing critically situated senators. Not that there was ever any possibility that Sen. Feingold would vote to confirm the nomination of Pryor to the court of appeals. The 41-year-old Pryor had given the committee an answer to the big question. He said it with a straight face. Said it as matter-of-factly as if he had been asked by the short- order cook if he wanted his steak well-done. The great question:Woo-hoo! There's more funnies from the Pryor hearings, so read the article. Gotta catch that rerun on C-SPAN2.
"Mr. Pryor, you once said that you thought the Supreme Court's decision in Roe v. Wade was `the worst abomination of constitutional law in our history.' Do you still think that?"
"Oh yes," said Pryor.
When asked whether he thought that that decision had had moral consequences, he said, oh yes. He explained: "It has led to the slaughter of millions of innocent unborn children."
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
Frank Keating has resigned as Chairman of the Catholic lay review board founded after last year's National Council of Bishops meeting. He wrote an op-ed in today's New York Times.
Sadly, a few church leaders, including some in large dioceses, chose to resist and obstruct the board. When we asked valid questions, they gave us few or no answers. Where information and cooperation was called for, we received delay or an outright refusal to help.Unfortunately, I don't share the Governor's hopefulness. The child abuse scandal was merely a very public manifestation of a community in serious trouble - a condition that will continue to hang over the Church until something drastic changes.
These few leaders turned to their lawyers when they should have looked into their hearts — and I expressed my disgust with them. I am a candid person, and that makes some people uncomfortable. So be it. Obstructing justice, excusing and concealing those who victimize innocent children: these are not the actions of holy men. They are sins — and they are crimes. God may hold them accountable in the next world, but we will certainly hold them accountable in this one.
This entry originally appeared in The Black Republican.
According to press reports, St. Thomas More Professor of Law Douglas W. Kmiec is being considered by President Bush for a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals, D.C. Circuit. I don't know what possessed the man to dare even to suggest such a bold idea, but I find it highly exhilarating. You see, Mr. Kmiec isn't just a strict constructionist, he is unabashedly pro-life and (dare I even say this in public?) he understands the concept of natural law. Worst of all, Mr. Kmiec is one of those disgusting papists. But there is more! Mr. Kmiec has a paper trail, and he's got the gall to wave it in the face of the Left and shout them down.
Writing in the Wall Street Journal (probably the only newspaper daring enough to accept his column) Kmiec responds to his critics:
I will point out, however, that as Ms. Aron and her counterparts frame the question, it is irrelevant. Transparent moral beliefs and a gratitude for the gift of life may be measures of the quality of a person; they are not, however, the most appropriate or direct yardstick for sizing up a potential federal appellate judge.Thanks to his catholicity, Kmiec presents a problem for the Democrats, especially now that he's defended himself. If he is nominated and they reject him, it may well prove his Religious Test argument. (A side bonus is this would further alienate Catholics from the Democratic Party.) It makes me wonder if Kmiec could them sue the government on the grounds that they are violating Article VI. This entire set-up may be just what's needed to break the Bork cycle we're in and return us to the days when a man's judicial temperment is the issue, and not his religion or ideology.Why not an appropriate yardstick? Because disqualifying a person from a federal post on the basis of his religious or moral beliefs cuts deeply against the guarantee of religious freedom secured in the First Amendment; it might even contravene the Article VI admonition that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States." And why not a direct yardstick? Because the job of a federal appellate judge is far more straightforward than these intractable issues--issues that, in the end, must be resolved as best we can within our many communities, informed less by top-down government edict than by bottom-up moral, religious and family belief.