One of the common refrains from the left and from those not religious is the separation of church and state. The general idea is that politics gets perverted by religion. Centuries of history teach us this and in the grand tradition of our own country, the first immigrants were those escaping religious persecution.

It has been 50 years since Roe v. Wade and also nearly that amount of time since the Christian Coalition and Religious right got its start. Even without going into the origins of the movement and the potentially cynical motives behind it, we can look at what this movement has wrought.

So, I’m reversing it. We shouldn’t be worried about religion perverting our politics but about our politics perverting our religion. Let’s ignore the cynical adoption of abortion as the most important issue of the day. Let’s take most people at their word and assume they are deeply concerned about the issue and want to see it become truly rare.

History has clearly shown that deeply religious people can accomplish great things independent of the government. The Catholics have the Gabriel Project. Unfortunately, it is not as common as it used to be, but it essentially took scared mothers to be and offered counseling, financial assistance, and prayerful options that did not include abortion. Instead of making it illegal, condemning these young women, or preaching against it in the pulpit, they simply eliminated the need by helping them.

Our faith or lack of faith has a direct impact on our beliefs about how government should resolve or not resolve our problems. Jesus even said the poor would always be with us. The only possible way to remain sane is to separate those religious beliefs from our political ones. How can we best assist the poor? What standard of living should every human be guaranteed? How can we possibly mandate and make sure everyone is getting this standard of living?

These are all valuable and important political questions that should be independent of how we individually approach the problem. It is possible to be personally generous and politically selfish. It is possible to be personally pro life and politically pro choice. So, these opinions cannot be the full content of our character. We cannot allow it to define us. We must get back to a world where what we do and what we say matters much more than who we vote for in November.

It shouldn’t be boiled down to a singular issue. In the 1990s, the battle cry of the Republican party was that character matters. No matter what you think of Joe Biden politically, cognitively, or personally, there can be no doubt that he wins a character competition with Donald Trump. Even if Joe Biden isn’t a good man he still wins easily. It’s hard to imagine too many people on this planet that Trump would win a character battle with.

When you allow your fervor over one issue to blind you to the glaring gap in character you have allowed your politics to overwhelm your religion. When you allow one issue to overshadow all of the other ones your faith holds dear you have allowed politics to overwhelm your religion. When you allow your political beliefs to cause you to hate others that have opposing political beliefs then you have allowed politics to overwhelm your religion.

I will not presume to speak for God, but I am reasonably certain he will not ask me who I voted for. A wrong vote is not going to keep me out of heaven or anyone else for that matter. The bigger test is how I treated those around me. If our politics causes us to treat others worse it is time to separate ourselves from politics. So, others might say separate church and state. I say separate state and church.

Sanctity — the state or quality of being holy, sacred, or saintly.

Abortion data can be tricky due to the sometimes secretive nature of the procedure, but the CDC reported over 622,000 abortions between 2012 and 2021. That’s a ten year period. Move the decimal over one space and you get 62,000 per year. I’m not going to mince words. That’s a lot. A cursory search of births from the same year indicates that over three million children are born every year.

Obviously, there are an undisclosed number of miscarriages every year. So, it is impossible to know, but various reports would suggest that pregnancies in general are dropping. There are any number of push and pull factors that would impact that including economic factors, but we could also suggest that sex education and access to contraceptives might also have an impact on that as well.

My fuzzy math skills would indicate that after we allow for miscarriages that abortions would account for about one percent of pregnancies at least through 2021. In other words, they are relatively rare. A hefty percentage of those are due to the health of the mother or child. The idea that women are running out and getting elective abortions on the regular is just plain silly.

Demographic data shows us that gun deaths are not only higher in the United States than anywhere else in the world, but they are on the rise.  The data on gun deaths is pretty close to rates of abortion. We could parse out the numbers and argue that there are more suicides than murders. However, in a discussion about life that is irrelevant. It is perfectly analogous. A woman that wants to get an abortion can find a way to do it legally or illegally if she has the means. A person that wants to commit suicide will find a way whether they have access to a gun or not if they have the means.

If we are acting on a belief that life is sacred (as the definition of sanctity would indicate above) then wouldn’t it make sense to advocate for policies that would promote that? That would be all policies. Obviously, each of these issues are complicated. In cases where the health of the child or mother are at stake we don’t want red tape to block the wishes of a woman and her doctor.

Similarly, there is a certain amount of gun ownership that we can tolerate and most wouldn’t tolerate a world where gun ownership would be completely forbidden. So, we come to the idea that a wise compromise needs to be reached on both counts. Facts are limited on the latest mass shooting in Kansas City. We know there have been some arrests and we have some basic numbers, but we are unsure of the motives.

We know what causes this. We have seen this multiple times. We’ve tried nothing and we are all out of ideas. We have tons of thoughts and prayers. I don’t want to minimize that, but what in the heck are we praying for if we aren’t praying for wisdom and the fortitude to do what needs to be done to help? The Lord works in mysterious ways, but most of the time he works through us. If we aren’t willing to do anything then the prayer is a waste of breath.

The arguments against gun control and assault weapons bans are tortured at best. I don’t give a hoot what AR stands for in an AR-15. Okay, it doesn’t stand for assault rifle. Great. To argue that I don’t get to argue for gun control because I don’t know how that stupid apparatus works is just a creative dodge. It is designed to kill people. It is designed to kill a lot of people in short order. It has no positive utility and doesn’t belong anywhere near polite society.

If you oppose common sense gun legislation and blabber on about the sanctity of life you are a hypocrite.  Get your jollies anyway you want, but if your jollies present a danger to me or my family then you bet your ass I am going to argue for its regulation. If you care about life then you should care about all reasonable efforts to promote safety. Otherwise you are just full of excrement and need to sit down and shut up.

These things happen every once in awhile. I was standing in the back at mass when the deacon threw out something that knocked my socks off. In full disclosure, I have considered the process of becoming a deacon. It involves a number of sacrifices which includes nearly a decade of study and an extra masters degree in the process for most. So, when the deacon speaks it carries some weight.

In this case the deacon was talking about venial and mortal sin. There are four key mortal sins which include blasphemy, heresy, and murder. I highlight those three because he did. He said that if you go into the voting booth and pull the lever for someone that advocates policies against the sanctity of life then you are guilty of murder.

He’s a fairly smart guy. He’s not going to mention the specific political party because that would be a violation of the church’s tax exempt status, but anyone paying attention to politics knew what he was referring to. My initial response was rage. Thankfully I was in the back when he uttered that line or I might have been tempted to storm out. He was calling me and most of my family murderers.

My trouble is that we have taken something as expansive as life itself and narrowly construed to focus on the birth. The sanctity of life means so much more. It refers to the refugee looking for safety and being turned away. It refers to that same refugee that encounters barbed wire that endangers her life or the life of her child that the church professes to care about so deeply.

It applies to those that don’t have enough food to eat during the day and may need those two meals at school to keep them healthy. It refers to those adults and children that can’t reasonably afford health care coverage and need the Medicaid to get the treatment they need.

It refers to the prisoner that has committed the worst sins in our society. It governs whether we as a society have the right to take their life because it will make us feel better temporarily. Life is about dignity. It is about dignity from natural birth to natural death. We don’t get to pick and choose which planks we care about and when a life might be worth less to us than it does to someone else. There isn’t a ledger sheet where a brown person’s life is worth less than a white one’s. Someone speaking Spanish is not worth less than someone speaking English.

Our Lord and savior was a refugee. His family fled to Egypt when King Harrod threatened his life. They didn’t put barbed wire on their border. They didn’t consider him a potential terrorist. They didn’t put him on a bus and ship him off half way across the country for a political stunt. They were allowed to stow away and return when it was safe for them to do so. This is in the Bible they profess to love so much.

Which party is kinder to life in general? Which party fights more for the rights of people and for their general safety and welfare? Which party cares more about people? If we answer that question honestly then maybe we can turn that whole notion around on them. Perhaps that tune would quickly change if it became palatable to say that voting Republican is a mortal sin.

The simple truth is that voting is not a sin. It can’t be. It is a choice and like most choices, there are no perfect ones. The choice is whether to simply pull the lever for the party you think highlights the majority of your values or not to vote at all. What is in your head, heart, and what you do with your mouth and hands makes that determination. Do you personally support life? Do you follow the laws and rules that God has laid down? Do you make the world a better place or a worse one? I’m not about to confess for voting for Joe Biden when the choice clearly dictates I vote for an evil man. If that’s the standard then I’ll find the door.

As most people know, our democracy really isn’t a pure democracy or even a pure representative democracy. There were weights and counterweights installed in order to protect the rights and interests of smaller states in comparison to larger states. When you look at the representation in Congress you will notice that it doesn’t completely represent the will of the people 100 percent accurately.

This is particularly true in the Senate where each state has equal representation. The states represented by Democrats in the Senate represent nearly 70 million more Americans than those represented by Republicans, This is in spite of the fact that the breakdown is officially only 51-49.

Notice the talking points on the right as it pertains to the last presidential election. People talk about the number of counties that voted for Trump. They look at the large swaths of land that voted for Trump. They even look at the fact that more people showed up to his rallies and bought his stuff. They look at everything except for total votes cast. They can’t really defend losing by seven million votes overall, so they gloss over it.

The concept of one person, one vote is foreign in this country as it pertains to the presidential election, gerrymandered districts, and even local elections. The idea that a majority should dictate what is going on is something the right generally wants to avoid. So, we have been subject to minority rule for the majority of my collective lifetime.

I voted for the first time in 1992. During that time period, Republicans have won the majority in a presidential election exactly once. George W. Bush handily beat John Kerry in 2004. That’s it. So, to say that the country is a center-right country is a myth. When you consider that Republicans have served three terms as president in that time and appointed more than half of the court demonstrates what has happened to our country.

My interest from a political science perspective is what happens when these overbearing laws on reproductive rights begin to crop out in red states. We saw a migration to the south at the beginning of the 20th century when jobs and air conditioning changed the population patterns in the country. Texas became a destination and is now the second biggest state in the country in terms of population.

That could reverse itself as at the very least you can expect a brain drain in the state. Medical professionals will not want to practice medicine in Texas, so they will move to bluer states. Women and young families will follow them. Younger people and educated professionals tend to be blue politically. They will move to areas in the country that will also be blue.

So, how does that impact our politics? I would argue that puts a ton of pressure on a system that does not reflect the will of the people overall. If bluer states are already amongst the most populous and that will be exacerbated if this migration occurs then you have a definite problem in the Senate. If the Senate continues to operate where you need a 60-40 majority to get things done, it will be nearly impossible for things to get through in a body that will likely fluctuate around 50-50 no matter how many more votes Democrats get nationwide.

When you consider the fact that blue states contribute more to the coffers than blue states and essentially subsidize red states you will see that get wider if this kind of migration comes to pass. How does this impact the body politic? How does this massive migration impact politics and elections in the next generation? It obviously changed politics in last century, so how will it impact politics in the next century? Time will tell.

This past week has been a difficult one and that is particularly in Texas. Kate Cox was a normal Texan with two children and she and her husband were hoping for a third. 20 weeks into the pregnancy something horrible happened. They were given the kind of diagnosis that no one wants to hear. Their baby was no longer viable and it would threaten her life if it were brought to term.

The Texas law prevents abortions that late into the pregnancy. Cox asked for an exception since the baby was not viable, her health would be in danger, and performing the procedure now would preserve her ability to have children in the future. The district court heard the evidence and granted the exception.

Ken Paxton in his own special way filed an immediate appeal and threatened to have anyone that assisted her prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The Texas Supreme Court dragged their feet so Cox travelled to an unknown state and had the procedure done. Just to be thorough, the Texas Supreme Court then ruled that the district court’s ruling was null and void. There will be no exceptions.

As a cradle Catholic, I am really torn on this one. I tend to be against abortion in most instances. The key term is most. If the baby can be had safely and the baby is viable I much prefer adoption over abortion. However, I have to acknowledge two very important distinctions. The first is that all pregnancies are different and come with their own challenges. In Cox’s case, she wanted the baby, but that was no longer a legitimate possibility and the outcome was going to be crushing if not deadly.

Doctors and families are the ones that should make these calls. Is the mother’s life in danger? Is the baby in danger? Is this a case of the child having a abnormality that would impact its quality of life or will the child literally die shortly after birth? The fact is that no one carries a child to that point and chooses to have an abortion because the child is an inconvenience.

The second consideration is that abortion is a personal choice. I would never choose to have an abortion unless my life or the life of the baby were in danger. I will never be pregnant. It’s not my choice. If we believe in free will then we also believe that people ultimately have the choice to make decisions that we might think are bad ones. We may disagree with the choice.

In Cox’s case, that question is moot. The child wasn’t going to survive. So, what are we doing exactly? Why is Paxton being such a jackass? This was never about Cox. She had the means to go elsewhere to take care of her procedure. I think if you shot them up with truth serum they would admit that the law really wasn’t about her or women like her.

It was a signal to women in general. We have control over you. We control your reproductive health, your health in general, and your future. We make all of these choices for you because we can’t trust to make them on your own. It was a signal to everyone else that your situation doesn’t matter. You had your opportunity and you didn’t take it. The idea of prosecuting doctors for performing live saving care is beyond repugnant. You almost want to paint one of those curly mustaches on Paxton to complete the illusion that he is a megalomaniacal villain chortling in the background. We can do better Texas. We have to do better.

Rick Santorum put up one of those statements on Newsmax that was equal parts brilliant and asinine all at the same time. Of course, it is only brilliant if he was fully cognizant of what he was saying. If he’s not then it is the most ironic statement of the year as it pertains to elective politics.

The video you see above summarizes the GOP in a nutshell. For those that don’t want to go down the rabbit hole, Santorum is essentially saying that the Democrats only won because they put sexy issues like abortion and marijuana on the ballot. That statement highlights the electoral issues that the GOP has in one sentence.

The first part of the statement basically admits that the GOP counts on low turnouts to win. So, a large part of the irritation is that they brought out voters by putting those measures on the ballot in Ohio. This is what all of the voter fraud stuff is all about. They can’t really justify taking voters off the rolls that they want to remove without a built in excuse. So, we will talk about fraud.

Absentee balloting has been a thing for over 100 years in this country. The states have combined to prosecute fewer than 1000 people for voter fraud. That’s in over one billion ballots cast. My calculator says that is somewhere around .01 percent of ballots cast. I’m overestimating it in fact. Voter fraud is not a problem. In other words, if you can’t get the voters to choose you then you choose your voters.

Of course, the issues themselves are obvious. He was admitting that a majority of the population is for abortion. We could parse out exactly what that looks like. It all depends on what conditions you put on it. The right always puts it in extreme forms. They always want to bring up partial birth abortion because that is the one form of abortion a majority is against. No one in the Democratic party is banging the drum for partial birth abortion. It really isn’t a thing in terms of a talking point on the left. So, when you boil it down to its basic level, a majority of the population wants some abortion rights.

A majority of the population wants marijuana legalized in some form. You could call it decriminalization. You could call it medicinal marijuana. You could simply say it is legally available but heavily regulated. Any way you slice it, a majority of the population is over heavy criminalizing marijuana use. So, Santorum is saying it is the fault of the Democrats for putting something on the ballot that the people find popular.

So, in that statement Santorum is admitting that the GOP is on the wrong side of those issues and that they only win if people don’t vote. Imagine the honesty and direct analysis that we are getting there. I don’t think he has the self-awareness that such a statement would say he does. He is blissfully unaware of what he just said.

If you look at Republican politics since 1980 they have been about two things: abortion and tax cuts. They have been remarkably successful at both. They have played the long game on both. They have packed the courts and played the grassroots game about as well as it could be played, but you are talking about two issues that are losers with the changing demographics in the country. That’s the whole point and the whole ballgame. Thank you Rick. I couldn’t have said it better myself.