Let the Sun Shine: Florida's Homophobic "4Marriage" Campaign

And in the “this just in” folder, Waymon Hudson at Bilerico Florida is reporting today that Florida Red and Blue, a group heading the SayNo2Campaign to oppose Florida’s amendment 2, has filed a lawsuit seeking disclosure of the names of hidden financial backers of this homophobic amendment (http://florida.bilerico.com/2008/10/floridas_amendment_2_illegal_campaigning.php). The lawsuit notes that over $750,000 underwriting the homophobic campaign drive has been channeled through a 501(c)3 called Florida Family Action, which is not a registered political action committee (PAC).

John Stemberger, chair of Florida4Marriage.org, the group promoting amendment 2, has sent out emails to prospective donors informing them that if they donate through Florida Family Action, their names will not be disclosed. A September email from Stemberger links Florida Family Action to Florida4Marriage.org, and states that prospective donors to the campaign would be kept confidential. Stemberger has defended his evasion of Florida laws requiring transparency re: funders of political initiatives by stating that some donors to his campaign wish to remain anonymous.

In a press release about the lawsuit, Florida Red and Blue maintains, “This secret scheme was intended to circumvent Florida's campaign finance laws mandating transparency and disclosure of all contributions and donors.” In a separate statement, Joseph S. Geller and Ben Kuehne, attorneys representing Florida Red and Blue, state,

Secret contributions are a scandal that creates public distrust and deprives voters of significant information identifying the supporters of Amendment 2. That they have need to hide behind violations of the law is indicative of the deceptive nature of the campaign.

As I’ve noted in postings on this blog, in the year in which Steve and I lived in Florida (2006-2007), we found ourselves repeatedly harassed by a neighbor who was ostensibly concerned about our leaving trash on the curb in front of our house, after the city did not pick up the trash on its regular runs. When we checked the Know Thy Neighbor website at www.knowthyneighbor.org/florida, which lists those who signed petitions to place amendment 2 on the ballot in the coming election, we found—surprise, surprise—that this neighbor had signed the homophobic petition.

Since she complained only about our leaving trash by our curb for a few moments before we realized the city had not retrieved it, and since she did not complain when other neighbors did the same—sometime for days—we had to conclude, sadly, that she was harassing us solely and specifically because we were gay and a couple. Interestingly enough, some of those whose names appear on the Know Thy Neighbor website have been outraged to find their identities made public, though Florida law defends the disclosure of names of those who sign petitions to amend the state constitution.

One has to wonder why people promoting what they proclaim to be an honorable, moral cause are so frightened to have their names known. I’m strongly in favor of sunshine laws that make information about donors and supporters of political initiatives public.

In following right-wing Catholic groups in the U.S. for some years now, I have noted an interesting pattern in which organization links to organization, with no public information about the links, and with the same players involved in both organizations. My discussion of the Colorado situation earlier today provides a number of illustrations of this principle, which allows right-wing religious groups and individuals to exercise disproportionate influence on the political process through sheltered contributions, secret funding, and coalitions that are never apparent to the public eye.

Our political life and our culture have suffered as a result of this immoral use of money and power for ostensibly “religious” ends. It’s time to let the sun shine in.

Playing the Race Card: McCain Campaign and the Ashley Todd Story

And a quick addendum to the lengthy post I just made, re: the Colorado Catholic church and its ties to the Republican party.

For those pursuing the other information trails I sketched on Sunday, Huffington Post yesterday carried valuable commentary by Marty Kaplan about clues pointing to the McCain campaign's active involvement in promoting the now-debunked Ashley Todd story before that story had been verified. In his “Move Over, Willie Horton,” Kaplan pursues the involvement of McCain's Pennsylvania communications director Peter Feldman with pushing this story (www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/move-over-willie-horton_b_138196.html).

Money quotes:

I don't know Peter Feldman, and the only mayhem he's suspected of is metaphorical, and the drip, drip, drip of evidence against him is coming out in the court of public opinion, not in a court of law. I realize that politics ain't beanbag, and I'm familiar with the riptides and undertows that can seize anyone working in a presidential campaign, especially an apparently losing one, in its final days. Still, for the sake of the reputation of Jewish ethics, and even for the sake of the reputation of Republicans, I sure hope he didn't do last week what it kinda sorta looks like he did.

And "…[I]t appears to be Peter Feldman -- not the police -- who told local reporters that her (fictional) big black assailant said to her, 'You're with the McCain campaign? I'm going to teach you a lesson.' Move over, Willie Horton.'

Selling Out Catholic Values: Archbishop Charles Chaput and the Republican Captivity of the Church

I recently challenged myself (and others) to pursue three information trails that have opened in this election. The public has a right to know 1) to what extent McCain campaign members pushed the Ashley Todd hoax before her story had been verified; 2) the names of secret donors to Florida Family Action, which is promoting a homophobic ballot initiative in that state; and 3) funding sources for the websites set up in recent weeks by the Colorado Catholic Conference to bring in the vote for Republican candidates in the coming election.

I’ve been pursuing the third question since Sunday. What I find is revelatory—and disgusting. It demonstrates that the institutional Catholic church in Colorado is so incestuously tied to the Republican party that Archbishop Chaput’s claim that he is not endorsing John McCain lacks all credibility. The story I am discovering regarding the connection of the Catholic church in Colorado to the Republican party is a parable of a church that has bargained away its soul.

Through its pastoral leaders—above all, Archbishop Charles Chaput—the Catholic church in Colorado has sold its soul. The pastoral leaders of the Colorado Catholic church have now placed themselves in the unenviable position of having mortgaged the church's future to one political party. As that party rises or falls, so does the Catholic church in Colorado.

This is a place churches should never choose to go. No political party ever deserves the endorsement of a church. The goals of all political parties fall short of the biblical vision of the reign of God. The church’s position vis-à-vis the public square should be one of constant critique of all political platforms, insofar as they do not move towards that normative vision of God's reign. The attempt to establish theocracy through one political party or a single political movement inevitably sells the church out, and places its soul in the hands of politicians and their monied backers—nonied backers who use the church as a shield for their sordid ends, and whom the church permits to buy and sell God.

As readers know, my interest in the Colorado story began with announcements on the Clerical Whisper blog last week of two new websites closely connected to the Colorado Catholic Conference—Formed Catholics in the Public Square and Voto Catolico (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/10/talking-pro-life-or-acting-pro-life.html and http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/10/major-religious-and-cultural-shift.html).

An announcement for the Formed Catholics website appears on the Irish Catholic blog (widely read by Catholics around the world) on October 22 (http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-website-offers-intellectual-and.html). This announcement (which was obviously provided to Clerical Whispers by the website's promoters) presents the Formed Catholics website as a treasure trove of “intellectual and spiritual resources for voters.” It quotes Jill Reiff, a researcher for the Solidarity Institute sponsoring the website, as follows: “Unfortunately, not everyone has the time or access to the information necessary for voting responsibly. This website presents the most prominent information in an easy to use manner.”

Easy to use—you betcha! Information, resources: the website and its sponsors claim they are not endorsing any single party, but merely providing Catholics with the facts they need to become informed voters: “The Institute notes on their site that the facts that they present are objective and from reliable sources.”

These claims are reiterated two days later in the Clerical Whispers’ blog’s announcement of the Latino website Voto Catolico, a clone of Formed Catholics
(http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2008/10/website-promotes-hispanic-catholic-vote.html). Citing material provided by Voto Catolico’s sponsors (which are not ever identified on the blog itself, though the blog clearly links to the Colorado Catholic Conference), Clerical Whispers states, “The site does not endorse a particular candidate but rather reminds believers of the higher values that should be considered when casting their vote, such as the defense of life from the moment of conception and marriage as a union between one man and one woman.”

Facts, resources, information, objectivity, no endorsement of a particular candidate or party: here’s what I’ve found as I have pursued information trails about the involvement of the Colorado Catholic Conference in politics. It puts the lie to the claim that these websites are objective presentations of the “facts” to inform Catholic voters. They are, in fact, high-powered (and seemingly well-funded) commercials for the Republican party, designed to give voters the impression that this party has a privileged relationship with and the explicit endorsement of the Catholic church.

In my attempt to uncover answers to my questions about these websites, I’ve discovered I’m not the only blogger pursuing these information trails. In two postings last week to the Denver Westword blog, Michael Roberts reports that Bob Beauprez, previously a Republican representative from Colorado, has been bombarding Colorado voters with robo-calls on behalf of the current Republican candidate for Congress Bob Schaffer and against his Democratic opponent Mark Udall (http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2008/10/bob_beauprez_reemerges_as_a_pr.php and http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2008/10/the_bob_beauprez_robocalls_and.php).

Roberts reports that the robo-calls state that Schaffer stands with Catholic teaching on the “non-negotiable” issues of abortion, gay marriage, human cloning, etc., whereas Udall does not. And, in case those receiving the call are in doubt about this claim, Beauprez then helpfully directs listeners to that brand-new Catholic “resources” website, Formed Catholics in the Public Square—that same “Catholic” website that suddenly appeared last week just as the Beauprez robo-call campaign got underway.

A transcript of part of the Beauprez robo-call provided by Roberts indicates that Beauprez states the following, "I recently learned through the Solidarity Institute at ecatholichub.net that Bob Schaffer is in agreement with Catholic doctrine on all five of these issues, while Mark Udall is opposed to every single one . . . ."

Roberts asks, “What's the Solidarity Institute? Fascinating, for one thing.” He notes that, when one visits the Formed Catholics page sponsored by Solidarity Institute, the only issues about which it seeks to inform Catholic voters are “the five non-negotiables,” about which Solidarity expects all Catholics to agree: gay marriage, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning, abortion, and euthanasia.

As Roberts notes, Formed Catholics rates McCain and Obama on these “non-negotiable” issues, with the following result: “Candidates are awarded red, yellow or green lights depending on their positions, and by this measure, McCain pummels Obama, as Republicans routinely trump Democrats throughout the site.”

Objective, factual information and resources? Hardly. This website and its Latino clone are shameless advertisements for the Republican party. They are Republican campaign promotional materials masquerading as Catholic resources. As I do, Roberts wants to know where the money for these ads is coming from. As he notes,

The “About Us” Page on ecatholichub.net doesn't specifically reference the Archdiocese of Denver or other Catholic church bodies in Colorado. Yet another section of the main site features “Moral Principles for Catholic Voters,” a guide endorsed by Archbishop of Denver Charles Chaput, Bishop of Pueblo Arthur Tafoya and Bishop of Colorado Springs Michael Sheridan; the text is included below.

The Solidarity Institute webpage at www.ecatholichub.net/si does link directly to the Colorado Catholic Conference, with a statement that Colorado Catholic Conference is “a state-level, public policy agency operated jointly by the Archdiocese of Denver, the Diocese of Pueblo and the Diocese of Colorado Springs” (www.cocatholicconference.org). Solidarity’s two links to the Colorado Catholic Conference would surely give most visitors to the website the distinct impression that Solidarity—and thus its promotion of Republican candidates—is directly sponsored by the Catholic church in Colorado.

The Archdiocese of Denver is denying any connection to Beauprez’s robo-call campaign, however. According to Jeremy Pelzer, Archbishop Chaput’s spokeswoman Jeanette DeMelo has informed the Denver Post that she had no knowledge of the robo-calls until her office began getting calls about them (www.politickerco.com/jeremypelzer/2631/beauprez-talks-values-issues-robocalls-behalf-schaffer-musgrave).

Pelzer notes that the funding source for Beauprez’s robo-calls is a “new group led by Beauprez called Informed Catholic Citizens.” Visit the website for that group at http://informedcatholics.org, and one finds that . . . it links directly to the website of Solidarity Institute. And thus to Colorado Catholic Conference, through Solidarity Institute. If one clicks on the “Know Your Vote” section of Informed Catholic Citizens’ website, one is brought immediately to the candidate-ranking page of Solidarity Institute’s Formed Catholics in the Public Square website, that is, to the pro-Republican ranking page of SI's website.

Yet nowhere on the Informed Catholic Citizens’ website is there any indication at all of its sponsorship or funding sources, or its ties to Colorado Catholic Republican interest groups. Its “About Us” link simply states that it’s a grassroots organization who [sic] wants to see Catholics and our Church treated fairly . . . .” The website is, in fact, actively misleading in several respects.

For instance, though Jeremy Pelzer reports that Bob Beauprez informed him that Informed Catholic Citizens is the funding source for his robo-calls campaign, the ICC website carries a disclaimer of sorts about this. Under the heading “Potential for Bias,” it has an unsigned statement suggesting that if Beauprez’s intent is simply to inform voters, he deserves support. But, “If this is just one more misuse of the Church structure and resources, I am offended.”

The statement notes that the ICC website itself appears to endorse only Republican candidates, and then suggests that the bishops’ aim in calling voters to be informed is to provide resources, not to endorse candidates. This is an exceedingly strange—an exceptionally mendacious—claim, when the website is directly linked to the Solidarity Institute website, itself linked to the Colorado Catholic Conference website, which explicitly ranks all Republican candidates as more in line with Catholic values than the Democratic candidates.

And then there’s the misleading link immediately below the “Potential for Bias” link on the ICC website, “Opposition to California Proposition 8: Hate in the Name of Love.” This leads to an op-ed piece by Dennis Prager headed by a picture of a smiling same-sex female couple. On the face of it, this piece initially appears to be a call to Catholics to choose love over hate in the assessment of the anti-gay marriage proposition 8 in California.

In fact, it is precisely the opposite. It is an attack on those who see the anti-gay marriage movement as anti-love, and thus all about hate. Prager’s argument stands reality on its head, thus suggesting that the use of the picture of the smiling couple is a kind of “hook” to get voters confused by the dynamics of love, hate, and religious teaching in the gay-marriage debate to explore resources on this website, where they will be set straight.

Noxious materials. Lies perched on lies. And all directly related, in some way, to the Colorado Catholic Conference—that is, to the institutional Catholic church in Colorado, and to its pastoral leaders, chief among them Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver.

The mess only stinks higher as one delves more carefully into the deep-pocket ties of Chaput to well-heeled Republican Catholic donors in and outside Colorado.

Though Solidarity Institute does not appear to have the official backing of the Colorado Catholic Conference, its website links to the latter entity, as I have stated. In fact, one of two links to the Colorado Catholic Conference on the website of Solidarity Institute advertises the Colorado Catholic Conference as “Other SI Work.”

As I’ve noted, the Colorado Catholic Conference is explicitly sponsored by the three Catholic dioceses of Colorado. As I indicated previously, its mission statement describes the organization as a public policy agency operated by the Denver archdiocese and the dioceses of Pueblo and Colorado Springs. Its “About Us” Statement declares that the Colorado Catholic Conference “interacts with the state legislature, U S Congress and elected officials at all levels in numerous ways.”

Given the mission and self-description of Colorado Catholic Conference, it’s interesting, indeed, that the Solidarity Institute website would characterize CCC—that is, an official arm of the Catholic church in Colorado—as part of the “other work” of Solidarity Institute. Solidarity Institute, whose “Catholic” voters’ guide shows McCain pummeling Obama on “non-negotiable” issues and Republicans routinely trumping Democrats throughout the site, as Jeremy Pelzer notes . . . .

It’s interesting that one cannot easily find a history of Solidarity Institute—a history of its founders, sponsors, members, past and present boards of trustees—online. The Solidarity Institute website itself has a vague “About Us” statement simply identifying the organization as a “Catholic effort” to promote pro-life political positions. The contact page has a phone number and email contact form, but no mailing address.

Financial donations are, of course, welcome, and the website actively solicits them—for instance, for the upkeep of the Denver Catholic cathedral. But nowhere on the website is a statement about current or past members of Solidarity Institute, its sponsoring or affiliated organizations, its board of trustees, its funding sources, its history, etc.

Solidarity Institute was in existence as early as 2002, per the Denver Catholic Register, the newspaper of the archdiocese of Denver. A 20 March 2002 article in the Register notes that its then executive director was Peter Droege, who had formerly edited the Catholic Register (www.archden.org/dcr/archive/20020320/2002032011ln.htm).

At the same time that he was heading Solidarity Institute, Droege was media representative for Medallion Enterprises, a Denver-based investment corporation that the Boulder Weekly described in 2002 as “a philanthropic pro-voucher organization founded by multi-millionaire cable magnate John Saeman” (http://archive.boulderweekly.com/111402/newsspin.html and ww.medallionllc.com). "Pro-voucher" refers to a movement sponsored by the U.S. Catholic bishops to have the government provide tax incentives to parents who send their children to Catholic schools.

Medallion’s chair John V. Saeman is a big-money player in Colorado (and nationwide) Republican politics, as well as an avid supporter of the Denver archdiocese. In 2006, he donated $10,000 to the Colorado Republican Campaign Committee and $25,000 to the Republican National Campaign Committee
(www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/john-saeman.asp?cycle=06).

In the same year, Saeman donated as well to the campaign of Bob Beauprez. He also gave repeated donations to the campaigns of embattled Pennsylvania Catholic Republican senator Rick Santorum and of embattled Virginia Republican senator George Allen, both of whom were defeated. Both men have drawn fire for remarks widely considered homophobic or racist: Santorum has implied that acceptance of homosexuality will lead to acceptance of bestiality (www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-04-23-santorum-excerpt_x.htm), and Allen once referred to an Indian-American photographer in his opponent’s campaign as a “macaca,” a racist term for people of color (www.forward.com/articles/alleged-slur-casts-spotlight-on-senator%E2%80%99s-jewis).

In this election cycle, John Saeman has given $50,000 to the Republican National Campaign Committee, $25,000 to the Colorado Republican Federal Campaign Committee, as well as repeated donations to the campaigns of Bob Schaffer and Marilyn Musgrave (www.campaignmoney.com/political/contributions/john-saeman.asp?cycle=08). Once again, in this election period, records show him giving to embattled prominent out-of-state Republican candidates such as Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.

Saeman and his wife Carol have thick ties to Archbishop Chaput of Denver. In 2005, Chaput finagled from the Vatican a distinguished award for the couple: they were named Knight and Dame Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great (www.archden.org/dcr//news.php?e=114&s=4&a=2617). John Saeman has chaired the board of the Denver archdiocese’s Catholic Foundation (www.archden.org/dcr//news.php?e=51&s=4&a=1143).

As his contributions to Republican politicians outside Colorado suggest, Saeman’s influence as a right-wing Catholic Republican operative go well beyond the boundaries of the state. For instance, in 1999 he collaborated with Domino’s Pizza magnate Thomas Monaghan and David "No Gays in My Papers" Weyrich, CEO of Martin Media, to found Catholic Family Radio (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9507E1DB1039F936A2575BC0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=all). As commentator David Scott notes, this organization –which has strong ties to the right-wing Catholic EWTN affiliate—was founded to “gain a hearing for conservative Catholic political ideas” (www.davidscottwritings.com/newfrequency.html). Saeman is unapologetic about his attempt to influence political decisions in areas beyond his state boundaries: as the PA GOP Insider blog noted in 2006, Saeman gave to the Santorum campaign because he supports Santorum’s purported “pro-family, pro-life” values (http://pa-gop-insider.blogspot.com/2006/02/philadelphia-inquirer-02132006-casey.html).

Through the numerous organizations he funds or with which he is affiliated, John Saeman continues to pursue one overriding objective. That objective is described by the organization Colorado Conservative Voters, an initiative to which he has lavishly contributed, as the attempt “to educate Colorado citizens about issues, officeholders, and political candidates that further conservative values,” though, clearly, the concern to “educate” citizens goes far beyond the boundaries of a single state (www.campaignmoney.com/political/527/colorado_conservative_voters.asp).

Indeed, it does not require any stretch of the imagination to see that the influence of big-pocket Republican Catholic powerbrokers like John Saeman reaches the Vatican itself, particularly when John Saeman’s board biography on the Cable Center website states that he helped to support the educational and charitable efforts of the last pope, John Paul II (www.cablecenter.org/about/boardDetail.cfm?id=45). Is it any wonder that John Paul II chose Denver as the site of his 1993 World Youth Day Conference, an event twhose political underpinnings the right-wing Republican National Review trumpeted as follows:

The Pope's visit to Denver was a triumph, demonstrating that millions of people-not only Catholics, or even believers-respond with joy to uncompromising reaffirmations of the morality the modern West so sorely lacks. Even Bill Clinton and Al Gore felt obliged to pay their respects to a man who opposes everything they stand for.

Oh. And Mr. Saeman has long been closely associated with the Daniels Fund of Denver (www.danielsfund.org/About/Board%20Bios/John_Saeman.asp). Of which the current vice-president of communications is none other than Peter Droege (www.danielsfund.org/About/staff.asp?s=2).

Peter Droege, former editor of the Denver archdiocesan paper, the Catholic Register.

Peter Droege, who headed the Solidarity Institute at the same time he was media representative for John Saeman’s Medallion Enterprises.

The Solidarity Institute whose website links to that of the Colorado Catholic Conference.

The Colorado Catholic Conference which is sponsored by the three Catholic dioceses of Colorado.

The Solidarity Institute which is named as a resource for voters in the pro-Republican robo-calls Bob Beauprez has recently been making in Colorado.

The Republican robo-calls implying that the Catholic church supports Republican politicians, calls about which Archbishop Chaput’s spokeswoman Jeannette DeMelo disclaims any knowledge on behalf of the archbishop.

The Solidarity Institute whose website sponsors a "fact-based" "informational" resource guide to Catholic voters that consistently ranks McCain and other Republican politicians as embodiments of Catholic values.

The Denver archbishop Charles Chaput who has repeatedly attacked Mr. Obama in this election while professing that he does not endorse a particular candidate (http://bilgrimage.blogspot.com/2008/10/catholics-life-issues-and-elections.html).

The same Charles Chaput who had the pope name the Saemans Knight and Dame Commander of the Order of St. Gregory the Great, and who, two years ago, presented the Saemans with his prestigious Imago Dei award (www.archden.org/dcr//news.php?e=353&s=4&a=7418).

After following these information trails, I understand why Catholic theologian Rev. Richard McBrien has said of Charles Chaput that, of a bad crop of bishops appointed by the late pope, Chaput is “one of the worst” (www.ad2000.com.au/articles/2005/decjan2005p7_2121.html).

In the person of Charles Chaput, the Catholic church of Colorado has sold its soul to the Republican party, lock, stock, and barrel—and to the big-money donors that sustain that party in Colorado and elsewhere. Catholic values should not be for sale. In the case of Archbishop Chaput, they clearly have been, to the detriment of the church’s ability to proclaim those values—and the gospel itself.

Trails to Keep Following: The Public's Right to Know

I don't normally blog on Sundays, but I want to do so today--mainly as an aide mémoire to myself not to forget some important information trails that opened in the final days of this national election. With the election, it would be easy for us to forget these trails.

In my view, each of them leads to questions to which we need answers, as we continue building a healthier participatory democracy. Here are the trails I hope the media (and citizen bloggers, and I myself) can keep pursuing, no matter what happens in the election:

1. What role did McCain staffers play in pushing the Ashley Todd story even before it had been verified (see John Aravosis's America Blog on this important question, www.americablog.com/2008/10/time-for-answers.html)?

The public has a right to know.

2. Now that John Stemberger of Yes2Marriage.org, the group sponsoring the anti-gay marriage amendment in Florida, has admitted that Florida Family Action, an umbrella group assisting Yes2Marriage, has hidden the identity of donors to FFA, who are those donors who have wanted to remain anonymous (see Waymon Hudson at Bilerico on this, www.bilerico.com/2008/10/the_insanity_of_john_stemberger_going_do.php)?

Yes2Marriage is violating several Florida non-disclosure laws. If defeating gay marriage is a noble cause, why on earth would anyone want to give to this cause anonymously?

The public has a right to know.

3. Finally, who is providing funding for the various Catholic Answers-type websites that have been cropping up in recent days? I've blogged about one of these sponsored by the Colorado Catholic Conference. I suspect that another about which I also blogged this week--VotoCatolico.org--targeting Latino voters is closely associated with Colorado Catholic Conference.

Given the close ties of Archbishop Chaput in Denver to one of Colorado's leading Republican families, the Coors family, one naturally wonders about Republican funding ties to some of these Catholic Answers websites.

The public has a right to know.

Whose Black Eye? The Ashley Todd Story and Repair of the World

“May we soon behold . . . the repair of the world” (Siddur, Jewish book of daily prayer).

I have hesitated to write about the Ashley Todd story. I’ve kept silent for all kinds of reasons. Chief among them is that it’s a toxic story, and even mentioning it in a critical context—exposing it for the string of lies it comprises—abets the viral dissemination of hate speech.

It’s designed to be that way. In confronting its lies, one spreads them further. In calling for responsibility on the part of those who jumped on this story and ran with it in the face of abundant evidence that it was manufactured, one plays into the hands of those who want to invert core values in our political process and turn Todd into a martyr when she’s been exposed as a liar.

The story is a carefully crafted inverted parable that seeks to take well-warranted criticism of the McCain-Palin campaign for inciting racial hatred in this election, and to turn that criticism on its head, making the object of the hate rhetoric into those whom we are to fear.

Sick. Disgusting. Noxious. Hateful. And, in seeking to combat it, one can focus on hatred to such an extent that one is drawn into the shadows and away from tikkun olam, the repair of the world that is a core obligation of people of faith.

But now that Ashley Todd has admitted she made up her story of being assaulted by a 6’4” “very black” man, it’s impossible to avoid this story and what it teaches us about ourselves on the eve of this presidential election. And though writing about it on the Sabbath is abhorrent to me, perhaps it's appropriate, if we can use the story to teach ourselves how to engage in healing and repair of the world more creatively than we have done in the past.

Here’s what needs to be said about this story.

This is not a story that ought to have been difficult to unravel from the get-go. From my first encounter with it, I sensed something in it so unwholesome that I realized even talking about this story would end up serving ends directly counter to those I’m pursuing on this blog. And if I could sense that, along with countless numbers of bloggers from the moment it broke, the first thing to ask about the story is why the mainstream media immediately ran with it with such alacrity, though the story was clearly off-kilter in all kinds of ways.

Nothing in the account made sense. There were the instant hysterical claims all over the internet that Todd, a McCain campaign volunteer in Pittsburgh, had been mutilated by a very black man who was 6’4”, who robbed her at an ATM and then, pinning her on the ground, fondling her and risking capture by the police, took time to knife a B into her face. For Barack, doncha know.

Please.

There was the mysterious picture that suddenly cropped up with viral suspiciousness on right-wing websites, whose origin no one could track, showing the B not carved but scratched into Todd’s face—and backwards, as if she had done it to herself in a mirror.

There was the “black eye” that was clearly dark make-up, with no redness or swelling around the eye or anywhere on her face, though she claimed she had been kicked and pummeled. There was the fact that she refused any medical treatment. And that the ATM cameras did not corroborate her story, though the media tried valiantly to spin that damning fact by stating that she was attacked out of camera range.

There was Ashley Todd’s Myspace site, with its epigraph, “Lying is the most fun a girl can have without taking her cloths [sic] off.” There was her transparent trail of twitters prior to the alleged incident, asking people to pray for her as she drove into what she claimed was the wrong side of town, but what is actually a stable Italian-American neighborhood. Setting up the story . . . .

There’s the fact—which should have leapt out immediately at the media, given the other reasons to doubt the story—that this nasty little lie is one in a long series of similar lies that constitute a stinky trope of racism running through our nation’s history, in which white women concoct whoppers about assault by big black men when it serves their interests to divert attention from their own unsavory motives or actions.

There was, in other words, every reason in the world not to place faith in this story of brutal assault until it had been verified.

But that is not how those promoting the story behaved. Not at all. I first read of this attack within minutes after the story broke—on websites in which right-wing Catholics were logging in to promote their one-issue approach to voting. Somehow, as the news entered that right-wing Catholic demi-monde, it became a nifty little narrative about how baby-killer Barack would not merely promote abortion but was now provoking knife attacks on good God-fearing Christians trying to save the land.

A nifty little lie that I don’t see any of those good God-fearing Christians retracting now that Ashley Todd has admitted she manufactured the whole malodorous tale.

From those abortion websites, I googled for more information and landed on right-wing political websites immediately high-profiling this story of a white girl assaulted and mutilated by a huge, very black man. I found those websites full of postings about the need for good Americans to stock up on guns now and prepare to defend life and liberty against the assault of Barackian hooligans (presumably tall very black ones).

The Ashley Todd story demonstrates the lengths to which “values voters” will go to distort and invert authentic values—the core values of all major religions of the world; the civic values necessary to bind us together as a body politic—in order to gain political power. The story also reveals a point I keep making on this blog: the inversion of values by some values voters, such that shouting about baby killing becomes equivalent to shouting about menacing gays or hooligan blacks—as religious leaders who claim to be all about repair of the world remain conspicuously silent.

Please note that I’m not talking about Todd herself in making these observations. I’m talking about those who were only too willing to spread her lies around without any fact-checking, when an abundance of evidence suggested reasons for caution before moving ahead with this story.

Not merely the right-wing news sites and websites that immediately jumped on this story and spread it far and wide, but the mainstream media as well, have (with seeming gleefulness) participated in a campaign of lies that turns upside down one of the key concerns we all ought to have as this election season closes: the possibility of real hate-engendered violence as a result of the rhetoric of those using this story to decry fictional violence supposedly arising from those victimized by the hate rhetoric!

This inversion of values is immoral. It should seriously concern people of faith and shepherds of faith communities. It underscores the need of those communities and their pastors to speak out clearly about the inroads hate speech is now making into our political life at the very center.

We should be equally concerned about the fact that news reports are now demonstrating that, even when there were clear reasons to doubt the truthfulness of Ashley Todd’s story and before the story had been verified, the Pennsylvania communications director of McCain’s campaign was informing reporters that the B scratched on Todd’s face stood for Barack (www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/24/ashley-todd-story-pushed_n_137710.html). The McCain campaign is now understandably trying to distance itself from this story, and is seeking to depict those raising questions about the use of the story by the McCain campaign itself as cold-hearted critics of a possibly disturbed young woman.

In my view, one can feel real compassion for a young woman who might be so unhinged (or so indoctrinated?) that she would concoct a passel of toxic lies targeting a racial minority and would mutilate herself, while one continues to hold to the fire the feet of media and political groups who helped disseminate these toxic lies. The level of violence in the rhetoric of too many Americans in this election, and the potential for real violence, coupled with ugly racism, should make us very hesitant to drive social wedges even deeper—and through outright lies.

There is another reason for profound concern both about the Ashley Todd story and the quickness with which mainstream media and some political leaders bought it. This is, as I have noted, that it trades on stereotypes deeply imprinted in our cultural psyche by recurrent narratives that make “innocent” white women the prey of nefarious black men.

It says much about us as a nation that anyone continues to think she can continue to get away with telling such tales. And that, when she is exposed, she is actually somehow the martyr rather than the disseminator of violence. The fact that this narrative is cropping up again in our culture in this election says much about how far we still have to go towards repairing our world, when it comes to confronting the deep roots of our racism.

On the positive side, what happened with Ashley Todd’s story underscores a point I have made repeatedly on this blog: this is the power of good citizen blogging to change the way we do business in our political life. In the past, when false narratives of black men molesting white women have found their way into our political discourse and thus into the media, it has taken quite some time to uncover the lies at the root of these narratives.

In this case, citizen bloggers were all over the story from the beginning, even as the mainstream media gave it viral force. That’s good news. It suggests that, through speedy dissemination of accurate information on the internet, citizen bloggers have the capability of defanging hate narratives before they do all the damage of which they're capable.

Finally, I have to say it again: where are the leaders of our faith communities? This story unfolded in western Pennsylvania, a Catholic battleground area on which I have focused several times in posting this week. This is a state in which cultural and religious battles are being fought in this election, and in which Catholic pastoral leaders are taking a key role.

It is a state in which the voice of pastoral leaders to challenge hate and unmask lies would make a world of difference—as it would at a national level. Any religious leaders who remain silent as hate spikes in a nation deserve to find themselves out of business when those contesting the hate finally push it to the margins and begin building a culture less toxic.

Major Religious and Cultural Shift: The Current Election

Further confirmation of the major cultural realignment going on with the current U.S. presidential election--and the self-marginalization of those religious figures who can only say no to the realignment, and who refuse to engage postmodern culture creatively: a Barma Group poll released yesterday shows Obama and McCain in a dead heat among self-professed "born again" Christian voters (http://religionblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2008/10/mccain-and-obama-in-dead-heat.html).

Why is this big news? Because, until this election, for several decades now this constituency has always voted Republican. Churches aligned with right-wing Republican political platforms have done all they can to bring in the vote for the Republicans. An internal Southern Baptist Convention poll this election shows 80% of Southern Baptist pastors voting for McCain, and only 1% for Obama (the rest are undecided or have chosen a third party) (www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=28134&ref=BPNews-RSSFeed0528).

People are moving away from the "non-negotiable," naysaying, fear-driven approach of the Christian right, with its overt theocratic agenda. This cultural shift dooms Christian leaders--including a significant proportion of the U.S. Catholic bishops--who continue to shill for the political right to irrevelancy in the culture now forming around a seismic political shift.

That place--that place of irrevelancy--is not a place a religion centered on hope should ever find itself.

And as all this takes place, those "Catholic" websites trying to drive the Catholic vote into the Republican fold continue to spring up like fungi in the night. Clerical Whispers links today to a new website for Latino Catholics, VotoCatolico, that claims not to endorse a candidate but to offer Latino voters intellectual and spiritual resources to choose wisely (http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2008/10/website-promotes-hispanic-catholic-vote.html and www.votocatolico.com).

And, lo and behold, the "resources" offered by the website are the same old, same old "non-negotiables" about abortion and same-sex marriage. If this website has a sponsor, I can't locate it by clicking on the site. Interestingly enough, it gives Archbishop Chaput a high profile, and looks very much like the website I mentioned yesterday, the one sponsored by the Colorado Catholic Conference.

Once again: I'd dearly love to know where the funding for these "Catholic" websites is coming from. They are an extension of Republican marketing in this campaign.

Finally, in an article yesterday on Huffington Post, CC Goldwater, granddaughter of Barry Goldwater, explains why she is repudiating her grandfather's party in this election:

Myself, along with my siblings and a few cousins, will not be supporting the Republican presidential candidates this year. We believe strongly in what our grandfather stood for: honesty, integrity, and personal freedom, free from political maneuvering and fear tactics.

Honesty, integrity, repudiation of manuevering and fear tactics: the kinds of values one would expect faith-based values voters to endorse in any leader. More's the pity, when some Christian pastoral leaders continue to give the impression of being on the side of dishonesty, lack of integrity, and fear tactics--even as large numbers of their flock look for something new when business as usual is no longer working for us.

Talking Pro-Life or Acting Pro-Life: Informed Catholic Voters

What’s happening to the Catholic vote in this presidential election continues to draw attention. I noticed two noteworthy articles about this topic in the last day, after I posted yesterday. In today’s posting, I’d like to summarize and comment on those articles.

In “Don’t Let the Bishops Swing the Election—Again!” Robert Blair Kaiser reminds us of what happened four years ago (http://ncronline3.org/drupal/?q=node/2259). In the Kerry vs. Bush campaign, the same key bishops who are trying to swing the election for McCain—Chaput and Burke—requested a letter from the Vatican’s Holy Office. They got the document they wanted: it appeared to tell Catholics that it was their religious duty to vote for Bush. Chaput and Burke and their allies disseminated the letter widely, suggesting that the Vatican had weighed in on the election and faithful Catholics should listen and act accordingly.

As a result, Ohio, which had voted overwhelmingly for the Catholic Kennedy in 1960, voted in the same proportion for Bush this time, though his opponent, Kerry, was a Catholic. Kaiser reminds us of who headed the Vatican’s Holy Office in 2004: it was none other than Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. Kaiser observes, “In effect, Cardinal Ratzinger, a man who would soon be pope, swung an American election for a Republican who said he was ‘pro-life.’”

Kaiser notes that there is increasing recognition even among Catholics (including right-wing ones such as Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia) that overturning Roe v. Wade will not significantly affect the abortion rate in the U.S. If reducing abortions is a desirable objective, then attention has to be given to the reasons women choose abortion. Mitigate the needs for making this choice, and you will diminish the abortion rate—something the Democratic platform recognizes, in the view of many pro-life voters this year, better than the Republican one does.

As an aside, I’d like to note what appears to me to be a fallacy in the statements many pro-Republican bishops are making about Roe v. Wade. Many bishops are hinging their argument for electing “the” “pro-life” party on its promise to abolish Roe v. Wade, and on the connected claim that the number of abortions rose dramatically in the U.S. after Roe v. Wade.

I wonder how bishops—or anyone—knows that the number of abortions rose after Roe v. Wade. From all I have learned through my study of American history, abortions occurred outside the scope of public scrutiny in the past. When procuring and having an abortion were criminal activities, abortions took place in back rooms.

To my knowledge, there are no trustworthy statistics for abortions that took place before Roe v. Wade. Criminalizing abortion again could have the effect not of stopping abortions, but of driving them once again into a netherworld that caused tremendous suffering to women who felt they had no choice except to seek an abortion in the past—including in circumstances when their life was endangered if they carried a baby to term.

Kaiser notes the tremendous irony in many bishops’ encouragement of their flocks to vote for “the” “pro-life” party: when these same bishops promoted the “pro-life” administration we have now, and when that administration’s record on life issues is checkered to say the least, bishops appear to be encouraging us to vote “pro-life” regardless of whether those we elect actually behave in pro-life ways. This leads to a certain cynicism among some Catholic voters: is life really the issue on which bishops are hinging their support of “the” “pro-life” party? Or do they find something else in that party, its leaders, and its platform, that they prefer for other undisclosed reasons?

Kaiser notes that an Australian Jesuit, Frank Brennan, a law professor, has critiqued the approach of Burke, Chaput, and others to the public square. In his book Acting On Conscience (Univ. of Queensland Press, 2007), Brennan notes that, during the 2004 campaign, Archbishop Burke argued, "Of course, the end in view for the Catholic must always be the total conformity of the civil law with the moral law."

In Brennan’s view, this attempt to make civil law totally conform with moral law is fatuous—it is not supported by Catholic theology, which has always recognized that civil law does not totally enshrine moral values and never will do so. Brennan calls Burke’s position "a theocratic hope." In Brennan’s view, the U.S. bishops should decisively repudiate the theocratic ambitions of their current “pro-life” pastoral agenda.

(An aside: they don’t appear to be doing so in the person of Bishop Joseph Martino of Scranton, about whom I blogged yesterday. I’ve just read a news report which states that when Martino barged into a parish’s political forum Sunday night, he announced, “I own this building” [www.theweeklyalmanac.com/articles/2008/10/22/news/doc48ff6abd6a680293638629.txt].

Shocking, that statement. If I am not mistaken, God owns the church, not Bishop Martino—and if Bishop Martino has suddenly been divinized, the report of that transformation has yet to reach me. Moreover, since the church is the people of God, the people of God own church buildings every bit as much as a bishop does. It was our money and our labor that built parishes, after all.)

Kaiser ends his discussion with a sane observation from Fr. Brennan: Brennan notes that the U.S. bishops "need to abandon the simplistic hierarchy of political wrongs, giving a preference to politicians who favour the criminalization of acts judged to be intrinsically evil while [ignoring] the direct action of those same politicians who themselves commit criminal acts, such as…committing the nation to war without just cause."

In other words, if bishops are going to encourage Catholics to vote pro-life, let them show at least minimal respect for truth by noting that what “pro-life” leaders actually do—whether they behave in pro- or anti-life ways—needs to be taken into consideration by pro-life voters. The kind of coercion practiced by "I Own This Building" Martino et al. in the name of pro-life politics—the attempt to shut down public forums in which Catholic voters discuss the application of Catholic principles to politics—has no place in the Christian life. It is fascist, not Christian.

The second article to which I’d like to draw attention is Chris Korzen’s “Tough Times for the Catholic Right” at www.huffingtonpost.com/chris-korzen/tough-times-for-the-catho_b_136831.html.

Korzen notes that the Catholic right had hoped for a reprise of 2004 and what occurred in Ohio. As a result, it has been dumping millions into advertising and other campaigns to promote the tried-and-true agenda of single issue voting.

(A new website purporting to inform Catholic voters about their duty to vote “right” seems to come online every day now. Yesterday, Clerical Whispers noted the appearance a new "Catholic" website that claims to offer intellectual and spiritual resources to Catholic voters [http://clericalwhispers.blogspot.com/2008/10/new-website-offers-intellectual-and.html].

Visit that website—“Formed Catholics in the Public Square”—and you’ll find it’s sponsored by the brand-new “Solidarity Institute” . . . of Colorado. In other words, it comes from the Colorado Catholic Conference, presided over by none other than Archbishop Chaput, who recently lambasted Mr. Obama as the architect of millions of “little murders.” The website’s “intellectual and spiritual resources” are those tired old instructions to vote on the basis of the handful of “non-negotiable” issues on which right-wing Catholics fixate.

One has to wonder where the money to set up these “Catholic” websites is coming from . . . .

Korzen notes that this election, Catholics are not buying what the Catholic right is selling. Polls show a majority of Catholics supporting Obama. A few bishops, including Steib and Zavala, have broken with the single-issue approach to remind Catholic voters that there is a range of life issues one must consider as one forms one’s conscience. There is also unanticipated organizing on the part of Catholics who want the entire range of life issues to be part of our political dialogue.

And then there’s that inconvenient reality question, the question of whether our pro-life votes have really resulted in pro-life actions on the part of the “pro-life” leaders bishops have bullied us to elect. As Corzen says,

Like so many things, saying that a candidate's position on abortion makes him or her unfit for the Catholic vote works better in theory than practice. The Catholic right's message loses its effectiveness when voters realize it uses the same logic that impelled Catholic voters to re-elect Bush in 2004 - whose presidency turned out to be a disaster for Catholic values and the nation as a whole.

This is why I wrote my essay entitled “Remembering Katrina,” which I uploaded to this blog on August 28—as the election cycle unfolded and as I knew in my bones we’d have a reprisal of the “vote-life” argument of some bishops. I wrote that essay in September 2005, just after Hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans.

I sent the piece to National Catholic Reporter. They chose not to print it. Later, I decided (a year later, actually), to upload the statement to NCR’s blog café (http://ncrcafe.org/node/429). Despite NCR’s initial negative response to it, it must say something readers think is worth hearing. As of today, it has had 5355 reads.

I wrote “Remembering Katrina” to call the bishops’ hand on pro-life rhetoric. After watching in total disbelief as, day after day, bodies lay unburied in New Orleans, people went without food and water, the elderly and critically ill died like flies in hospitals without medical treatment, human beings were crowded like cattle into the Superdome, I decided that enough was enough.

I wrote with passion. I had friends, some of them elderly, in New Orleans who had not yet been accounted for. I was desperately seeking information about a number of people I knew, who had chosen to stay in their houses during the storm.

I wrote with anger. The scenes we all saw on our television sets in August and September 2005 were brought to us by those same “pro-life” leaders the bishops had done all but stand on their heads to elect. I concluded,

Perhaps those bishops need to re-think their support for “pro-life” politicians who, to all appearances, seem shockingly callous in face of the need of poor, hungry human beings trapped like rats in a bowl in a major American city now lying largely underwater. Perhaps, as they prepare for their big Eucharistic shindigs, they should be pondering the core significance of what they profess about the bread of life. At the very least, perhaps they should be adding to their roster of speakers some who will remind us of the connections between providing daily bread to the hungry and inviting the spiritually hungry to the table of the Lord.

If they don’t do these things, it’s entirely possible that, one day, the bishops will give a party and no one will come. Or that they’ll shake their big sticks to compel the faithful to vote the “right” way, and no one will cower anymore. It’s possible that, having seen how our pro-life leaders have responded to the needs of the people of New Orleans, we will re-think what it means to vote pro-life in future elections, no matter what our bishops tell us.

And I meant every word of that conclusion then, as I mean them now. As Colleen Baker’s perceptive comment on my posting yesterday notes, sometimes you have to keep saying the slogan over and over again—especially when you’re responding to a noxious slogan being shouted at you with the intent of shutting down your critical faculties.

To the bishops who keep shouting “pro-life,” I intend to keep saying, “Remember Katrina.” They may forget. I don't intend to do so.

You can’t claim to be pro-life when you behave in shockingly anti-life ways. My conscience tells me I’d be sinning if I voted for political leaders who continue to endanger life, no matter how loudly they and their religious acolytes shout “pro-life.”