From Obama's National Catholic Outreach Director

Mark Linton here.



I head up our National Catholic outreach efforts for Senator Obama on the campaign. We've enjoyed great success in mobilizing thousands of Catholics and people of all faiths because of your phenomenal help and because of Senator Obama's unifying message of hope and change.

On this week of the 4th of July I would like to enlist your help in declaring our independence from smears against Barack Obama.

One charge leveled by partisan operatives who seek to divide voters is the disgraceful smear that Senator Obama, a loving father of two beautiful daughters, supports "infanticide." That is an absolutely false and shameful claim based on distortions of Senator Obama's voting record.

We're asking that wherever you see these smears on the internet, please push back respectfully but vigorously.

See the responses below, refuting point by point the smears of blogger Deal Hudson. I am also including the relevant portions of a thoughtful interview Senator Obama recently gave to Relevant Magazine. He discusses his views on abortion and unambiguously refutes the "infanticide" charge.





http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life_article.php?id=7591


Strang: Based on emails we received, another issue of deep importance to our readers is a candidate's stance on abortion. We largely know your platform, but there seems to be some real confusion about your position on third-trimester and partial-birth abortions. Can you clarify your stance for us?



Obama: I absolutely can, so please don't believe the emails. I have repeatedly said that I think it's entirely appropriate for states to restrict or even prohibit late-term abortions as long as there is a strict, well-defined exception for the health of the mother. Now, I don't think that mental distress” qualifies as the health of the mother. I think it has to be a serious physical issue that arises in pregnancy, where there are real, significant problems to the mother carrying that child to term. Otherwise, as long as there is such a medical exception in place, I think we can prohibit late-term abortions. The other email rumor that’s been floating around is that somehow I’m unwilling to see doctors offer life-saving care to children who were born as a result of an induced abortion. That’s just false. There was a bill that came up in Illinois that was called the “Born Alive” bill that purported to require life-saving treatment to such infants. And I did vote against that bill. The reason was that there was already a law in place in Illinois that said that you always have to supply life-saving treatment to any infant under any circumstances, and this bill actually was designed to overturn Roe v. Wade, so I didn’t think it was going to pass constitutional muster. Ever since that time, emails have been sent out suggesting that, somehow, I would be in favor of letting an infant die in a hospital because of this particular vote. That’s not a fair characterization, and that’s not an honest characterization. It defies common sense to think that a hospital wouldn't provide life-saving treatment to an infant that was alive and had a chance of survival. Strang: You’ve said you’re personally against abortion and would like to see a reduction in the number of abortions under your administration. So, as president, how would do you propose accomplishing that?Obama: I think we know that abortions rise when unwanted pregnancies rise. So, if we are continuing what has been a promising trend in the reduction of teen pregnancies, through education and abstinence education giving good information to teenagers. That is important"emphasizing the sacredness of sexual behavior to our children. I think that’s something that we can encourage. I think encouraging adoptions in a significant way. I think the proper role of government. So there are ways that we can make a difference, and those are going to be things I focus on when I am president.”


Please circulate far and wide and remind people of good faith that religion can be a unifying, not dividing force in our politics.

Thanks,
Mark Linton
National Catholic Outreach Coordinator
Obama for America
http://us.f558.mail.yahoo.com/ym/Compose?To=mlinton@barackobama.com

From Catholic Democrats

Catholic Democrats applaud Sen Obama's support for churches and other religious groups

Catholic League defiles itself in attacks on Obama's plan to help those in need

The Catholic Democrats spoke out Wednesday in support of efforts by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to reinforce the ability of faith-based organizations to strengthen our nation's social safety net. The Catholic Church in the United States has a long tradition of addressing the needs of the poor and the underserved, and continues to provide much-needed social services in neighborhoods and communities throughout the country.

Bill Donohue and the Catholic League today attacked Senator Obama's proposed expansion of social services by church and other faith groups. Senator Obama believes that religious organizations of many faiths have a special expertise in serving the unmet needs of people across the country, particularly at a time of such widespread economic distress.

At the same time, the Catholic Democrats call on Donohue and the Catholic League to cease their relentless partisan broadsides on Senator Obama. Donohue confirmed that he had not read the details of Senator Obama's proposal to magnify the role of faith-based organizations in their critical work.

Dr Patrick Whelan, president of the Catholic Democrats, issued the following statement: "Yesterday, Senator Obama pledged to elevate faith-based organizations and strengthen the relationship between government and these critical partners who help people in need every day. Indeed, Senator Obama held out the good works of groups like Catholic Charities as model examples of successful faith-based and government partnerships. But Catholic League President Bill Donohue chose to mark the occasion by launching another installment of his near weekly partisan attacks on Barack Obama."

"Bill Donohue wants to smear Senator Obama's authentic attempts to elevate the important role of religion in public life and that's shameful," said Dr Whelan. "If he had read any portion of Senator Obama's remarks or the details of the plan, he would quickly learn that under the Obama administration, faith-based groups will receive more funding, more support, and a higher profile as government partners. How exactly is that 'gutting religion,' as Mr Donohue charges?"
Dr Whelan continued, "It appears that Donohue and other partisan operatives are scared that Senator Obama is achieving something they've never been able to do: authentically holding up the best religion has to offer society without using it to divide people."

Catholic Democrats, like so many other people of faith, are tired of religion being used as a wedge and continue to urge Mr. Donohue and his collaborators to stop launching partisan smears from a 501(c)3 non-profit, whose noble mission has been greatly tarnished by such attacks.

Obama Speaks of Faith at Methodist Convention

SENATOR BARACK OBAMA:

"In my own life, it's been a journey that began decades ago on the South Side of Chicago, when, working as a community organizer, helping to build struggling neighborhoods, I let Jesus Christ into my life. I learned that my sins could be redeemed and that if I placed my trust in Christ, that he could set me on the path to eternal life when I submitted myself to his will and I dedicated myself to discovering his truth and carrying out his works."

"The challenges we face today -- war and poverty, joblessness and homelessness, violent streets and crumbling schools -- are not simply technical problems in search of a 10-point plan. They are moral problems, rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness, in the imperfections of man. And so the values we believe in -- empathy and justice and responsibility to ourselves and our neighbors -- these cannot only be expressed in our churches and our synagogues, but in our policies and in our laws."

http://youtube.com/watch?v=WVKxwECwRLE

INDEPENDENCE DAY

GOD BLESS AMERICA

a free people, living in a democracy, working to advance the common good.

Casey on Obama

Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Pro-Life, Democrat

"I've been impressed by so much watching this campaign. I've been impressed by his compassion, his strength, his ideas.... He has appealed, as Abraham Lincoln asked us to do many years ago, to the better angels of our nature.... And I really believe that in the time of danger around the world and division here at home, Barack Obama can lead us, he can heal us and he can help us rebuild America."

From 'Catholic Online'

Senator Obama - Faith into Action

By Douglas W. Kmiec

7/2/2008
Catholic Online

http://www.catholic.org/politics/story.php?id=28431

(Catholic Online) - Senator Obama has announced that he intends to create a Council For Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.

Having been privileged to give some advance guidance for this worthy idea, it is exciting to watch it become part of the public record.

An old idea talked about by George W. Bush and even "his thousand points of light" father?

Well, yes, talked about; but by the writing of Bush's own staff, regrettably, not done. Obama says he's different and this will be a "critical part of his administration." The proof will be in the doing, of course, but this much is plain: Senator Obama has direct experience. He has personally rolled up his sleeves as a community organizer to meet the needs of the unemployed in south Chicago, for example.

The incumbent administration raised expectations only to have them disappointed by tax cuts for the wealthiest families and funding cuts for the poorest; by conducting faith-based conferences that seemed more for friends of the Republican Party than those in need; and by issuing executive orders and directives deliberately calculated to raise unnecessary constitutional clash between church and state.

With great disappointment, the Bush efforts yielded division and acrimony rather than unity and understanding.

Why won't the same happen with Senator Obama?

The answer I believe lies in the Senator's own Christian journey. His is a lived faith that both prays and works - hard. Much depends on Grace, of course, but Obama also understands that neighborhood organizations work because people who live together and worship together not only know each other's needs, but meet them.

When our neighbors commit to help, they are less apt to let us down because, well, we know each other by name.

Catholics call this the principle of subsidiarity -- a principle that reflects that one should never ever take to a higher level that which can be more effectively done below. Churches and synagogues and temples and mosques don't stand apart from life's difficulty, they embrace it with the confidence that says with belief nothing is impossible.

Envying his gift of empathy and oral presentation, Senator McCain is sometimes heard to say that Senator Obama only operates at a high level of generality or in abstraction. There is nothing abstract about his proposed new Council. One of the things the Bush folks never figured out was why their project generated little participation.

In addition to misguided funding priorities that hardly heard "the cry of the poor" generally,somehow Washington didn't notice that poverty was often greatest in rural areas. In addition, small faith-based groups -- whether in city or country town -- simply didn't have the knowledge or wherewithal to know how to navigate the federal bureaucracy.

As a consequence, the principal beneficiaries of federal grants were often the large social service organizations that had always been beneficiaries of federal money.

While Catholic Charities and Lutheran Services, for example, do excellent work they simply are not structured always to reach down and find those individuals who because of illness or disability or intimidation born of a lack of educational opportunity simply do not know the fine work of those major charitable enterprises.

Since even major banks need branch offices and ATM machines to reach customers, logic might have conveyed that those requiring our most basic help are not any different.

Obama intends to take our most capable charitable entities and train them to train, so that a small storefront church or mosque or family support Center will be within reach of those who might otherwise be overlooked. Again, to make use of the Catholic idiom -subsidiarity does not mean big, distant government pats local organizations on the head and just says "good job, keep it up."

Subsidiarity is always twinned with solidarity which reminds us that all of us - regardless of our politics -- are intimately connected. We have an obligation to meet the needs of the "least of these" - the poor, the family displaced from its home, the working person seeking a new skill or opportunity.

There are two other aspects of the Obama program that will make it distinctive. First, Senator Obama is truly dedicated to closing the education gap experienced by the less privileged children of every race and ethnicity. As the senator pointed out, "many children simply can't read or perform math at their grade level" and this problem magnifies during the summer months when children are away from school.

Neighborhood programs are ideal for providing summer learning opportunities, but these too need duplication in remote farming areas as well. Finally, Senator Obama does not view the proposed Council as a covert way for distorting the respect that church and state should have for each other. When faith initiatives are wrongly thought of as a partisan tool, they sometimes end up also having the unseemly partisan objective of advancing a favored faith conception, or worse, playing off one person's religious freedom against another. A President Obama will have none of that, nor should he. It is an unworthy and unnecessary distraction, and it can be easily avoided by simply asking all participants o observe federal, state and local civil rights laws. Now, to be sure, particular difficulties can crop up, and as the founders knew, government must treat religious belief and practice with a gentle hand. Different religious traditions do interact with the larger culture differently. For example, because of the apostolic witness and the teaching of the Church related to it, there is only a male priesthood in the Catholic Church. Does this eliminate Catholic participation? Hardly. Well-settled principles provide for a ministerial exception as part of the civil rights law itself. Only those interested in the partisan purpose of dividing one faith from another would think otherwise. Certainly, this much is true: religious organizations seldom see it as their calling to only serve soup or provide shelter or tutor those who worship in the same pew and in the same congregation. Senator Obama is more interested in helping people of all faiths, and of no faith, be of service to each other. And in that ennobling purpose is a true echo of those words we heard another young man who would be President, this man a Catholic, who said so well and so eloquently that "here on earth, God's work must truly be our own."

Douglas W. Kmiec is the Chair & Professor of Constitutional Law Pepperdine University and Former Dean & St. Thomas More Professor of Law, The Catholic University Of America

Latest from the Campaign

Obama to expand Bush's faith based programs

By JENNIFER LOVEN

CHICAGO (AP) — Reaching out to evangelical voters, Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is announcing plans that would expand President Bush's program steering federal social service dollars to religious groups and — in a move sure to cause controversy — support their ability to hire and fire based on faith.

Obama was unveiling his approach to getting religious charities more involved in government anti-poverty programs during a tour and remarks Tuesday at Eastside Community Ministry in Zanesville, Ohio. The arm of Central Presbyterian Church operates a food bank, provides clothes, has a youth ministry and provides other services in its impoverished community.

"The challenges we face today, from putting people back to work to improving our schools, from saving our planet to combating HIV/AIDS to ending genocide, are simply too big for government to solve alone," Obama was to say, according to a prepared text of his remarks obtained by The Associated Press. "We need all hands on deck."

But Obama's support for letting religious charities that receive federal funding consider religion in employment decisions was likely to invite a storm of protest from those who view such faith requirements as discrimination.

avid Kuo, a conservative Christian who was deputy director of Bush's Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives until 2003 and later became a critic of Bush's commitment to the cause, said Obama's position has the potential to be a major "Sister Souljah moment" for his campaign.
This is a reference to Bill Clinton's accusation in his 1992 presidential campaign that the hip hop artist incited violence against whites. Because Clinton said this before a black audience, it fed into an image of him as a bold politician who was willing to take risks and refused to pander.
"It would be a very, very, very interesting thing," said Kuo, who is not an Obama adviser or supporter but was contacted by the campaign to review the new plan.

Kuo called Obama's approach smart, impressive and well thought-out but took a wait-and-see attitude about whether it would deliver.

"When it comes to promises to help the poor, promises are easy," said Kuo, who wrote a 2006 book described his frustration at what he called Bush's lackluster enthusiasm for the program. "The question is commitment."

Obama proposes to elevate the program to a "moral center" of his administration, by renaming it the Office of Community and Faith-Based Partnerships, and changing training from occasional huge conferences to empowering larger religious charities to mentor smaller ones in their communities.

He also proposes a $500 million per year program to provide summer learning for 1 million poor children to help close achievement gaps with white and wealthier students. A campaign fact sheet said he would pay for it by better managing surplus federal properties, reducing growth in the federal travel budget and streamlining the federal procurement process.

Like Bush, Obama was arguing that religious organizations can and should play a bigger role in serving the poor and meeting other social needs. But while Bush argued that the strength of religious charities lies primarily in shared religious identity between workers and recipients, Obama was to tout the benefits of their "bottom-up" approach.

"Because they're so close to the people, they're well-placed to offer help," he was to say.
Obama does not see a need to push for a law to make this program work as Bush did, said a senior adviser to the campaign, who spoke on condition of anonymity to more freely describe the new policy.

Bush never got Congress to go along so he conducted his effort to give religious groups equal footing with nonsectarian groups in competing for federal contracts through administrative actions and executive orders.

Obama does not support requiring religious tests for aid recipients nor using federal money to proselytize, the official said.

Obama's announcement is part of a series of events leading up to Friday's Fourth of July holiday that are focused on American values.

The Democratic presidential candidate spent Monday talking about his vision of patriotism in the battleground state of Missouri. With Tuesday's talk about faith, Obama was attempting to settle debate in two key areas where his beliefs have come under question.

He planned to talk bluntly about the genesis of his Christian faith in his work as a community organizer in Chicago, and its importance to him now.

"In time, I came to see faith as being both a personal commitment to Christ and a commitment to my community; that while I could sit in church and pray all I want, I wouldn't be fulfilling God's will unless I went out and did the Lord's work," he was to say.