Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (42650)	5/7/2004 1:28:08 AM
From: unclewest	Respond to of 793743

There is an element to this that may yet come out. The CIA folks may have a large role. They are famous for hanging the military folks for CIA misdeeds. Remember Col Robert Rheault the Special Forces Commander in Vietnam (early to mid 69) and Green Beret Captain Robert Marasco who shot Chuyen, the triple agent. Both were imprisoned for a while at LBJ (Long Binh Jail). Then the truth came out. I know that story well. I was decorated by Rheault and drank with Marasco. uw

To: Ilaine who wrote (42650)	5/7/2004 7:43:51 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793743

Andrew Sullivan - McGREEVEY PURGED: The governor of New Jersey, James McGreevey, under intense pressure from his bishops, has said he will no longer receive communion. McGreevey opposes abortion but does not believe the government should make it illegal in all cases. This topic is complicated in many ways. It's no violation of the separation of church and state, in my view. It's about how a church deals with its members in public life. But that doesn't make this new shift any less momentous. What's particularly stunning about the McGreevey case is that his withdrawal from Communion was not, apparently, simply about abortion. It was also about his support for domestic partnerships for gay couples and stem-cell research. To bar someone from Communion for that array of beliefs strikes me as new territory. Bottom line? From now on, I think, it will be harder and harder for any sincere public Catholic who is a Democrat to continue to be a part of the sacramental life of the church. The Democratic Party, after all, is institutionally supportive of stem-cell research, the right to abortion and at least some recognition of gay couples. Very few leading Democrats are pro-life. If those issues are the criteria for allowing someone in public life to receive Communion as a Catholic, then the Church, in effect, is endorsing one political party over another. The Archbishop of Newark goes further in this letter, released Wednesday. He writes: "As voters, Catholics are under an obligation to avoid implicating themselves in abortion, which is one of the gravest of injustices." (My emphasis.) I can only infer from this that even voting for any pro-choice politician and receiving Communion is also, as he puts it, "objectively dishonest." Do the bishops understand what they're toying with here? Although the sacrament will remain formally open to anyone who sincerely wants to live a life in Christ, in effect only Republicans will be allowed. The bishops can say that this is not their fault. They are just upholding doctrine. It's the Democrats who have made abortion rights a litmus test for membership. And there may be some truth to this in theory. But in practice, Catholicism's precious detachment from partisanship could be threatened. This is the dream of the religious right: to destroy the Catholic base of the Democratic party, create a hard-right rump of true believers, and integrate the latter into the G.O.P. I can barely believe that the Catholic hierarchy is doing Karl Rove's work for him. But then, as we have discovered, the current hierarchy is capable of almost anything.