Spurious Hope?

John Zmirak's latest on InsideCatholic is a well crafted picture of the nightmare we can expect from the Democratic takeover. He's predicting much of the same thing I am, albeit more skillfully.

Nevertheless there are some interesting dissenting responses to his post about how serious the threat of FoCA is. Here are some excerpts:

The problem with being my age is that you remember too much. For example, I remember the same kind of talk in 1992, which was also supposed to be The End of Civilization as We Know It. Yet, we seemed to survive the next eight years. Some even think we did better in the 90's than in the ought's. In politics, the end of the world seems to be a quadrennial event.

—John Médaille

No doubt we've been used cynically by the Republicans, as Bush has most manifestly shown by disregarding the unilateral actions he could have taken to promote pro-life.

For instance, why are we hearing about FOCA from Catholic sources, but not from McCain or Palin themselves? Their opponent has made this a priority, why haven't they pressed him on that?

For one thing, McCain's friend Joe Lieberman is a FOCA co-sponsor.

For another, perhaps they too realize it has no chance of passing.

From Catholic News Agency, see Fr. Frank Pavone of Priests for Life on FOCA:

“Moreover, it’s so extreme, I really don’t think it would ever reach his desk, even if the Democrats increased their numbers in Congress,” Fr. Pavone said."

—Kevin J Jones

... Obama is no progressive messiah; he's a standard politician like any other. As such, his primary mission in life is not to pass FOCA, but to ensure his own re-election. If passing the law helps, he'll try to do it; if not, he won't.

With that in mind, if the Congress were to pass -- and Obama sign -- the FOCA, there would be such an explosion among voters (the great majority of whom do NOT support FOCA) that all the gains Democrats made with moderates this year would be for naught. The FOCA is great for rallying the Democratic primary base, but like Obama's other promises to the fringe of his party (like filibustering FISA), it will disappear once he takes office... Only to reappear as a 2012 campaign promise.

FOCA is a boon for direct mail fundraising (on both sides), but it isn't going anywhere as legislation.

—Brian Saint-Paul

I'm not so sanguine that they won't pass the bill. The problem is that unlike the Republican elite, who cynically use social issues to promote themselves, the Dems are true believers. "Science" after all sanctions their worldview. Obama's record and public statements show that abortion is important to him.

A couple years ago the legislature of my state had passed a pro-abortion¹ bill and a same-sex "civil union" bill. I took mail-in cards to churches to help people tell our Democratic governor not to sign them into law. One pastor let me put the anti-abortion cards in the church, but not the anti-civil-union cards; he told me that our governor would sign the former but not the latter: he is a compromiser, the pastor assured me. Wrong: the governor signed both bills into law.

The problem is: compromise with what? These people live in like-minded coteries and never hear any opinion but their own reflected back at them. For them to compromise means to do what they hear "everyone else" say should be done: exactly what they want to do (like Bush, but without the advantage of a disagreeing media).

I can only hope they are right that the Dems aren't serious about passing FoCA. Unfortunately they'll probably restrict themselves to their typical anti-democratic (ironic, isn't it?) stealth routine of legislating through liberal Supreme Court justices—we'll incrementally get the full effect of FoCA for two to three decades at least.

Then again, perhaps it would be best for them to pass it. At least then we'd have an honest fight out in the open.