Catholic Bishops Must Leave Coalition Group Backing Pro-Abortion Elena Kagan
by Deal Hudson
May 18, 2010
LifeNews.com Note: Deal W. Hudson is the director of InsideCatholic.com and the president of Catholic Advocate, a pro-life group. He is the author of Onward, Christian Soldiers: The Growing Political Power of Catholics and Evangelicals in the United States. He chaired the Catholic Coalition for the RNC and President George W. Bush.
An organization called The Coalition for Constitutional Values has put on its web site a 30 second ad supporting Elena Kagan, Obama’s nominee to fill the Supreme Court seat being vacated by Justice John Paul Stevens.
The Coalition for Constitutional Values is a project of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights (LCCHR), a coalition charged by its diverse membership of more than 200 national organizations, to promote and protect the rights of all persons in the United States.
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is a member of the LCCHR, and as a member pays an annual membership fee. The Leadership Conference claims to work toward creating an America as good as its ideals.
Do those ideals for the bishops include putting pro-abortion justices on the Supreme Court, thus thwarting any efforts to overturn Roe v. Wade? This endorsement of the Kagan nomination is typical of public positions taken by the LCCHR for many years.
In February, I published an article, “Why Did the USCCB Join This Civil Rights Organization?” That article catalogued the various positions taken by the LCCHR that directly conflict with Church teaching. Support for abortion, same-sex marriage, and contraception were among them.
It’s no surprise that the web site of the Coalition of Constitutional Values also features the endorsement of Elena Kagan by the Human Rights Campaign, the powerful gay rights lobbying group. Make no mistake about it, the Coalition for Constitutional Values speaks for all the members of the coalition, including the USCCB!
The Leadership Conference has long been active in shaping opinion on the confirmation of judges. As I wrote in February,
“For many years, LCCHR has lobbied hard against the confirmation of pro-life judges and justices. In the midst of the debate of pro-abortion nominee Dawn Johnsen, [Deputy Director] Nancy Zirkin asserted that civil-rights groups are upset that Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV) hasn’t made the abortion advocate a higher priority. ‘There’s frustration she’s not at the top of the list,’ Zirkin said.”
The avid support for Elena Kagan, whose support for abortion “rights” has been widely documented, must be regarded as the final straw, a clear signal that the USCCB needs to withdraw from membership in the Leadership Conference for Civil and Human Rights.
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