THE OTHER PRO-LIFE POSITION
In Virginia, the gubernatorial campaign is heating up over the death penalty. Kilgore, the Republican challenger, is for it. Kaine, the Democratic lieutenant governor, is--sort of--against it. That is, he is a Catholic and shares his church's opposition to capital punishment, but says that, while it is the law, he will enforce it.
So as a practical matter, the difference between the two candidates is not what they will do when a death penalty case comes up, but how they will feel about it. The Republicans evidently consider Kaine insufficiently enthusiastic about frying a Death Row inmate.
We went through the same thing here in Illinois a while back, by the way. In 1994, Republican Jim Edgar beat Democrat Dawn Clark Netsch, who took precisely the same position on the death penalty as Virginia's Kaine (except that she claimed no religious basis for her belief.) But Edgar evidently succeeded in convincing the voters that being able to pull the switch with a smile rather than a wince made him a better person.
If Kaine suffers the same fate as Netsch, we need to stop and think about this. We have had two Quaker presidents--Hoover and Nixon. (The Quakers, mostly, oppose the death penalty.) For very different reasons, they were both among America's least popular leaders by the time they left office. But neither of them was ever subjected to any kind of religious test on the death penalty. Nixon would undoubtedly have passed it. I'm not sure about Hoover. We have had one Catholic president--Kennedy. When he was in office, however, the Vatican had not yet adopted its current position on the death penalty.
So we are only now, for the first time, being faced with a political candidate from the Religious Left--a person whose liberal position is based on a rather conservative religion. Can we expect the Republicans to start invoking the separation of church and state again? Or will they try to revive the anti-Catholicism that was once a staple of Southern politics? Will the Klan once again bar Catholics from membership (they did, up until about 20 years ago)? I can hardly wait.
So as a practical matter, the difference between the two candidates is not what they will do when a death penalty case comes up, but how they will feel about it. The Republicans evidently consider Kaine insufficiently enthusiastic about frying a Death Row inmate.
We went through the same thing here in Illinois a while back, by the way. In 1994, Republican Jim Edgar beat Democrat Dawn Clark Netsch, who took precisely the same position on the death penalty as Virginia's Kaine (except that she claimed no religious basis for her belief.) But Edgar evidently succeeded in convincing the voters that being able to pull the switch with a smile rather than a wince made him a better person.
If Kaine suffers the same fate as Netsch, we need to stop and think about this. We have had two Quaker presidents--Hoover and Nixon. (The Quakers, mostly, oppose the death penalty.) For very different reasons, they were both among America's least popular leaders by the time they left office. But neither of them was ever subjected to any kind of religious test on the death penalty. Nixon would undoubtedly have passed it. I'm not sure about Hoover. We have had one Catholic president--Kennedy. When he was in office, however, the Vatican had not yet adopted its current position on the death penalty.
So we are only now, for the first time, being faced with a political candidate from the Religious Left--a person whose liberal position is based on a rather conservative religion. Can we expect the Republicans to start invoking the separation of church and state again? Or will they try to revive the anti-Catholicism that was once a staple of Southern politics? Will the Klan once again bar Catholics from membership (they did, up until about 20 years ago)? I can hardly wait.
posted by WiredSisters at 8:30 PM
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