4.30.2007 | Not too much faith, however

As reported in the Washington Post, This from an academic who studies the role of faith in the public square: "We want people of faith, but we don't want them making decisions based on their faith." The issue at hand is the recent Supreme Court decision upholding the federal law banning partial-birth abortions.

Did you know that all five of the justices who formed the majority are...Catholic. Oh my God. Where's Guy Fawkes when you need some papists to blame for everything? The Post article asks, "Is it significant that the five Supreme Court justices who voted to uphold the federal ban on a controversial abortion procedure also happen to be the court's Roman Catholics?" It then goes on to report on several idiotarians-cum-bigots on the matter.

The article, surprisingly for the WaPo, actually sheds light on the anti-Catholic (anti-religious, actually) bigotry so prevalent among the abortion-on-demand left. What one academic (Stone, University of Chicago) wrote is illuminating:

What then explains this decision? Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Catholic. The four justices who are either Protestant or Jewish all voted in accord with settled precedent. It is mortifying to have to point this out...

[In finding that there was a moral reason for upholding the ban, Stone added, the majority failed] to respect the fundamental difference between religious belief and morality.

Well spoken, for someone who appears to know nothing about religion as actually practiced in the United States. I have to assume that Stone is an atheist, or, perhaps, attends a feel-good church or synagogue from which sins have been banished, and all are welcome and automatically forgiven.

It is mortifying to have to point this out, Mr. Stone, but from whence do you suppose morality comes? It is not necessarily Catholic (or Protestant or Jewish), but morality comes to our society from one essential source: religion. Not any particular denomination or liturgy. Rather, from the Bible. The Bible, that is, that is essentially the same (notwithstanding the Apocrypha, which don't alter the basic truths on morality) whether used by Catholics, Anglicans, or Protestants. And Jews, of course, share the same Hebrew Scriptures, and if one just wished to stop there one would still have the Ten Commandments (Exodus 20) and love thy neighbor as thyself (Leviticus 19:18). Pretty firm foundation for morality; At least Jesus seems to have thought so...

One may argue as to whether non-Christian societies have the same morality, but whether they do is besides the point. Our morality happens to come from the Judeo-Christian Scriptures. Old, and New Testaments.

The notion that five justices of the Supreme Court are Catholic, and thus their opinions must not reflect the moral teachings of Roman Catholicism is bigoted. And should not be tolerated on the left, or on the right.