So, last week I spoke about issues that concern Catholics and people of faith in the 2012 Republican Party National Platform. While there are certainly other issues that concern people of faith, I am going to once again take a look at the Democrat Platform through my Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Traditional Marriage and Pro-Religious Freedom lenses.

The best place to start, and it certainly encompasses the theme of the DNC Platform, is with the fact that the DNC has ditched God in the 2012 platform (keeping in mind that the RNC platform mentions God no less than 12 times). Not only is this true in word, it also true thematically. Not so in The 2008 DNC Platform which included in its basic principles the fundamental value that, “We need a government that stands up for the hopes, values, and interests of working people, and gives everyone willing to work hard the chance to make the most of their God-given potential.” In fact, the DNC walks all over basic core values that most American’s hold true (and the US is a self proclaimed Judeo Christian Nation).

For example, the DNC Platform ensures the right of women to receive free birth control, and access to unlimited abortion while at the same time talking about the value of personal responsibility. Not only does the DNC Platform ensure these bundles of “women’s rights”, they do so at the cost of Religious Liberty, which is also mysteriously missing in action in the 2012 document. Here is a summary of the DNC Platform on the issues of government issued birth control (mandated employer participation regardless of religious convictions) and unlimited access to abortion: 

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay.

• Abortion on demand
• Taxpayer funded abortion despite violation of religious conscience
• Forced participation of health care workers in abortion services despite violation of religious conscience
• Reduction of abortion through increase of artificial birth control services including the use of abortifacient drugs, including the morning after pill, despite violation of religious conscience of payers and healthcare providers… regardless of FACT that abortions have increased exponentially at the increased availability of birth control (artificial birth control and education does not reduce abortion numbers)
• Continued funding of primary educational outlet for “providing affordable health care and ensuring the availability of and access to programs that help women during pregnancy and after the birth of a child…” ie Planned Parenthood 

As a matter of fact the DNC 2012 platform ensures that they will protect, promote, and fund the above mentioned “women’s rights” for the entire globe:

We will work to address underlying socio-economic problems, including women’s access to health, education, and food security… President Obama and the Democratic Party are committed to supporting family planning around the globe to help women care for their families, support their communities, and lead their countries to be healthier and more productive. That’s why, in his first month in office, President Obama overturned the “global gag rule,” a ban on federal funds to foreign family planning organizations that provided information about, counseling on, or offered abortions. And that is why the administration has supported life saving family planning health information and services.

Yes, this means that thanks to President Obama’s striking down of the Mexico City Policy or the Global Gag Rule, which required all non-governmental organizations that receive federal funding to refrain from performing or promoting abortion services, as a method of family planning, in other countries, American taxpayers are not only being forced to pay for artificial contraception and abortion for American women, American taxpayers are now forced to pay for artificial contraception and abortion for the women of the world (including China which enacts a forced One Child Policy) .

Now let’s take a look at the issue of marriage. Unlike the 2012 Republican Platform which supports traditional marriage by all three branches of government, the 2012 DNC Platform has engaged on a frontal assault on marriage by firstly seeking to change the definition of marriage, despite its historical definition and the importance of traditional marriage in the structure of society from the beginning of time, and by secondly attacking any person and organization that would support traditional marriage by labeling them as bigots and attempting to legislate hate crime laws that would make any supporter of traditional marriage a criminal punishable both by incarceration and monetary fines. While the DNC refers to same sex marriage as “Freedom to Marry”, I would encourage the reader not to allow the DNC, and radical supporters of the redefining of marriage, to own the conversation.

This is a blatant attempt to make same sex marriage more palatable to the public just as calling abortion “choice” made it easier to stomach the 1973 forcing of the Roe v Wade decision on the American people, despite the fact that America consistently and persistently voted against the legalization of abortion. Traditional Marriage is so important to American’s that 30 states have defined marriage within their constitutions as between a man and a woman (including California!!). Despite America’s support for Traditional Marriage, here is the DNC’s official position on same sex marriage:

We support the right of all families to have equal respect, responsibilities, and protections under the law. We support marriage equality and support the movement to secure equal treatment under law for same-sex couples. We also support the freedom of churches and religious entities to decide how to administer marriage as a religious sacrament without government interference.We oppose discriminatory federal and state constitutional amendments and other attempts to deny equal protection of the laws to committed same-sex couples who seek the same respect and responsibilities as other married couples. We support the full repeal of the so-called Defense of Marriage Act and the passage of the Respect for Marriage Act.

If that wasn’t far enough from the belief and support of Traditional Marriage by citizens of the United States, the DNC and President Obama go even further by criminalizing WORLD WIDE what the DNC and the Obama administration deems to be homosexual abuse (this includes the support of traditional marriage):

Recognizing that gay rights are human rights, the President and his administration have vowed to actively combat efforts by other nations that criminalize homosexual conduct or ignore abuse. Under the Obama administration, American diplomats must raise the issue wherever harassment or abuse arises, and they are required to record it in the State Department’s annual report on human rights. And the State Department is funding a program that finances gay rights organizations to combat discrimination, violence, and other abuses.

While every person on this planet, despite their sexual orientation, their age, their location (in or out of the womb), or their “usefulness”, deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, it is not incumbent on societies to change definitions of institutions, like marriage, in order to validate their self worth or to prove a lack of hate or discrimination.

While I do not doubt that the DNC believes that their platform provides for a more just society, I assert that the DNC in their push for a just world imposes their world view on a free society thereby stripping them of both individual liberties and responsibilities. I find it ironic that while stripping citizens of their right to fully and freely practice their religious and moral beliefs, the DNC would dare or deign to say in their platform that they support the global community in their right to freely express themselves and their freedom to worship: 

…These include an individual’s freedom to speak their mind, assemble without fear, have access to information, worship as they please, and choose their own leaders.

If you take the opportunity to read the 2012 DNC Platform, I would do so realizing that as Children of God we are endowed with inalienable rights and we also have inalienable responsibilities that can neither be stripped from us nor can we abdicate them to government.

For the Dignity of the Born and Unborn,

Timmerie