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Bacolod City, Philippines Monday, November 12, 2012
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TIGHT ROPE
WITH MODESTO P. SA-ONOY

Changed America

TIGHT ROPE
WITH MODESTO P. SA-ONOY

Now that the euphoria of the victory of Barack Obama as the reelected President of the United States and the television international networks have new focus, it is time to consider that this triumph of Obama shows the changed America, a new America that we have looked up to in the past.

The issues of the campaign had been narrowed by the networks and the US media to economics – high unemployment and dropping incomes. The rest of the issues like the war in Iraq, the attack of the US embassy in Libya, high indebtedness and China’s unfair trade practices had all been lumped into the mantra of economics.

Thus at the last minute, when joblessness dropped though incomes had not risen accordingly, the voters shifted their support from Mitt Romney to Obama with the thought that given another four years, Obama will be able to solve the US economic problems.

Whether most of the Americans were right or wrong, only events will determine.

But lost in the din of the campaign are greater albeit imperceptible issues that are borne out by the results of the election.  There were voices trying to call attention to these more fundamental issues but they were drowned out by the massive media focus on the economic issues and the endless analyses.

These issues have great relevance to our own this coming 2013 election as similar thinking are raising their ugly heads, buoyed by the victory of Obama. These issues may not divide the politicians into two political parties but they do distinguish one politician from the other and should therefore have repercussions when they, if ever, sit in the legislature. 

At the end of the second presidential debate between Obama and Romney, they made their concluding statements which truly distinguish not just the Democrats from the Republicans, but the beliefs of the two contenders.

Romney said he believes in God and the family; Obama never mentioned God but he said, he believes in free enterprise, liberality.

From the start the Democratic Party that chose Obama to be their candidate, a letter written by Catholic Bishop Thomas John Paprocki (I picked this up in one of the churches in New York) had already  noted the fact that the Democrats’ party platform “had purged God” and after  cries of protest, the party included the phrase “God-given potential”.

This flimsy reference to God was included only when Obama asked that it be included which means that he acceded only to get the votes and which also means that he can ignore this reference now that he got what he wants and in future will not need to be elected again.

When Bill Clinton ran in 1992, the Democrats included in the platform that abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Under Obama, the Democrats’ platform only says, abortion should be “safe and legal” and this, in fact, gave Obama the vote as now the US will adopt the Obamacare program of abortion on even a massive scale.

Obamacare, as I have written several columns back, mandates the right to abortion “regardless of the ability to pay." Already under this program, abortion will be paid for by the insurance companies which all institutions must take under pain of penalties.

It is feared that special taxes will also be levied to fund any woman wanting an abortion – again, regardless of one’s conscience, one has to pay for abortion.

Catholic hospitals and clinics that refuse to perform abortion as a matter of conscience will be denied government support even if these are operated as charitable institutions.

The RH bill follows the same principle of Obamacare – government funding the massive distribution of contraceptives, penalties local governments that will not fund free contraceptives, and penalties for those in the medical profession who refuse to prescribe contraceptives on demand.

Another Democrats’ platform is “gay rights is human rights” and calls for the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act passed in 1996 by Democratic President Bill Clinton that defines marriage as the legal union of one man and one woman.

One California resident said that Obama carried the states that have legalized same sex marriages – California and New York, for instance.

America has changed, indeed. Bishop Paprocki said that “I am pointing out those that explicitly endorse intrinsic evil. My job is not to tell you for whom you should vote. But I do have a duty to speak out on moral issues. I would be abdicating this duty if I remain silent out of fear of sounding ‘political’.

He continues, “A vote for a candidate who promotes actions of behavior that are intrinsically evil and gravely sinful makes you morally complicit...” Hearken, pro-RH Catholics!*

           

 

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