The Pope Made Them Do It?

Ah, the criticism comes in. The point has been raised that the Supreme Court majority in the ruling on the federal Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act was comprised of Catholics.

This was quickly followed by the ubiquitous "separation" of church and state criticism. I say ubiquitous because it seems that any time you hear that moral values of some kind have been applied to an issue by any form of government, in many liberal corners the validity of asserting those values is not judged by the logic of them or their persuasiveness. Rather, their validity is judged entirely by whether the person or persons instrumental in creating or promoting the arguments for them are "religious."

I am not Catholic. I am tired of seeing Catholicism and evangelical Christianity bashed simply for the sheer sake of bashing. Whether you believe in "moral values" or not, you likely live by at least some of the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ (the Golden Rule anyone?). Whether you believe in God or not doesn't mean that those of us who do should leave our faith and beliefs at the church steps as we walk out the door.

However, if Catholicism was truly the reason for the Court's ruling, we would have likely seen a ruling with much stronger language and the Court's reasoning would have been different. Instead, the Court's ruling is narrow and confined to the law presented before the Justices.

Using the faith of the Justices to discount and criticize the ruling is a shoddy, bigoted and lazy excuse for an argument.