Tim Carney shares with Washington Examiner readers his assessment of the use of the word “political” as a pejorative term.
President Obama uses the force of government to tell Catholic Church entitites with what to compensate their employees — and that compensation must include free birth control, which the Church opposes. Obama allies at the Center for American Progress charge Catholic dissenters with “politicizing” this issue.
The Susan G. Komen Foundation spends years giving money to the institution that aborts more unborn children than any other, and which spends $1.5 million a year on lobbying the federal government, but when Komen temporarily suspends funding to this organization — in favor of organizations that provide mammograms but not abortions — the liberals erupt with cries that Komen is politicizing breast cancer. Pro-choice libertarian Doug Mataconis embodied this claim when he wrote “The result has been that a charity that has built its brand on fighting breast cancer, something that everyone can agree on regardless of their political opinions, into the middle of the culture wars.”
The implication here is that giving money to the abortion lobby has nothing to do with the culture wars, but not giving them money somehow does.
Similarly, it’s purportedly “political” for the Church to object to being forced to violate its own teachings, but it’s not political for Obama to force the Church to violate its teachings?
