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Kmiec on Catholics for Obama

Prompted by a pro-Obama post by prominent conservative legal scholar Doug Kmiec, I recently asked whether Catholic Reaganites will go for Barack Obama.

In response to widespread blogosphere criticism, Kmiec returns to the fray in an essay for Catholic Online:

Catholic social teaching is simply true because it is based on the truth of the human person. As a loyal American who proudly served President Reagan and the first President Bush as their constitutional legal counsel and who wants the best for my nation at a time of great challenge, it is my intention to discern from thought and prayer, and not blind partisanship, what Catholic social teaching means when it is applied to the remaining candidates in this national campaign.

No amount of faux-Catholic blog intimidation should stand in my way – or yours.

Rick Garnett comments:

Although I think the original piece was off-base in a few respects, I also think that much of what he says in this second piece—e.g., the Faith and Catholic Social Teaching are not the property of one party, Catholic voters have a range of issues to consider, Barack Obama’s record on abortion is really bad, etc.—is sensible.

My own sense, for what it’s worth, of some conservatives’ reaction to Prof. Kmiec’s original piece was not so much that they thought (certainly, I didn’t) that it is wrong to “inquire”, from a Catholic perspective, into the merits of the Obama candidacy, but that Kmiec’s original piece mis-framed the debate, while the second piece, for the most part, does not.  (I say “for the most part” because the second piece still appears to regard the Catholic position on immigration as weighing against McCain and for Obama, which is not how I see the matter.  McCain, not Obama, has taken political risks for immigrants, and has actually developed—much to the chagrin of some conservatives—an actual record of bi-partisan cooperation.)

In any event, check it out.  Prof. Kmiec, as everyone knows, has been a stalwart defender of religious freedom and the sanctity of life, in the academy, in law, and in policy, for decades.  I do not believe that Sen. Obama—his attractive personality notwithstanding—is, in fact, a “Catholic natural”, but certainly, as Prof. Kmiec contends, it is entirely appropriate to ask whether Obama might be, all things considered, the better choice for a Catholic.  I am pretty sure he is not, but I understand that others will disagree.