Most Reverend Timothy Broglio, archbishop of the Military Services, USA, with a group of military chaplain candidates in statuary hall in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception after his installation in 2008. Yours truly on the far right.

I was a Navy chaplain candidate for three years while I was in seminary and had a fair number of opportunities to meet and work with chaplains and their flock on military installations while I held my commission. Truly a special service and an incredible way to serve God by serving those who serve us all—helping them to retain their Center, sometimes in the midst of the worst conditions and situations humanity can contrive.

Thanks to former Congressman Todd Akin, the National Defense Authorization Act passed on December 21 and signed on January 2 by President Obama protects military chaplains from having to perform any ceremonies or rites that violate their conscience.

Like same-sex “marriages.”

Akin introduced language that reads:

The Armed Forces shall accommodate the beliefs of a member of the armed forces reflecting the conscience, moral principles, or religious beliefs of the member and, in so far as practicable, may not use such beliefs as the basis of any adverse personnel action, discrimination, or denial of promotion, schooling, training, or assignment.

But in a “signing statement,” a practice presidents use to thwart the true intent of the law—and a practice then-Senator Obama decried when President Bush used it—President Obama referred to this language as “unnecessary and ill-advised.”

Obama wrote:

The military already appropriately protects the freedom of conscience of chaplains and service members…The secretary of defense will ensure that the implementing regulations do not permit or condone discriminatory actions that compromise good order and discipline or otherwise violate military codes of conduct.

That part, “do not permit or condone discriminatory actions” in the directive to the secretary of defense is the sticky part. We already know that President Obama considers an imagined “right” to contraceptives and abortifacients greater than an individual’s right of conscience. He also ended the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and has endorsed same-sex “marriage.” In a statement to supporters he assured all, “My administration remains fully committed to continuing the successful implementation of the repeal of don’t ask, don’t tell, and to protecting the rights of gay and lesbian service members,” and that this provision “will not alter that.” His notion of what is offensively “discriminatory” clearly differs from that of a faithful Catholic chaplain, and certainly from the intent of those who wrote this law.

At present military chaplains are permitted to perform same sex “marriages” on military bases. This likely means that Catholic chaplains, while not required to perform the ceremony, is required to help make accommodation for a same-sex couple to have their ceremony.

I do not know what sort of “implementing regulations” the secretary of defense can promulgate that will at one and the same time follow the plain letter of this law and not “permit or condone discriminatory actions” according to the President’s understanding of “discriminatory.” I can see litigation coming of this as soon as a confused Catholic service member demands that the Catholic chaplain perform the same-sex ceremony, perhaps because there is no other chaplain around who would willingly accommodate.

Fortunately, there already is some case law in favor of the good guys. In 1996 a Catholic Air Force Reserve chaplain, Father Vincent Rigdon, sued the Clinton administration. They had forbidden him and all Catholic chaplains from following the directives of the U.S. bishops to ask all Catholics to write Congress in support of the partial-birth abortion ban they had passed, asking them to override President Clinton’s veto. Father Rigdon, joined in the lawsuit by a Jewish chaplain, the Muslim American Military Association, and a Catholic Navy chaplain, won.

Judge Stanley Sporkin of the D.C. Circuit Court noted that chaplains have “rank without a command.” They can order a private to pray a rosary, but the private’s noncompliance does not result in disciplinary action.

Sporkin wrote, “What we have here is the government’s attempt to override the Constitution and the laws of the land by a directive that clearly interferes with military chaplains’ free-exercise and free-speech rights, as well as those of their congregants.”

Hopefully, should the Obama administration’s directives lean more toward preventing “discriminatory actions” than respecting freedom of conscience, the courts will see clearly once again.

Todd Akin, A congressman running for Senate who said something really stupid about rape and conception has pretty much dominated the news cycle lately and merited myriad calls for him to step aside.

Akin was talking about whether abortion should be allowed in cases of rape. As is true with many pro-lifers, he does not believe it should be. But in his discussion he wandered into some truly confounding notions about “legitimate” rape and rates of conception. The overall stand he was making was correct—that the child conceived in rape should not be punished for the father’s crime—but the discussion he wandered into was a bizarre minefield of his own making, and he seemed to dance a jig right on through. Boom!

His comments were denounced roundly and immediately from all corners, including those inclined to share his overall conservative and pro-life stances. He’s staying in the race despite heaps of criticism, myriad calls to drop out, and a total loss of support from his own party and erstwhile national supporters.

In other words, his comments, which were a puzzling and maddening riff on what is actually a fairly easy case to make have gotten him shunned. Not considered right for polite, or even partisan electoral, company. He’s been ostracized.

Note, however, that he was not, at root, advocating for any strange and unheard-of position. He was not charting new policy proposal territory. He did not assert that the child conceived in rape was not really a child, nor that the mother’s rights are the most important or only rights to be considered. He was, at the basic level, advocating for a position that millions of pro-lifers share. He just used a ridiculous rationale that has no place at the table on a number of levels.

Now. Consider that treatment to the treatment our current president gets concerning his views on abortion-after-birth.

When he was a state senator Barack Obama faced the question of what to do with a baby (or, as Obama put it, “that fetus, or child — however way you want to describe it”) who had the audacity to survive an abortion—an attempt to kill her before she even left her mother’s womb. Andrew McCarthy captures it thusly:

There wasn’t any question about what was happening. The abortions were going wrong. The babies weren’t cooperating. They wouldn’t die as planned. Or, as Illinois state senator Barack Obama so touchingly put it, there was “movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead.”

But don’t take Andrew’s, or my, word for it. Here’s a section from the transcript of a debate in which Obama discusses the issue of babies who survive induced-labor abortions (available on “page 2″ of the above-linked article):

As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child — however way you want to describe it — is now outside the mother’s womb and the doctor continues to think that it’s nonviable but there’s, let’s say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they’re not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved.

All emphasis mine.

A fetus, child, however way you want to call it. But clearly not limp and dead.

Think about that. He acknowledges that the lump of cells could be considered a child, and that this thing, let’s call it a “child,” after the abortion attempt, potentially leaves the birth canal in some state other than “limp and dead” (we usually call this state “alive”) but rather than consider that “child’s” life worth saving his concern is on the hassle of having to call in another physician to affirm whether or not the little bugger is “limp and dead” or is “not a live child that could be saved.”

Again, to recapitulate:

Human person who survived an abortion.

Human person now outside the womb, alive.

Human person incredibly tired and weak from being born, premature, but needing nothing but modern medical care to live and grow.

Human person surrounded by health care professionals, some of whom just tried to kill her, all of whom are feeling at least a little awkward that this human person did not follow the script and die, dammit!

Human person left in a soiled janitor’s closet, out of sight, to die alone.

I don’t think it’s a stretch to say this sort of scenario would turn the stomach of most Americans. It’s heinous. It’s inhuman. And Barack Obama is OKAY with this, lest we inconvenience another physician or perhaps tell a woman that her child has a right to live.

Again: can anyone explain to me why Todd Akin deserves more condemnation than Barack Obama?

Forget it. I ask the impossible.

Gird yourself, folks: we live in an age when out-and-out infanticide does not warrant condemnation if combatting it might interfere with abortion “rights.”

The Washington Post profiles Marjorie Dannenfelser of the SBA List, calling her “a feminine face for the anti-abortion movement.” http://cvote.to/7R

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-IA, uses a procedural move in order to delay a Senate Judiciary vote on a bill to repealing the Defense of Marriage Act. http://cvote.to/7S

An Iowa poll reveals that potential caucus voters who would pay more under Herman Cain’s 9-9-9 plan think they would pay less. http://cvote.to/7T

Mitt Romney makes a play for conservatives – announces a bold Medicare reform plan. http://cvote.to/7U

Bishop Daniel Flores shares his thoughts about his Texas diocese that borders Mexico. http://cvote.to/7V

86 House members sign Rep. Todd Akin’s letter urging the Senate to protect the Defense of Marriage Act. http://cvote.to/7W

Latest ABC/Washington Post national poll of GOP voters: Romney 24%, Cain 23%, Perry 13%, Newt 12%. http://cvote.to/7X

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