A reader asks about whether Obama’s war on the Church is a reason to vote GOP this fall

He writes:

I voted for a hopeless 3rd-party yahoo in 2008, and I was fully prepared to do so again in 2012 rather than support whichever torture apologist wins the GOP nomination. But this battle has me reconsidering. In a principle-of-double-effect sort-of way, might it be OK to elect a GOPer just to stop this assault on the Church?

I’m conflicted and would be grateful for whatever light you can shine.

Not much, I’m afraid. I’m ruminating the same question. The Administration’s acts of naked warfare on civil liberty briefly made me wonder if it might be prudent to vote GOP, but when I contemplated the fact that the GOP was, in fact, the engine that drove the passage of the NDAA, I thought, “Nah. They are as enthused about transforming American into a police state as Obama.” A GOP Prez will not do one thing to undo Obama’s “gains” in eradicating civil rights or checks on a tyrannical executive. So since both parties were still gung ho for their preferred grave intrinsic evils, I saw no particular reason to support either.

Now, however, the Administration’s gratuitous and malice-filled war on religious liberty and the Catholic Church introduces a new wrinkle to the equation. We now have what I think is a real difference between the parties. The GOP is largely indifferent to the Church when the Church disagrees with it on matters like torture and just war. It makes use of the Church when it is convenient (yakking about abortion and family values while doing very little). But it has never taken a position of naked and open hostility with a view to crushing it.

For this reason, I am considering voting GOP this fall as the prudent action, because an America ruled by a corrupt party indifferent to the Church is better than an America ruled by a corrupt party that is actively seeking to crush the Church. I haven’t made up my mind (because I’m not sold that supporting pols who advocate grave evil is something I can justify. We are, after all, talking about a field of candidates–Ron Paul doesn’t count since he will never be nominated–who aspire to be war criminals). But the launch of Obama’s war on the Church seems to me to be a potential game-changer here. He is, after all, also a bellicose warmonger eager to expand our wars of Empire, but he has also taken his war for an American hedonist crony capitalist police state empire, not merely to the Islamosphere, but to the doors of every Catholic Church in America. Give him four years to make war on the Church without hindrance and we may be very surprised at how little is left of the American Church by 2016. He means business and it is foolish to underestimate that.

So yeah: I am thinking about voting for whatever hairball the GOP barfs up, if only to keep Obama from enacting his full agenda of malice against what is, after all, the real central story here: the Church which is the saving sacrament of my people.