Willingly duped, again and again.

How long will Catholics continue to be duped by the Pro-life crumbs tossed at us by the GOP?

There is a great post on this at the America blog:

The annual March for Life has come and gone. One of its more bizarre qualities is the way GOP presidents participate: by recorded message or telephone hook-up, but never in person. This began during Ronald Reagan’s presidency when some advisors did not want a photo beamed around the world of Reagan addressing the crowd, but those same advisors knew they had to at least acknowledge the role that pro-life forces played in Reagan’s 1980 victory. Reagan could look out the window of the Oval Office and see that marchers, as could every president since, but the phone connection has remained the means of participation. Even George W. Bush, who will never face another election and seems plenty unconcerned about the political fallout of other decisions, could not manage to emerge from his office to address the crowd in person.

Yesterday’s march in Washington was no different. Presidential aspirant John McCain sent a letter to the marchers that was read by fellow Sen. Sam Brownback. Mitt Romney, whose previous flip-flop on abortion has earned him a great deal of suspicion from conservative voters, issued a press release that is buried on his campaign’s Web site.

During the last two elections, Catholics had it impressed upon them, with constant vigor, the moral imperative of voting for a Pro-life politician. I admit I was usually swayed by this. We really believed that whom we were voting for would make Abortion the issue it deserved to be. In reality: hardly.  This is similar to the tactic used to get Christians to vote for Bush: see, he’s a faithful Christian, and will work for policy that follows from Christian principles. Nothing could be further from the truth. Those who in fact created Bush’s public policy were a cabinet certainly not evangelical in orientation. The likes of Cheney, Romney, Rice, Rove, etc., were not at all “conservative Christians.” Their religion was the GOP, and their policies owed little to Christian principles.

Still the argument has remained for this election go-around. Abortion is THE critical issue. You have to vote pro-life, since candidates being pro-life means they will work to make abortion illegal again [false]. See, this candidate is pro-life, so you must vote for him.

This is not to say I find voting for pro-choice candidates a better option, as I do believe that Clinton or Obama would seriously work to expand abortion rights. Or at least tacitly allow those who would to do so.

What I’m wondering is, can we seriously believe anymore that the GOP is on the same page as the Catholic Church in fighting against abortion, and building a culture of life?