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| Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island |
Archbishop Thomas Tobin of Providence, Rhode Island announced last week his decision to switch his voter registration from Democrat to Republican. Catholics by culture (not by nature), tend to vote Democratic because the party has often represented itself as the voice of the poor, the dispossessed, and the strangers in our midst. Those characterizations no longer hold any value, according to Bishop Tobin.
Tobin represents a diocese in the most Catholic state in the union. His switch is transformative, and perhaps not just temporarily, for Rhode Island and the Rhode Island Republican Party, while signaling the last rites for the anti-Democratic hypermajority in Providence.
At first, I could only ask: "Forgive me, Father, but why now?" Not that I am unhappy with the change, mind you, but why now, and not, say, thirty years ago? Why did the most hold Reverend decided that the Democratic Party no longer deserved his reverence?
His words (I kid you not):
Ha!
Then he shared:
"I just said I can't be associated structurally with that group, in terms of abortion and NARAL [Pro-Choice America] and Planned Parenthood and [the] same-sex marriage agenda and cultural destruction I saw going on," Tobin said. "I just couldn't do it anymore."
First, about that Democratic Convention and other distasteful elements which certainly disgusted Rev. Tobin, there is plenty more he could have confessed (not that he needed to). Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa chaired the committee to approve the Democratic Party platform in 2012. Party leaders originally adopted a platform which would remove God and would no longer recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Villaraigosa moved to remove those changes, and the delegate floor booed, and loudly.
The Democratic Party has become the party that says "Boo!" to God and denies Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. I wonder if Hamas and Hezbollah sent delegates to Charlotte, North Carolina, too? Notwithstanding the public denunciations, President Obama and Mayor Villaraigosa reinstated respect for the Deity and recognition of Jerusalem. Ironically, such anti-democratic procedures define the Obama Administration, in which the President does not listen to voters, does not acknowledge the initial law-making powers of Congress, and plunges ahead to ignore and neglect key sections of laws which he has passed while willingly refusing to enforce the laws already on the books.
Now, back to the key issues of gay marriage and abortion, the two issues which issued Rev. Tobin away from the Democrats and to the Republican Party. Any partisan organization which endorses same-sex marriage will not be joined in holy matrimony with a religious community which adheres to "Male and female he created them".
"Have to" and "accept" together make as much sense as "legitimate rape" or "Obamacare will not raise health care costs." A free society is based on tolerance, an asset within peace-keeping and peace-making spiritual communities, but not so with Democratic Party leaders (Obama still has not take our troops out of Afghanistan!)
God bless Bishop Tobin for switching parties. Let us hope that the rest of his flock follows his move to honor Providence as revealed in the Bible, then retake Providence the capital for their good, and the greater glory of all.