Catholics and the Democratic Party

“A Loyal Constituency Is Restless” (Opinion, Jan. 6), dealing with the Catholics of California, could not have been more on the mark. Those in the Democratic Party have become so dogmatic when it comes to their radical social agenda that it boggles the mind that any self-aware Catholic could support them today. After achieving complete power in 1998, it was only a matter of time before, once again, they ran home to their far-left universe, thereby successfully alienating the populace.

The budget disaster that is now upon us shows what the mindless fiscal policies of their ever-growing nanny state will do for you economically. Allowing same-sex marriage, forcing homosexuality upon our schoolchildren and ramming abortion down everyone’s throat--all the while mocking any cultural institutions that oppose them--show you the nightmare of depravity such an ideology leaves behind.

In time, those of faith will, as they have in the past, discard such degenerate souls and go about picking up the mess they left behind. The only question is when.

Eric Christen

Sacramento

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I had to laugh when I read Tony Quinn’s piece on Catholics and the Democratic Party. The phrase “the Catholic vote” is simply hilarious! As long as my church has members such as Jerry Brown and William F. Buckley, Tom Daschle and Pat Buchanan, and Martin Sheen and Arnold Schwarzenegger, “the Catholic vote” will remain just a pollster’s joke.

George Bentley

La Puente

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David Carlin is quoted as questioning how a Catholic can be a Democrat when the Democratic Party rejects Christian values. This statement purports that the Roman Catholic Church is the defining authority of such values. This is far from factual. While this religion can claim to be the oldest espousing the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, it long ago lost its hold on Christianity in general.

The fact is that a great many Catholics define themselves as such because their parents did so. When it comes to living in the real world, a great many American Catholics are simply Christian rather than Catholic in their behavior.

Bob Winners

Glendale

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Catholic voters are restless? What about the rest of us, who don’t care to have someone else’s religion enacted into law? Proponents of any religion need to understand that a religious belief is one’s own and, in the United States, one is free to practice it. That freedom, however, does not include the right to enact into law, which affects everyone, the tenets of that particular belief. What is so hard to understand about that?

Beverly Stone

Bakersfield