Providence Archbishop Joins GOP: Hallelujah!

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):

"The a-ha moment for me was the 2012 Democratic National Convention. It was just awful,"

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".

Besides, "gay rights" as a political mantra is grating on people. In the past few months, many "gay prominent" television sitcoms have been cancelled. In my opinion, Americans are getting tired of the six-colored rainbow being shoved down their throats. A libertarian attitude of "Live and Let Live" defines the Republican Party, so if two men consensually choose to sleep together, that's their problem. Sadly, left-wing homosexual activists have told me to my face, and to anyone who cares to listen (a dwindling number): "You have to accept me!"

　

"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!)

Moreover, the current Democratic platform on abortion is extreme, one which permits an abortion at any time on the taxpayers' dime. US Senator Barbara Boxer of California declared: "A baby is a baby when the mother takes him home." Are you kidding me? Try running that line by a doctor or a nurse, and they will remind you of the legal responsibilities (and liabilities) weighing on health care practitioners once the baby is born.

The reformed DNC platform implicitly achieves this extreme pronouncement on abortion because the leaders removed "New Democrat" former President Bill Clinton's language "safe, legal, and rare" on abortion.

Democratic leaders love to castigate Republicans as "anti-choice" and "war on women" types. Just one reading of the Kermit Gosnell trial in the Philadelphia inner cities should demonstrate that Planned Parenthood and abortion on demand is taking an exacting and immoral toll on women, especially minorities and the working poor. The majority of Americans do not support the Democratic Party's expansion of abortion, and neither does Rev. Tobin. Most women certainly do not. Instead of responding to the culture on abortion, Republicans in Rhode Island and throughout the country should go on the offensive. "Safe, legal, and rare" must be the GOP Platform, and the Rhode Island GOP can start this conversation.

　

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.