Flowers: A single-issue voter when it comes to being Catholic

MY FATHER'S MOTHER was a diehard Democrat. If Ted Bundy and Charles Manson were running on a ticket touting their record on women's rights, they'd have her vote as long as they weren't Republicans. Elsie was the kind of partisan who was incapable of seeing beyond the edges of her voter registration card. I'm sure she's still planning to support Hillary Clinton in November, assuming she can find the polling place nearest to her plot at Holy Cross Cemetery.

Elsie was not alone in her unique, single-minded devotion. Many people are incapable of deviating from lifelong loyalties and biases and will go to their graves rejecting, out of hand, anything the other side has to say on any topic of significance. There are Republicans who wouldn't wear an "I'm With Him" button even if the "Him" in question was Jesus Christ, assuming the Son of God was a registered Democrat. We vote our prejudices, our preferences and our comfort zone.

I never thought I was that kind of voter. I was a registered Democrat for many years, until last March, when I changed my registration to Republican so I could vote for John Kasich in the Pennsylvania primary. Still, I don't feel any different; I'll continue to vote across party lines if the person on the other side of that line is appealing enough. Sorry, Grandma.

But I recently realized that there is one thing that I cannot compromise, and that is my dignity. I will not vote for someone who shows a lack of respect for my principles, my values, my most intimate beliefs. She doesn't need to share them, necessarily. But she cannot show, either through her own actions or by proxy through those who keep her counsel, that she treats them like gum at the bottom of an orthopedic shoe.

I'm Christine, I am a Catholic, and I vote. I've often seen bumper stickers that say, "I'm Pro Gun and I Vote," "I'm Pro Choice and I Vote," "I'm Dead and I Still Vote (In Philadelphia)." I'm embarrassed to say that I regarded them with some elitist disdain, confident that I was a better-educated, more open-minded citizen because I couldn't be a one-issue voter. I've come close when that issue is abortion, and I can count on two fingers the pro-choice candidates I've supported in 37 years of voting. But it was only this past week, when I read the emails that were leaked by Julian Assange, or Vlad of the impeccable pectorals, that flurry of exchanges between John Podesta and other Clinton intimates, that I realized I am a one-issue voter.

And that issue is my faith.

It's a little different from what I've talked about in the past. Sometimes my columns have focused on the duties of Catholic candidates to be consistent with their spiritual formation, as I did when comparing Tim Kaine with Mike Pence, or when I chastised Joe Biden for being pro-choice, or when I tried to get Katie McGinty to fess up about her strong support for abortion rights.

But this time, it's more serious than that, and transcends specific issues. Reading those emails was a revelation to me. There was such disdain for Catholics, such pre-packaged vitriol, such high school bathroom mocking that I thought they were parodies of real conversations. It didn't occur to me that people who were that close to a candidate who has always touted the importance of tolerance would, themselves, be avatars of bigotry.

I don't have the stomach to reproduce the emails in detail, but here is an excerpt from a three-way discussion among Podesta, John Halpin and Jen Palmieri, all close associates of Clinton:

"Many of the most powerful elements of the conservative movement are all Catholic (many converts) from the (Supreme Court) and think tanks to the media and social groups. It's an amazing bastardization of the faith. They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy."

Yes, we all know there are far too many Catholics on the Supreme Court. They're going to overturn Roe v. Wade. Just give them another 43 years and you know they'll finally do it, one of these days. Those sneaky papists, they lull you into a sense of security and then, wham!, back to the coat hanger.

Excuse my digression. The fact is, the emails were indicative of some very vile biases on the left that have been allowed to fester in the darkness, because bringing them into the open would lose the Democrats some key votes. Not the vote of Grandma Elsie, who was a political lemming, but the support of those Catholics on the fence who were blue-collar, simple folk who loved both the social safety net and unborn babies.

Now, all bets are off.

Unless Clinton disavows the sentiment behind those emails, she is showing very clearly how much value she places on Catholic dignity: none.

I'm waiting for the Clinton commercial that shows a Catholic in a pew, head bowed as these words appear onscreen over the visual: "There needs to be a Catholic Spring, in which Catholics themselves demand the end of a Middle Ages dictatorship and the beginning of a little democracy and respect for gender equality in the Catholic Church." And then the voiceover, "I'm Hillary Clinton, and I approve this message."

I reached out to some of our local Catholic legislators and candidates to see what they had to say about the emails, and only two responded. Interestingly enough, they were Republicans, because I'm guessing Democratic Rep. Bob Brady and Democratic Senate hopeful McGinty had better things to do than justify bigotry from their side of the aisle.

From Rep. Pat Meehan:

"The thoughts expressed in these e-mails are an affront to millions of American Catholics and evangelical Christians. Middle-class Americans are sick and tired of their faith and their values being demeaned and mocked by the media and political elites. They're fed up with Christians of all kinds being regarded as backwards and bigoted. Hillary Clinton owes all people of faith an apology, but what's really needed is more than that: a genuine change of attitude and a real respect for all Americans of faith."

And this, from Pat Toomey:

"This presidential campaign has been filled with way too much bigotry on all sides. I've condemned it from Donald Trump, and I condemn it from Hillary Clinton and their teams. It's a sorry spectacle from our country."

At the risk of being mocked as "gender-backwards" or supporter of a "Middle Ages dictatorship," all I can say to that is "Amen."

Christine Flowers is a lawyer.

cflowers1961@gmail.com

@flowerlady61

Flowers will give a talk, "Oh My God, I am Heartily Catholic: Living Your Faith In Public," as a part of the Theology on Tap speaker series at Gearo's Grille, 1913 Welsh Road in Northeast Philadelphia, at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 17.