June 5, 2009

Obama Appoints Radical-Right, Anti-Abortionist Catholic to Faith-Based Council

“While the administration favors reducing the need for abortion by reducing unintended pregnancies, Kelley has made clear that she seeks instead to reduce access to abortion. That is an extremely disturbing development, especially coming this week in the wake of George Tiller’s assassination.”
— Sarah Posner

Much more after the press release:

Antiabortion Advocate Appointed
to Senior Position at HHS

WASHINGTON, D.C. — June 4, 2009 — Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, issued the following statement today about the announcement that Alexia Kelley had been appointed to be Director of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services:

The antichoice organization Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good (CACG) has announced that Alexia Kelley, its co-founder and former executive director, has been appointed to be Director of Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships at the Department of Health and Human Services. Ms. Kelley’s appointment would be a defeat for reason and logic and calls into question whether President Obama’s administration is serious about reducing the need for abortion. And, while it may not gain many headlines, the impact and significance of this appointment should not go unnoticed.

“If Ms. Kelley had been appointed to another position in the administration, there might be less reason for concern. However, the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for providing and expanding access to key sexual and reproductive health services. As such, we need those working in HHS to rely on evidence-based methods to reduce the need for abortion. We need them to believe in men’s and women’s capacity to make moral decisions about their own lives. Unfortunately, as seen from her work at CACG, Ms. Kelley does not fit the bill.

“A look into Alexia Kelley’s leadership of CACG reveals a vehement antichoice stance that is focused on reducing the number of, not the need for, abortions. In voter’s guides the organization Kelley led characterized abortion as akin to war or torture. You can learn more about Catholics in Alliance here.

“From the beginning, Alexia Kelley directed CACG to ignore the question of access to abortion and reframe the debate in terms of reducing the number of abortions — although polls consistently show that the majority of Catholics support abortion rights. This language around reducing the number of abortions should be a huge red flag to anyone who believes in and seeks to defend a woman’s right to choose. While evidence-based prevention methods can go a long way towards reducing the need for abortion, some women will always need access to safe and legal abortion and we must recognize that and ensure public policies support that access.

“Alexia Kelley is on record with her support for restrictions on access to abortion, despite her organization’s efforts to avoid the question of legalization at every turn. In an audio press conference prior to the 2008 election, Ms. Kelley agreed with other speakers who spoke out in favor of restrictions on abortion, saying, “Catholics in Alliance supports these restrictions as well.”

“Under Kelley’s leadership, CACG used flawed economic data to support anti-poverty measures as a means to reduce the number of abortions. While such measures are obviously beneficial for many reasons, poverty reduction will not by itself reduce the need for abortion. As Ms. Kelley’s group opposed evidence-based prevention methods such as contraception and comprehensive sexuality education, its “abortion reduction” rhetoric is simply a newly packaged antiabortion message.

“Rhetoric around “finding common ground” (or common good, as Ms Kelley would have it) and “reducing the need for abortion” has framed the abortion debate for the past few months. While this rhetoric and subsequent efforts may indeed help to move us past the culture wars over abortion and contraception, it is dangerous when these efforts devolve into an abandonment of ideals. In appointing an antichoice advocate to a key position in HHS we are seeing crucial principles abandoned—principles upon which so many men and women rely to lead healthy lives.”

Catholics for Choice shapes and advances sexual and reproductive ethics that are based on justice, reflect a commitment to women’s well-being and respect and affirm the capacity of women and men to make moral decisions about their lives.

More about Alexia Kelley

Calls for a broader, faith-driven agenda in Washington, D.C., are coming from multiple points on the Christian spectrum. Jossey-Bass features the ideas of two Gen-X, Catholic political activists — Alexia Kelley and Chris Korzen — in A Nation for All: How the Catholic Vision of the Common Good Can Save America from the Politics of Division. An agenda based on Catholic social teachings could unify an otherwise divided country, they argue.

— The Politics of Faith
Publisher’s Weekly
March 3, 2008

Hilariously, other hardcore, anti-choice (and anti-gay) Catholics are as opposed to Kelley and her group as much as anyone on the Left — because she’s a Democrat.

In February of this year, blogging priest John Malloy (no friend to anyone or anything to the left of Genghis Khan) quoted Jack Smith over at “The Catholic Key,” ranting on about how “Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good was an organ of the Obama Presidential Campaign,” chock-full of big Obama donors.

In May, Catholic News Service called Kelley a “Democratic militant” for founding the “pro-Obama group” CAGG. Read the original release here, then compare to the “second update” version at CNS, which deletes any mention of Kelley and CAGG, and replaces all inflammatory and accusatory language in the original release. What’s interesting is the deletion of one paragraph that reflects our feelings (re “payback”) on many of Obama’s religious appointments:

[Diaz’s appointment] seems to be the first pay back of the Obama administration to Catholics who have been unconditionally supporting his policies and appointments. Diaz, in fact, is listed as a member of Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good, although he explains his relationship with the pro-Obama group founded by Democratic militant Alexia Kelley as “a response to an invitation to become a theological advisor.”

To these sudden-outraged right-wing Catholics, we want to say, “Well, duh!” and: “Where have you been all these years?” Kelley is indeed a Democrat, and has a long history with the party; in fact, she was director for religious outreach for the Democratic National Committee during John Kerry’s 2004 campaign. (Pro-Kerry, she said “Mr. Kerry’s policies reflected overall Catholic teachings.” [NYT, October 12, 2004])

So, why the big surprise? There are plenty of “conservative Democrats” like Kelley, yanking the party even further to the right than it already is, and making it extremely confusing to tell where the Democrats end, and where the Republicans begin (which is why we’re no longer Democrats).

(Actually, telling the parties apart isn’t that confusing; the easy way to know whether you’re being attacked by a Democrat or by a Republican is that Republicans are honest about their disdain for you, and will tell you to your face they intend to destroy you by any means necessary.)

But woe to anyone who nails Kelley and her group for what they appear to be — which in the eyes of radical-right Baptist-cum-Catholic Deal Hudson (Rovian pick for Catholic outreach director on both of George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns, big-time McCain supporter, “ex-gay” advocate, head of InsideCatholic.com, and director of the Morley Institute for Church & Culture) is “little more than partisan cheerleaders for Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential bid.”

Kelley went off on Hudson in a Catholic Online op/ed, accusing him of being “misinformed or more likely very calculated” in “casting false accusations about mixing faith and politics.”

(Are you laughing yet? We are. Not only is Kelley’s defense of CAGG — and “NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby” — amusing in itself, but it is enjoyable to sit back and watch the Radical Righty Faithers devour one another.)

We’ll give Sarah Posner of The American Prospect the last word on Alexia Kelley:

Kelley is a leading proponent of “common ground” abortion reduction — only CACG’s common ground is at odds with that of Obama. While the administration favors reducing the need for abortion by reducing unintended pregnancies, Kelley has made clear that she seeks instead to reduce access to abortion. That is an extremely disturbing development, especially coming this week in the wake of George Tiller’s assassination.

Under George W. Bush, the faith-based centers didn’t play a policy role. But Obama has expanded the faith-based project to include a policy side, and one of its chief goals is to reduce the need for abortion. I have opposed this, because reproductive health is a public health, not a religious issue. Also problematic: It is counterproductive for Obama to appoint someone who disagrees with the administration’s stance. Obama finds himself now in the difficult position of having elevated the importance of religion to making policy, and having appointed a religious figure whose opinions on policy conflict with his. …

In discussing legislation on reducing the need for abortion, Kelley has written that various pieces of legislation concerned with women’s health “are not all perfect; some include contraception — which the Church opposes.” Never mind that more than 90 percent of American Catholics use it anyway. …

In a 2008 press teleconference co-sponsored by CACG and Sojourners, Kelley stated that she supported state-imposed restrictions on abortion, such as waiting periods and informed consent. In her 2008 book, A Nation for All, co-written with Chris Korzen, Kelley wrote, “Each abortion constitutes a direct attack on human life, and so we have a special moral obligation to end or reduce the practice of abortion to the greatest extent possible.”

Despite this inflammatory language, Kelley has positioned herself as above the fray of the “culture wars.” …

CACG did not issue any public statements about the Tiller assassination, though it signed one by Faith in Public Life condemning the murder. But the statement did not condemn the inciting rhetoric of the anti-choice movement. Rather, it made a kumbaya plea for common ground (which as we have seen, is not so common after all).

Guess Who Just Got Thrown Under the ObamaBus?, July 7, 2008

Americans United, ACLU Ask Court to End Public Funding of Discriminatory Kentucky Baptist Homes for Children, July 17, 2008

Your Tax Dollars at Work: Funding Fundies Forcing First Amendment Forfeit, August 26, 2008

Get Ready to Pay for More Schools That Teach What an Abomination You Are, October 8, 2008

AU: Dear President-Elect Obama…, November 23, 2008

AU: White House Report Seeks to Mask Monumental Failure of “Faith-Based” Initiative, January 12, 2009

Obama-McClurkin-Warren-Meeks-Et-Cetera Redux: Are You Ready for Gay-Basher Tony Dungy on the Obama Jesus Team?, March 31, 2009

Hey, Obamaites, About the Token “Faith Fags”: B.F.D. I Repeat: B.F.D., April 6, 2009

Posted by: Sapphocrat

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