President Kennedy Liberal Exemplar And Sen.Santorum's/Palin's Conservative Exemplars On Abortion/Same Sex Marriage

Rick Santorum was roundly booed by the arch defenders of liberty and free speech-New Hampshire college students for expressing his views on same sex marriage.


Santorum took extended time, over an hour to address that issue and others in response to questions and unlike the typical politician did not attempt evade the issue. This is of course an issue central to Santorum and to conservatives and it is very much in Santorum's favor that he showed, whether one agree with him or not on his views, that he is an honest, straight forward man.


What the liberal media and their followers, especially immature students who have no real experience of life are trying to do is to paint Santorum and Palin as being out of the mainstream of American life in their views on abortion and marriage. It would be instructive to consider what the ultimate liberal hero JFK's positions on those issues would be today.


History is dark on the matter but there are clear signals both in overt actions by Kennedy but also considering the man in the context of his times. If, as the article below suggests Kennedy did not speak out directly on the matter of abortion it would have been because the concept was so repugnant to the overwhelming mass of American society that there was no reason to address the obvious.


The same can be said of course for same sex marriage- a concept that would not have been even raised in polite, or any other, for that matter, company. 


The left can't have it both ways, either JFK, and the Kennedy's in general, are exemplars of liberal thinking, or they are antediluvian and can be dismissed. I take the view that the principles that Santorum and Palin espouse, and certainly John F.Kennedy supported as indicated by his actions of installing a pro-life Supreme Court judge, are eternal.


Below are discussions about JFK and abortion in response to questions as to his position on the matter and a statement from his sister, who would have a better understanding of JFK's thoughts than his daughter who was a child in 1963, which  is clear in its implications.


I would believe the Kennedy family attitude to life was clear from the large size of the family and the care they gave to JFK's mentally challenged sister who was institutionalized and loved.That is of course paralleled in Sarah Palin's attitude to life as shown, in an exemplary fashion, by her not aborting and subsequently caring for her son.


From JFK's Sister Eunice Shriver

J.F.K. Would Have Defended Bishops' Right to Fight Abortion

Published: May 13, 1990

To the Editor:

I read with indignation the use of a quote from my brother, President John F. Kennedy, in an advertisement placed by the National Abortion Rights Action League (The Week in Review, April 22) to defend its position on unlimited rights to abortion and, at the same time, to attack the National Conference of Catholic Bishops, which has contracted with the Hill and Knowlton agency to mount a public education campaign defending the fetus. It is difficult to understand why anyone would seek to deprive the bishops of the same right the National Abortion Rights Action League and every other American citizen possesses.

President Kennedy issued the quoted statement to assure Americans that ''no religious body . . . would impose its will directly or indirectly upon the general populace.'' The use of the quote in the context of the advertisement is outrageous, unfair, inaccurate and a distortion both of my brother's remarks and of the Catholic bishops' full acceptance of the separation of church and state. The ''central question'' posed by the advertisement is, ''Who Decides for America?'' The obvious answer is that we all do. This effort by the abortion rights league to raise money by attacking the bishops sets group against group, religion against religion, to the detriment of everyone

The debate over the abortion issue should take place on higher ground. The real purpose of the statement by President Kennedy was to strike from public discourse precisely the kind of religious bigotry represented by the advertisement.

One of the bills my brother was proudest of established the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. He wanted this institute to study problems of pregnancy and early childhood development so that infants who were lost because of birth problems and lack of research on fetal life could survive. So his interest in the fetus and in children was positive and comprehensive, reflecting his moral values. Do we not understand that religious beliefs and moral values are not the same?

The right to life of a newly conceived fetus is a value held by many people who are not Catholic. This is a moral value that deserves debate, and the bishops have a right to advance this view in all of the channels of communication that are available.

I would similarly defend the rights of the abortion rights league to advance its views in these same channels. Why then do such groups object so violently when church leaders organize to communicate their values of respect for human life from its inception? This is not religious doctrine like a belief in the virgin birth, or even the sacredness of Jesus.

President Kennedy believed and practiced the value that America should offer a free marketplace for all views, even those of Catholic bishops. He would have resented his words being distorted to confuse and obscure that value. His family resents it, too.

EUNICE KENNEDY SHRIVER

Executive Vice President

Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation

Washington, May 8, 1990

"It´s widely believed that he was pro-life, even if that question wasn´t so much at stake in American politics, like nowdays. He nominated a pro-life judge, Byron White, for the U.S. Supreme Court. That means, being a pro-life Democratic, that it would be almost impossible for him to win the Democratic Party nomination today, since all their Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates have been pro-choice, since 1976. His sister Eunice Kennedy Shriver is still active in the pro-life movement, and his brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, was the most recent pro-life supporter to have been in a Democratic Party Presidential ticket, in 1972."

"Every wonder why you never hear about U. S. President John F.Kennedy's position on abortion?

There's a good reason why not: there is no public record of any statement by him on the subject. Isn't that astounding. One of the greatest leaders of the 20th century and no record of him speaking on one of the most controversial issues of our time!

The reason, in turn, for this is that abortion was not an issue before the late 1960's. Before that no major political, social, or religious group advocated legal abortion. For most it was an unspeakable crime of murder. You didn't hear stories about illegal, "back alley" abortions.

Isn't it ironic that in the past 35 years - as abortion has gone from totally illegal in the U. S. to totally available (even to the extent of allowing children to be directly killed as they are half-born) - that, during that same time, advances in science (such as ultrasound technology) have shown clearly that the unborn child is indeed a person and not a "blob of tissue"."