On Todd Akin and a gay wedding's priest

By Matt C. Abbott

By the time you read this, U.S. Senate hopeful Todd Akin (R-Missouri) may have dropped out of the race. Or perhaps not. We'll see.

In expressing the logical, consistent, and admirable position that rape, while deplorable and criminal, doesn't justify an abortion — as opposed to the illogical, inconsistent, and falsely compassionate position that rape does justify an abortion — Akin used a very poor and perplexing choice of words, thus effectively sinking his candidacy.

The unfortunate reality is, in this political climate, a gaffe like that can ruin a campaign (especially if you're a conservative), even though Akin is absolutely correct to oppose abortion in cases of rape.

What should Akin have said when asked about a rape exception for abortion?

Something along the lines of this:

[A]bortion takes the life of a living human being. The circumstances of conception may have been criminal, but the life of the newly-created human being is just as valuable as any other person's. We do not put criminals' innocent children to death in our culture; it simply isn't done. It should not be done in this situation, either. (Source: American Life League)

On a related note, Steven Ertelt of LifeNews.com writes:

...President Barack Obama and Akin's Democratic opponent Claire McCaskill have supported taxpayer funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion business — which has been repeatedly found to have failed to report suspected cases of sexual abuse and child rape to authorities. (Click here for the story)

Go figure.

Now on to the "gay wedding's priest" story. No, no — it's not "gay priest's wedding." It is indeed "gay wedding's priest."

From Catholic World News:

A New York Times notice about the wedding of two homosexual men listed a Catholic priest as 'assisting' at the ceremony. A Lutheran minister presided at the same-sex wedding, celebrated on a chartered yacht. But The Times added that Father Michael DeVito, the cousin of one of the wedding partners, also took part in the ceremony. Father Michael DeVito is the pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Suffield, Connecticut, and a member of the presbyteral council for the Hartford archdiocese.

Now, let's just say, for the sake of argument, that Father DeVito really didn't assist (whatever that means) at the ceremony. Why would he even attend the ceremony to begin with? Morally speaking, being a relative isn't a legitimate excuse. It's still scandalous. And wouldn't you know...The New York Times covered the whole thing.

© Matt C. Abbott