Verdicts like Hobby Lobby motivate people to talk about the issues of choice and personal freedoms that women enjoy. We talk about the risks that women take when they speak openly on these issues by a culture that wants to devalue that opinion. This week, Kelly Kultala, Democratic Candidate for the 3rd District of Kansas fired a shot back at Republicans. Kultala has viewed herself as a person of life long faith, and so when Kansas Republicans moved that she should be excommunicated she had to respond.
With this week's Supreme Court ruling in the Hobby Lobby case bringing the intersection of faith and politics to the forefront of the national discussion, I feel compelled to respond to another intersection of the two in my home county. Last week I was outraged when the Republican Party county chair called for me to be excommunicated because I am a pro-choice Catholic. It was stunning because it is among my deepest beliefs that it is not one's place to judge another's faith.
My father passed on to me a simple set of guiding principles that I have tried to pass on to my children. We call them the four Fs: family, friends, fun, and faith. Our family is bound by these principles, and our experiences have reaffirmed the strength of prayer and faith.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...
The remainder of her argument below.
Our family's faith was put to the test when, less than a week after my husband Dan's kidney and pancreas transplant, he went into septic shock. It was the most serious of the many medical issues that Dan has had to deal with during our married life, most stemming from his type-1 diabetes. He wound up with a seven-week ICU stay.
I have a vivid memory of sitting on a bench in front of the hospital, watching the flow and serenity of a reflecting pool and praying to God. As I prayed, a wonderful sense of peace came over me, and I knew that everything was going to be all right. My faith was all that sustained me in that moment.
Dan's stay in the ICU also happened to coincide with our family moving. A new family needed to move into the home we were leaving, meaning my three daughters and I faced moving a full house by ourselves. Yet on the morning when we were to move, I opened the door and was stunned to discover about a dozen trucks and trailers occupied by people from our church and community, all ready to help. It was organized chaos, but I will always be grateful to those who helped my family through a trying time. They showed up because they share my faith and my belief in giving back to others in tough times and being there for one another.
The Catholic Church I grew up in during the '60s and '70s shared President John F. Kennedy's vision of faith and community. It taught me to ask not what my community can do for me but what I can do for those who are hurting, lost, and in need. The peace that sustained me through Dan's darkest days could not have been possible without the help of countless others in our faith community who share that understanding.
I refuse to sit by silently and allow the faith I grew up with to be hijacked by a crowd that believes they have the dominion to judge whether others are faithful enough or Catholic enough. Pope Francis has said, "I see clearly that the thing the church needs most today is the ability to heal wounds and to warm the hearts of the faithful; it needs nearness, proximity." Faith is about caring for those in greater need than ourselves; it's not a mechanism for casting stones. I ask that if you support my vision of faith, please consider supporting my campaign for Congress.
(Editorial quoted in full with permission of the author)
It is important to remember when we take people to task that they are real humans. Kelly Kultala faced a problem that is magnifies what is really going on here.. Kansas Republicans went after her not as a candidate, but as a human being. They attacked her beyond her position in a campaign, they made an attack oriented around a judgement of someone's personal faith.
This isn't a first time in Kansas this has occurred.
http://thinkprogress.org/...
My main point is that the Democratic platform and policies nationally are an attempt to redefine marriage in effect to say what Christ has said about marriage is a lie. Christ said marriage is between one man and one woman and the Democratic platform said that it’s not true. So therefore, my point was that one cannot support the Democratic platform and be a follower of Christ. …The contention that I said that one cannot be Catholic or Christian and a Democrat is not an unreasonable summation of what I actually said. My actual message was fix the party or leave.
Thanks to rulings like Hobby Lobby, politicians face attacks that aren't just negative ads, they are public statements and assertions about the role of faith and the ability of a lay person to make broad determinations on the soul of another person.
I applaud Kelly for taking a stance here that when party chairs and officers start asserting they would hand out excommunications they have reached beyond their standing in the church, and beyond their standing in the faith.
Kelly Kultala is campaigning in the 3rd District of Kansas (Kansas City area) an area held by democrats for 10 years prior to Yoder. I'm giving her a hat tip below for her candor on this issue.
http://www.kellykultala.com/