Last week, Senator Tim Kaine (D-Va.) was announced as former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s running mate for the White House. A bland but experienced politician who gave a fantastic debut speech in Florida, Kaine was picked at least in part because he can help Clinton win the battleground state of Virginia.
He was also picked for his liberal take on Catholicism — a religion with which he identifies, but regularly undermines and opposes by backing abortion and marriage’s redefinition.
It is abortion that has drawn perhaps the greatest attention during the run-up to Kaine’s acceptance of the VP slot.
According to the Senator, “I have a traditional Catholic personal position, but I am very strongly supportive that women should make these decisions and government shouldn’t intrude.”
“I’m a strong supporter of Roe v. Wade and women being able to make these decisions,” Kaine continued in his CNN interview. “In government, we have enough things to worry about. We don’t need to make people’s reproductive decisions for them.”
But while Kaine has a 100 percent rating from NARAL and Planned Parenthood, liberals have long been suspicious of Kaine’s support for abortion. He has backed informed consent, parental notification, and a ban on partial-birth abortions. As governor, he allowed “Choose Life” license plates that sent some of the proceeds from the plates to pro-life crisis pregnancy centers.
But like his party, Kaine has gone to the left on abortion over time. When Pope Francis spoke to Congress, Kaine issued a statement opposing a ban on late-term abortions, claiming that “Nothing in my Catholic faith suggests that I should support legislation that violates the Constitution.” He also urged his GOP colleagues to “truly listen to” Pope Francis.
For all of this, Kaine has been praised, including by left-leaning, pro-life Catholic Christopher Hale, for having a “nuanced” position on abortion. But if Kaine was to listen to Pope Francis, he would know that his positions on life and marriage are not only out of line with the current pontiff, but with Catholic teaching in totem. While Pope Francis has condemned redefining marriage, and called abortion part of the “throwaway culture,” Kaine has stood firm in heretical positions.
Is Kaine’s position on abortion “nuanced?” Nope. It is merely wrong, and it makes him nothing more than a bad Catholic. Despite the science of unborn life, his “nuanced” position is to acquiesce to his party’s lurch to the left, and be the running mate for a presidential candidate who believes in forcing taxpayers to fund abortions until the day of birth.
Dustin Siggins is the Weekend Editor and an Associate Editor for The Stream, and a public relations consultant. Previously, he was the D.C. Correspondent and Public Relations Officer for LifeSiteNews, the world’s largest pro-life and pro-family daily news website.
