« Selfish Protesters - Toss Em an Email | Main | Kansas Joins 17 States in Passing Marriage Amendment »
April 06, 2005
Clinton and Kerry Have Got Religion
An article in the Village Voice last Friday talks about a bill co-sponsored by Hillary Clinton and John Kerry called the Workplace Religious Freedom Act.
The bill actually isn’t new; it was first introduced in 1996 by Kerry and Clinton has supported it for three sessions. Recently, though, support from Democrats has fallen off as groups like the ACLU and the National Women's Law Center have come out against it. What are they so upset about? Abortion of course. They say that it would allow pharmacists and other medical personnel to refuse to provide services relating to abortion and prescriptions for birth control and abortion products. Obviously the government and employers should be forcing people to go against their moral convictions so that no one is inconvenienced.
The interesting part of the article was describing the different ways that Kerry and Clinton are going about their continued support.
Kerry… has positively crowed about the bill, perhaps because he learned the value of the values vote when his own presidential bid sank last year. On March 17, he stood shoulder to shoulder with one of his most hard-right colleagues, Rick Santorum, to introduce the act, hailing it as a defense of religious liberty. "Our nation was founded on freedom of religion," Kerry said at a Capitol Hill press conference, "and it should be clear in our laws that no American should ever have to choose between keeping a job and keeping faith with their cherished religious beliefs." ... Clinton's office has been notably quiet about her involvement, perhaps indicating that any credit she hopes to get for pushing the bill would come not from the larger public, but from the kind of select religious interests she's been courting lately as she lays the groundwork for a possible White House run in 2008. Her office says the senator will work to fine-tune the bill as it moves to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, where she sits.
That just goes to show that Clinton is a better strategist than Kerry, which is why she is actually someone to look out for in 2008.
Hat-tip to Wallo World.
(Check out the Hillary Watch catagory for more stuff Hillary Clinton has been up to.)
Posted by illuminaria at April 6, 2005 03:54 PM