PHILADELPHIA — As Hillary Clinton prepared to deliver her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention on July 28, it already had become clear that the Democratic Party for the 2016 presidential election had taken a strong and uncompromising socially liberal stance in the culture wars.

The party’s platform calls for taxpayer-funded abortions, praises the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision that legalized same-sex “marriage,” commits Democrats to fight to repeal pro-life laws and says the party supports a “progressive vision of religious freedom,” not one that allows religions to “discriminate.”

Vice-presidential nominee Tim Kaine, the U.S. senator from Virginia who describes himself as a practicing Catholic, also ended his support of the Hyde Amendment, a provision that prohibits federal taxpayer funds from being used to pay for abortions, when Clinton selected him as her running mate.

“The Democratic Party, based on its platform, has dropped any pretense of having concerns about making abortion safe, legal and rare,” said David Christensen, vice president for government affairs for the Family Research Council.

Christensen told the Register that the Democratic Party’s platform seeks to push religiously informed views out of the workplace and public square if they conflict with the party’s commitments to homosexual rights and unfettered access to abortion.

“The Democratic Party has sort of shifted left, showing their true goals, when it comes to the role of government and their idea of protecting human life and marriage,” Christensen said.

The Democratic Party platform acknowledges problems like wage stagnation, racism and income inequality and calls for a broad range of policies; the list includes supporting a $15-an-hour federal minimum wage, overturning the Citizens United Supreme Court decision and expanding protections in “sex-discrimination law.” It also includes a call for the full abolition of the death penalty, using much stronger language than the 2012 platform, which simply said that capital punishment “must not be arbitrary.”

But the party’s firm commitment to social liberalism puts pro-life Democrats and many moderate, independent voters in a tough spot, especially since a recent Marist poll shows that 62% of all Americans oppose taxpayer funding for abortions.

“It’s morally reprehensible,” Michael Wear, who was director of faith outreach for Obama’s 2012 presidential campaign, told CNA of the pro-abortion plank. The party had an opportunity “to re-open the big tent” and adopt pro-life policies for pro-life Democrats, but did not, he continued.

 

Pro-Life Democrats

Kristen Day, executive director of Democrats for Life, and Charles Camosy, a theological professor at Fordham University who is a Democrats for Life board member, penned a joint op-ed in the Los Angeles Times where they argued that the party platform alienates 21 million pro-life Democrats across the country. They wrote that the platform “betrays” Democrats like themselves by calling for the repeal of all federal and state pro-life laws, asserting that access to “safe and legal abortion” is a core component of “reproductive health” and removing a plank in the party’s 2012 platform that stated a commitment to religious liberty in the context of abortion.

The 2016 language describes “abortion on demand to be a social good worthy of explicit government support with tax dollars from everyone,” Camosy told Catholic News Agency.

“I don’t think anyone who is on the side of justice for the vulnerable, of non-violence, could support something like that,” he added.

Echoed by Clinton, the Democratic Party platform calls for the repeal of the Hyde Amendment, which for 30 years has prohibited taxpayer funds from going toward abortions, with exceptions for rape, incest or when the life of the mother is at stake. The platform also supports the repeal of the Helms Amendment, first enacted in 1973, which stipulates no foreign assistance funds may be used to pay for abortions as a method of family planning or coerce anyone into practicing abortion.

The platform also says the party will fight any Republican attempts to defund Planned Parenthood of the more than $500 million in taxpayer funds the abortion provider receives every year and that Democrats will appoint judges who “will protect a woman’s right to safe and legal abortion.”

One positive proposal in the platform was “paid family leave,” Camosy said. The platform calls for “national paid family and medical leave,” where employees could receive at least 12 weeks of paid leave for childbirth or for a “serious” health problem of their own or of a family member.

The issue of “family leave” is “something that I think is implied in Pope St. John Paul II’s encyclical letter Laborem Exercens,” Camosy said in the CNA interview, “when he says that society’s social structures need to be oriented to allow women to serve both their vocation as a mother and as a professional or worker.”

Camosy hopes that issue “is something that maybe pro-lifers and certain kinds of Republicans and almost every Democrat could agree on, as a way of not only honoring women per Laborem Exercens, but also creating conditions that would make abortion less likely to be chosen.”

 

Religious Freedom

The Democratic Party also reaffirmed its support for homosexual rights, applauding the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2015 decision in Obergefell v. Hodges that declared a constitutional right to same-sex “marriage.” The platform says that “there is still much work to be done” and adds that the party will fight for sex-discrimination laws to cover homosexual persons. It is notable that the platform never once uses the word “conscience.”

In an apparent reference to state-level Religious Freedom Restoration Acts, the party platform also says Democrats will oppose “all state efforts to discriminate against LGBT individuals.” The platform even says that the Democrats support “a progressive vision of religious freedom” that respects pluralism and “rejects the misuse of religion to discriminate.”

Wear emphasized the need to transcend partisan ideology on religious freedom, and not simply recognize some concerns — like a Muslim ban or churches not being able to serve illegal immigrants — but ignore other concerns, like adoption agencies being forced to close because they won’t match children with same-sex couples.

“Religious freedom has become so polarized [and] so politicized,” he told CNA. “It’s a sincere problem when people think that if Catholic hospitals are no longer to operate, the free market would fill in the gaps. That’s not true in a state like Washington, where they provide over half of the hospital beds. … It’s discordant to talk about helping immigrants and not appreciate Catholic Relief Services.”

Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage, told the Register that the platform makes it clear that there is little place anymore in the party for conservative, “Blue Dog” Democrats.

“The old Democratic Party is gone. What you have now is a Democratic Party that is totally and forcefully committed to abortion, the redefinition of marriage and, even beyond that, launches pretty direct attacks on even the most basic protections for Christians and other people of faith who don’t want to be punished for standing up for the basic idea that men and women are different, even when it comes to the use of restrooms,” said Brown.

 

Pro-Choice Catholic

Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine, has fashioned himself as a Democratic elected official with personal pro-life views, though he chooses not to advance his abortion reservations in the public square. Since entering the U.S. Senate in 2013, he has maintained a consistent pro-abortion voting record, earning a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America. In an interview with MSNBC, Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards called Kaine “not only a solid vote, but really an ally.”

On July 6, a little more than two weeks before he was announced as Clinton’s running mate, Kaine told The Weekly Standard that he had traditionally been a supporter of the Hyde Amendment, when asked about the Democratic Party’s platform.

But when he became Clinton’s running mate, CNN subsequently reported that Kaine made a “private agreement” with Clinton to support her plan to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which she had promised Planned Parenthood. A campaign spokesman also said that although Kaine “is not personally for repeal of the Hyde Amendment,” he would not stand in the way to repeal the provision.

In his July 27 acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Kaine spoke about his formation at a Jesuit boys’ school and his year volunteering with Jesuit missionaries in Honduras. His personal journey, Kaine said, showed him that “God has created a rich tapestry in this country.”

However, Kaine also assured delegates that Clinton will protect Roe v. Wade, the 1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion throughout the country. Bishop Francis DiLorenzo, of Kaine’s home diocese in Richmond, Va., released a statement on July 22 reiterating that the Catholic Church makes its position “very clear” as it pertains to the protection of human life, social-justice initiatives and the importance of family life.

Said Bishop DiLorenzo, “From the very beginning, Catholic teaching informs us that every human life is sacred, from conception until natural death. The right to life is a fundamental human right for the unborn, and any law denying the unborn the right to life is unequivocally unjust.”

 

How Will Voters React?

How the Democratic Party’s embrace of the culture-war issues plays out in the general election remains to be seen, especially in a year where the Republican candidate, business tycoon Donald Trump, himself has a mixed history on the social issues, though he has promised to appoint pro-life justices to the U.S. Supreme Court, defund Planned Parenthood and support the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a federal bill to outlaw abortions after 20 weeks post-fertilization, the point that unborn children can feel pain. Trump has also appointed advisers with pro-life credentials, and his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, is regarded as strongly pro-life.

However, Brown, of the National Organization for Marriage, said that Trump has not shown himself to be a champion on the family and life issues, and the election “is going to be a big problem for people of faith.”

CNA and Register staff contributed to this story.

Brian Fraga writes from

Fall River, Massachusetts.