Will President Obama Turn Notre Dame Students Against The Church?

If not, why all the protests about Obama’s upcoming graduation speech? At least six demonstrations are planned by anti-abortion activists.  Graduating students will be entering a world where they will confront all kinds of views, and they’re probably strong enough to withstand them.  Should every view of every potential speaker be examined to make sure it conforms to church doctrine?

NotreDameScandal.com has registered 362,608 online signatures on a petition calling for the school’s president, the Rev. John I. Jenkins, to withdraw the invitation for Obama to speak.

“Notre Dame has chosen prestige over principles, popularity over morality. Whatever may be President Obama’s admirable qualities, this honor comes on the heels of some of the most anti-life actions of any American president, including expanding federal funding for abortions and inviting taxpayer-funded research on stem cells from human embryos,” the petition states.

How about the pro-life positions of getting combat troops out of Iraq, of working toward national health care, of ending policies of torture?  And why have they never objected when politicians were honored who favored the death penalty?

In a new Quinnipiac University survey, 60 percent of Catholic voters said they would oppose a decision by Notre Dame to rescind its invitation for Obama to speak; 34 percent said they would support such a move.

Barack Obama seems to be singled out for protest.  Among those who not only spoke at Notre Dame, but also received honorary degrees, are President Jimmy Carter in 1977, who supported legal abortion, and former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in 2000, even though he was accused of promoting abortion as a means of “population control.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.