Congressman Jim Clyburn believes the Stupak abortion amendment in the House's health care reform bill will be taken out.
Clyburn said that many other House Democrats supported the having a vote on the amendment in the House, with the expectation that it would eventually be removed.
"I agree that the language approved by the House is unacceptable," Clyburn explained. "We were doing what was necessary to do to put the bill on the floor in about 12 hours." ... The Hill
It was also unconstitutional to give the Catholic hierarchy a vote, in spite of what the Republican hierarchy thinks.
As for Bart Stupak, we need constant reminders that he's only one member of a group that exists within the Democratic party and whose aims are (no kidding) to destroy democracy. They're from the same "family" as right wing Republicans who have been taking over that party.
If Stupak, a former state trooper from Michigan, provided the muscle, his partner, Joe Pitts -- a Pennsylvania Republican with decades in the trenches of the antiabortion battle -- may have brought the brains, and more, a new Christian right coalition custom tailored for the Democratic Party's growing religious conservatism. Stupak is Roman Catholic; Pitts is evangelical. Both are members of the predominantly evangelical organization called the Family; Stupak lives in its C Street house. Together, they're poster boys for the evangelical/conservative Catholic alliance known as "co-belligerency," a culture war strategy designed to take territory within the Democratic Party as well the GOP. ...Salon
We tend to talk about C Street and "The Family" as though they have been an exclusive Republican club -- and a very sinister one at that. But they have reached into the Democratic party and found plenty of followers there, too, mostly among southern Democrats.
For more about C Street, take a look at Jeff Sharlet's book, The Family, and/or take a look at his Terry Gross interview in July of this year.
