Politically, Catholics won't turn other cheek

Lay Catholics lead by Bob Beauprez and Pete Coors will begin organizing shortly with plans to turn out conservative Catholics in time for the 2008 general elections in November.

The group will organize under the name the Catholic Citizens Committee, a pre-existing lay organization that already operates out of Brooklyn and Queens, NY.

The first task of the Denver chapter will be to help elect fellow Catholic conservative, US Senate candidate Bob Schaffer, who is running against Mark Udall in the November general election.

“Part of it, obviously, is that we want to help Bob Schaffer,” says one of the organizers. “But there has also been a too much anti-Roman Catholic legislation offered up by supporters of Tim Gill in the state legislature. We’re tired of it. We’re going to start talking to parishioners about it.”

Since Hispanic Catholics voter registrations lean heavily towards the Democrats, the group is hoping to soften the stand of a portion of Democrats against taking such a hard anti-Catholic stand.

Several bills have been introduced this year which have been decried by some Catholics as harming Catholic Church interests.

HB 1011, sponsored by Rep. Gwen Green, sought to create “unlimited statute of limitations for civil actions based on damages arising from a sexual assault on a child.” Such a law would open the church to having to defend lawsuits from decades old claims of sexual assault. HB 1080, sponsored by Rep Alice Madden and Senator Jennifer Veiga, sought to limit “the applicability of the exception from compliance with employment nondiscrimination laws for religious corporations.” In short religious charities would not be allowed to discriminate based on sexual preference if they receive federal funding.

“20 plus percent of Coloradoans are Catholic. We make up the largest block of identifiable Christians in Colorado. And we vote,” says the CCC organizer. “We certainly won’t continue to take it when anti-church groups try to hurt us. Turn the other cheek is fine and all that, but in this case we’ll fight.”