Andrew Cuomo: Catholics Need Not Reside in New York

Wow, I’m old enough to remember when “Progressives” actually paid lip service to words like “tolerance” and “diversity:”

… You’re seeing that play out in New York. … The Republican Party candidates are running against the SAFE Act — it was voted for by moderate Republicans who run the Senate! Their problem is not me and the Democrats; their problem is themselves. Who are they? Are they these extreme conservatives who are right-to-life, pro-assault-weapon, anti-gay? Is that who they are? Because if that’s who they are and they’re the extreme conservatives, they have no place in the state of New York, because that’s not who New Yorkers are.

(Ellipses in original.) As Kathryn Jean Lopez writes at the Corner, “Look how far we have come since 1984:”

On Sept. 13 of that year, another Governor Cuomo, Andrew’s father, Mario, famously laid out his contention that being personally opposed to abortion – the taking of innocent human life – and being a public advocate for its legality and subsequent policy accommodations was an morally sound position for a Catholic in politics. Now we’ve moved away from pretending his is a coherent and theologically acceptable position. As we enter the week of the anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision 41 years ago Wednesday, Andrew Cuomo explains that the only acceptable public position in the state of New York is to support legal abortion — and, based on his agenda, its expansion.

Ironically, Mario Cuomo justified his position as an exercise in protecting religious freedom. That incoherent slippery slope led to the Little Sisters of the Poor being told by the federal government to green-light abortion drugs, contraception, and female sterilization insurance coverage to employees. (See here and here and here and here for more on the case of the Obama administration vs. the Little Sisters of the Poor.)

Is Dad fit for New York? During his 1984 speech, Mario Cuomo talked of his and his wife’s personal consideration that “a fetus is different from an appendix or a set of tonsils.” Sounds like some of that crazy “right-to-life” talk his son just warned about! Fortunately for Mario, he said it in Indiana, at Notre Dame. Democratic politicians have been known to say crazy things there. President Obama, you might recall, said he would protect conscience rights in health-care reform in a much-protested speech there. Perhaps what is said in South Bend stays in South Bend? As we’ve seen with the Department of Health and Human Services abortion drug, contraception, sterilization mandate: As long as you don’t actually do anything with your moral conviction in the public square – including the charity you run or the business you operate – it’s tolerable to believe other than what those who confuse use with a cultural tyranny desire and issue regulatory and judicial mandates about when they can. Never mind that the life of the unborn tracks from science – seen on many a sonogram across the country — typically celebrated, scientifically unmistakable.