Is Biden A Theocrat?

Folks, I do not know if you’re aware of this, but Joe Biden is a bit of a Catholic. I know it might be a little hard to tell if you aren’t paying attention, but the administration drops some hints every now and again, just as his campaign did on occasion.

Oh but I kid. Biden has spent his entire public life as a Catholic (that is, when the Catholic church allows him to), which his administration loves to bring up, even if it’s completely irrelevant to what’s being talked about. For example, here’s how Press Secretary Jen Psaki responded when asked during a press conference about the Hyde Amendment and Mexico City policy by a reporter for EWTN Global Catholic Network:

I will just take the opportunity to remind all of you that he is a devout Catholic and somebody who attends church regularly. He started his day attending church with his family this morning but I don’t have anything more for you on that.

Okay — and? The question was about if Joe Biden wanted taxpayer funding for abortion, not if he went to church that morning. I assume the implication is that because Biden is Catholic he won’t be radically pro-abortion, but 36% of self-identified Catholics, Biden included, consider themselves pro-choice. Hell, the most famous Catholic family in United States politics is easily the Kennedy’s, and Ted Kennedy was one of the most unapologetic pro-choice men in politics for decades. (Remember, this is the man who once attacked the person running against him, who was Mitt Romney oddly enough, because the church he went to talked a woman out of having an abortion.) Climate Envoy for President Biden and former Secretary of State and Presidential Nomination John Kerry, also a Catholic, takes a pro-choice position on abortion. Even some Republican Catholics, Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger for example, take pro-choice positions on abortion. According to Pew Research, Catholics are less likely to be pro-life than Evangelical Protestants, Mormons, and Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Normally, I’d chalk this up to normal Psaki cluelessness. (The day after this press conference, Biden announced his intent to repeal the Mexico City Policy, which bans the federal government from funding international groups which provide abortion. Biden also campaigned on repealing the Hyde Amendment, which bans the federal government from funding abortion in the United States — reversing a stance he had held since 1976.) However, I want to take a minute and talk about what Psaki is implying here. That if Joe Biden does want tax payer funded abortion, he only wants that because that’s what he believes that’s what God wants — which would make Biden a theocrat, albeit a left-wing one.

Believe it or not, I’m not the only one to accuse Biden of being a progressive theocrat. Here’s what The New York Times tweeted out above an article on Biden’s faith on 1/23/2021:

President Biden is perhaps the most religiously observant commander in chief in half a century. A different, more liberal Christianity grounds his life and his policies.

Wait a minute, “a . . . liberal Christianity grounds . . . his politics!” That would make Biden a theocrat, it would mean Biden has violated separation of church and state which the left normally considers gospel. Does the dogma live just as loudly in Biden as Senator Feinstein said it did in Amy Coney Barrett?

The article in question is filled with fawning praise for Joe Biden, bragging that he’s the most religious president in the past half-century. Could you imagine The New York Times running the same, equally as positive, about Catholic Republicans like Anton Scalia, Rudy Giuliani, Pat Buchanan, Rick Santorum, or Amy Coney Barrett? In the case of Barrett, the media spent weeks looking through her personal history trying to find examples of her faith influencing her public policy — I know because I was one of them, and I did feel that Barrett’s connections with certain groups brought into question if she could be an unbias judge and justice.

The Times calling Biden “the most religious President in half a century” is just baffling. Even ignoring Biden’s fellow Democrat Jimmy Carter (The New York Times themselves even once said Carter’s faith was one of the major factors in causing theocracy to gain traction in American politics), what about George W. Bush? The man who buddied around with Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Jim Baker, Ted Haggard, and many other major religious right figures. The man who said that God himself told him to run for President, made him President, and told him to invade Iraq. The man who used his religion to justify everything from tax cuts to attempting to ban same-sex marriage. Is he not as religious as Joe Biden? Because if so, that is far from a good thing. There was a running joke with George W. Bush that he valued the Bible over the Constitution, if Biden is more religious than that man that’s a scary thought. But this is how the game is played, Republican politicians are told to not bring their religion into government, while Democrats are actively encouraged to.

For example, when a Republican politician uses his religion to justify his views on abortion, that’s seen as “theocratic.” When a Democrat does the same thing, nobody seems to bat an eye. Hence why nobody noticed when Pete Buttigieg did just that during a 9/6/2019 interview on The Breakfast Club:

Right now they hold everyone one in line with this one kind of piece of doctrine about abortion, right, which is obviously a tough issue for a lot of people to think through morally. Then again, there’s a lot of parts of the Bible that talk about how life begins with breath, and so even that is something that we can interpret differently.

Buttigieg is exactly what I mean when I call someone a “progressive theocrat.” During a July 2019 primary debate, Buttigieg went after ”So called conservative Christian senators right now in the Senate are blocking a bill to raise the minimum wage when scripture says that whoever oppresses the poor taunts their maker.” Of course, the first amendment gives the people of this nation the right to “taunt their maker,” or even not believe in a maker to taunt, if they so choose.

And of course, who can forget the recently elected “Matthew 25 Christian” Raphaël Warnock? The man who wants to expand the welfare state beyond believe, because that’s what he believes Jesus would want.

Once again, where are the calls of “theocracy” by the media? Where are the calls of “violation of separation of church and state” when Warnock promotes some new welfare program? It continues to seem like, even though there are theocrats in both parties, only one party gets criticism for its bible thumping wing.