After reading the New York Times this morning, I concluded that the New York Times' position is that it acceptable for Democrats to vote for the Nazi Party. If you go to the website of the National Socialist Movement, an American Nazi party, you will find that the party is down on war profiteers, and advocates a higher minimum wage, nationalized health care, stricter pollution control including stricter controls on greenhouse gases, and the setting aside of more land for wildlife preserves. Okay, granted, they want to throw out all the Jews, homosexuals, and non-whites, but surely that is only one point against five points already listed.

Are you nearly red-faced with outrage at this point at the suggestion that vicious Nazi hate-mongering can be given equal weight with their advocacy of more land for wildlife preserves? Well, you ought to be. I have never met, and certainly never want to meet, a Democrat who would give equal weighting to a candidate's views on the minimum wage and throwing out over a quarter of the population based on "impure blood". And a damned good thing too.

The New York Times would never dream of suggesting that every issue can be given equal weight so that it could endorse a Nazi. So why is it trying the same scam on abortion. Today, it coughs up Mark Roche, a dean at Notre Dame (who also teaches German and philosophy).

The parties appeal to Catholics in different ways. The Republican Party opposes abortion and the destruction of embryos for stem-cell research, both positions in accord with Catholic doctrine. Also, Republican support of various faith-based initiatives, including school vouchers, tends to resonate with Catholic voters.

Members of the Democratic Party, meanwhile, are more likely to criticize the handling of the war in Iraq, to oppose capital punishment and to support universal heath care, environmental stewardship, a just welfare state and more equitable taxes. These stances are also in harmony with Catholic teachings, even if they may be less popular among individual Catholics.

When values come into conflict, it is useful to develop principles that help place those values in a hierarchy. One reasonable principle is that issues of life and death are more important than other issues. This seems to be the strategy of some Catholic and church leaders, who directly or indirectly support the Republican Party because of its unambiguous critique of abortion. Indeed, many Catholics seem to think that if they are truly religious, they must cast their ballots for Republicans.

This position has two problems. First, abortion is not the only life-and-death issue in this election. While the Republicans line up with the Catholic stance on abortion and stem-cell research, the Democrats are closer to the Catholic position on the death penalty, universal health care and environmental protection.

Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion and euthanasia. For example, if a Catholic were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy to present himself to receive Holy Communion. While the Church exhorts civil authorities to seek peace, not war, and to exercise discretion and mercy in imposing punishment on criminals, it may still be permissible to take up arms to repel an aggressor or to have recourse to capital punishment. There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however with regard to abortion and euthanasia.