One of the oddest, and most worrisome, aspects of the Schiavo fiasco is the unrelenting drive by opponents of Michael Schiavo to demonize and persecute him, apparently endlessly, even after Terri’s death. There appears to be a kind of sub-rosa revenge movement hounding him, inspired possibly by a feeling of loyalty to Terri Schiavo, though most of her “supporters” never knew her, but seemingly more by a sense that an opportunity slipped through their fingers when Schiavo’s court petition was upheld, and that they need somehow to make him bad in order to prove retroactively the righteousness of their cause.

There are the persistent claims that he beat his wife, or had made bizarre statements that he wanted her dead, or that he was motivated by a desire to claim her financial assets. The fact that these claims were patently baseless has never lessened their appeal to the surprisingly large community of Michael-haters. There have been criticisms of his appearing at ethics conferences in favor of more stringent patient-autonomy laws - as if somehow he was not entitled to speak on an issue in which, one would think, he has an undeniable and unique interest. There are those with Kennedy-assassination-like obsessions with the minutiae of Michael’s correspondence, his legal bills, the judge’s brother’s committee memberships, report filing dates, and any other aspect of the case which can be dragged up to complicate and obscure the basic ethical issues.

Now they’re trying to invalidate his marriage.

Apparently there is an explicit tenet of Catholic church law that decrees that a person who brings about the death of a spouse in order to marry another person is forever prohibited from marrying again under the auspices of the church. (They think of everything, don’t they?) The argument - obviously enough - then goes that, since Michael clearly intentionally sought his (then-)wife Terri’s death, and was during part of that lengthy process involved with and engaged to another woman, he cannot enter a valid Catholic marriage. He and his former girlfriend were recently married in a Catholic ceremony, but, the anti-Michael posse claims, that marriage must be regarded as invalid, and further, all parties to it, including the Bishop who conducted the ceremony, should be punished within the church for violating the prohibitive rule.

A somewhat overwrought, but clear enough, article in the (New York) North Country Gazette explains:

Some Catholics are calling it premeditated murder.

Many are calling for the removal of St. Petersburg Diocese Bishop Robert N. Lynch for allowing the ceremony to occur in the diocese.

It could be the latest scandal in the Catholic church—at least in the Diocese of St. Petersburg.

Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze were married in the Espiritu Santo Catholic Church in Safety Harbor in a private ceremony Saturday, Jan. 21.

Church law specifically states that you cannot kill your wife in order to marry another woman.

There is absolutely no doubt that Michael Schiavo was responsible for the death of his wife, Terri Schindler-Schiavo and that he intended long before her death that he was going to marry Jodi Centonze, the mother of his two illegitimate children.

That constitutes criminal behavior in the Catholic church. . . .

According to Catholic law, there is no valid union between Centonze and Schiavo. . . .

Those violating Catholic canons are liable to an ecclesiastical penalty “according to the gravity of the offense”. In the eyes of the Catholic church, Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze have engaged in criminal behavior.

And many feel that the person at fault is Bishop Lynch and that he should be removed from the diocese as well as the marriage publicly invalidated.

The canon does not require any judicial act or proceeding. It is automatic. Thus, by Catholic law, the marriage of Michael Schiavo and Jodi Centonze is invalid.

Actually, it’s not at all clear to me that Michael “was responsible for” the death of Terri, since the entire issue - greatly obfuscated by the protesters, but still the operative issue legally and morally - was the claim that Terri herself had requested not to be kept alive under conditions such as she endured, and Michael had no more than conveyed that sentiment to the court. In fact, Michael’s actual legal request to the court - another fact obscured by the protesters - was that the court decide what course best met Terri’s desires - it was not, at any point, a request that the court actually terminate her life support. I also don’t know from this article whether the church laws stipulate that you are in violation if you kill your spouse while intending to marry someone else, or in order to marry someone else - the article reports it both ways - but if the latter, then it is again not clear to me that Michael should be considered in violation. He certainly supported Terri’s apparent desire not to be maintained under the condition she suffered, but there is no evidence to suggest - and much evidence otherwise - that he did so because he wanted her to die so he could remarry; rather, it seems obvious he did so because he felt an obligation to her to do so, which is not incompatible with his wanting to marry someone else later, but very far from being the same thing as that desire.

However, I don’t know exactly what the canons say, and Catholic canon law is subject to its own mysteries of interpretation that outsiders have difficulty penetrating. Possibly Michael Schiavo is in violation of this rule, perhaps he is not. I don’t care very much either way. What I do care about is the fact that so many other people care.

It is a commonplace to note that America’s “culture wars” have descended to an especially vicious - and, in the political arena, partisan - tone. On the most controversial issues, we seem to have lost any possibility of disagreeing calmly, or even of imagining there is any valid dispute to be had. The moral wrongness of any rejected position translates to the moral perfidy of its supporters, and so compromise with, or even just respectful opposition to, anything one does not absolutely endorse is the embrace of evil. If one’s opponents are really wrong - and no other conclusion seems possible in a contentious moral issue - then one must not grant them any comfort or breathing space.

This attitude reached its peak in the long nightmare of abortion-clinic terrorism and murder that crested in the late 1980s, before the “conservative revolution” had made much political headway. If abortion really was murder, as such large parts of the anti-sex movement told us, killing the murderers was hardly a comparable crime - it was in fact moral righteousness. And more than a few acted on that premise. The overt violence has waned, possibly in response to bad press, possibly in response to the broader avenues that opened as conservatives gained greater political power, possibly out of recognition that they had finally gone too far. But as the bombs and bullets receded, the rhetoric of the movement heated up. Issues became referenda on the persons and personal morality of those who took sides on them - one’s opponents, self-evidently evil, became targets just as much as the issues they supported. And a pattern of personal demonization entered into conservative issues activism that has - and quite by intention, I have to think - so poisoned the atmosphere of debate that it is difficult now simply to address issues without exposing one’s life and person to the most vile and intrusive assaults.

I have laid this at the feet of the conservative movement, and I believe it’s largely true. Tempers become heated on both sides of these debates, to be sure, but abortion clinic workers do not follow protesters home and leave libelous flyers on their neighbors’ doorsteps - protesters do this to clinic workers; nobody pickets the funerals or graves of Fred Phelps’s family, calling them the most repulsive names during their most private moments - Phelps does this to the people he dislikes; nobody has a Web site with names of abortion clinic protesters, celebrating their deaths by violence at the hands of clinic workers - that’s the protesters’ schtick; neither Bill Clinton nor Jimmy Carter had “enemies lists”; the Democratic party did not call in major corporations and lobbying groups and order them to fire their Republican employees - the GOP did that with regard to Democrats. The examples are endless. And they reach down to the most petty level.

Now they’re trying to undo Michael Schiavo’s marriage. To what purpose? He’ll still be legally married - or if not they can simply get it taken care of. It has no bearing on the Terri Schiavo issue, and no practical effect regarding any of the legal issues still outstanding in that case. It’s merely an attempt to hurt him - to make trouble for someone they can’t stand to see “getting away with murder” as they themselves have defined it. This is not mere political or moral opposition - and not even the ugly phenomenon of demonization of an opponent for political advantage (though there was plenty of that while Terri Schiavo was alive). This is the even uglier phenomenon of harassment and demonization of an opponent after the fact, for no purpose other than revenge.

It bodes ill for our national discourse. The Schiavo opponents have shown themselves determined never to let the case end - to continue to fight their losing Terri Schiavo battle after every court - indeed, the Supreme Court itself - repudiated them at every single turn, after public opinion ran against them, after the case decisively ended against their wishes and after she is, in fact, dead. But with nothing left to litigate and no effective arguments at hand, they are compelled to do the only thing they still can do - hate Michael Schiavo, and make that hate manifest in whatever petty way they can contrive. And I suspect this is the beginning of a trend that will rise as the rest of modern scorched-earth conservatism has risen: it’s not just abortion or euthanasia, it’s not just every single issue that any conservative can manage to get worked up about, but it’s now every single person they can manage to define as an enemy - each such case and each such person will be litigated, prosecuted, persecuted, and dogged through and beyond the natural lifespan of otherwise-ordinary participants whose only real fault was to be part of an issue the mad dogs can’t let themselves let go of. Once, being for abortion rights mean being an outcast; then it meant being shocking and dissolute; more recently it meant being a target for murder - but now, every issue is potential grounds for persecution. You don’t have to be an abortion doctor to be a target for a lifetime of harassment - you can just be an unlucky schmuck married to a woman with a bad brain injury.

If we don’t find some way to assert the rightness of independent moral judgment - of having and living by one’s own values in spite of disagreement over which values are best - we will all become potential - and in many cases actual - pariahs at the hands of zealots who simply cannot abide, and believe they are entitled not to abide, what they don’t approve. Our marriages will be declared null by those who don’t approve of our marriages; our healthcare will take forms chosen by others; our values will be swept aside by those who don’t approve of our choices; our dissent from orthodoxy will be grounds for punishment, official or vigilante - and vigilantism will itself be given official protection. More and more there is less and less space to be let alone to live one’s own life by one’s own values. As that freedom becomes the latest target in the war on heterodoxy, we should make ourselves aware of how much we have given up and how threatened is what remains.

My recent vow to make posting here more regular almost instantly ran aground - moving to a new apartment, financial hassles, computer hassles, the usual works got in the way. I am also mindful of an early blogger’s advice not to apologize for light blogging, on grounds that nobody cares and nobody’s keeping track. But still, I want this to work and am still trying to find the way to make it possible.

So, late for Western New Year but just in time for Chinese New Year, here’s another kick at the can and another heartfelt resolution. Keep those cards and letters coming.