I’ve been reading Colonel Roosevelt, volume III of the Edmund Morris’ TR trilogy, and one line came back to me after seeing Ezra Klein’s pie chart illustrating, in the midst of a debate to strip Planned Parenthood of funding as a prerequisite for not shutting the government down, what the organization actually does.

Morris’ line from the book comes after describing Roosevelt’s impatience for the “interfaith squabble” going on at the time in Egypt between Muslims and Coptic Christians. In Roosevelt’s view,

Their inability to tolerate each other proved the necessity of condominium with the British, who at least had advanced far enough into the modern age to know there were more important things than dogma.

Emphasis mine. The looming government shutdown puts at risk the very important resources that Planned Parenthood provides for many poor, pregnant, cancer- and STD-stricken people, with little money and less hope. It’s not about abortion. If the church isn’t willing to help these people like they should be helped, then the church has failed.

There are more important things than dogma. Unfortunately, that’s all it’s been about.

[Image: WPost / HT: TDW)