Religion & Law

With respect to Fr. McBrien's piece -- to which Michael P. linked -- on the "double standard" he sees at work in some people's opposition to Notre Dame's decision to honor President Obama:  Is it relevant that, in Texas (at the time George W. Bush was governor, anway), the Governor only has the power to commute a death sentence upon the recommendation of the Board of Pardons and Paroles?  (I ask this, obviously, not because I believe that Gov. Bush would have been generous in commuting death sentences.) 

I am, of course, entirely open to the argument that Notre Dame's Catholic character should require it to withhold special honors from politicians for many reasons, not only their unjust positions and records on abortion.  But, is it really the case that a governor who "presides" over executions (that he lacks the power to stop) is similarly situated, for purposes of deciding whether a not a Catholic university should, consistent with its character, bestow an honor, to a legislator who votes to expand abortion rights, to limit regulation of abortion, and to increase funding for abortions, or to an executive who makes it the case, by executive order, that public funds may be used to destroy-through-research human embryos?