Today is Election Day, with races for all 435 members of Congress; one-third of the U.S. Senate, many governorships, including here in Pennsylvania; and seats in state legislatures up for grabs. We’ll know later who won and lost.
This year, for all the elected offices, I voted a straight Democratic ticket. And, yes, I did so informed by biblical faith.
Huh?
Because, for me, when it comes to such matters, voting from biblical faith has nothing to do with actual positions on the issues — as well as I can discern, I look for character and the temperament and ability to do the job. Making the machinery of government work well should be the first job of any elected official regardless of religion, party or ideology; unless those are the priorities, nothing else really matters.
This might explain why I have never voted for a conservative Republican in my life and don’t anticipate doing so. Indeed, I routinely vote against anyone who represents the GOP right.
It’s not simply that I disagree politically with conservative Republicans, though I do; it’s just that I get the sense that such people feel entitled to my vote without telling me why. And it’s that refusal to engage with those who disagree with them that has fueled, if not caused, the division in this country.
Which gets to the meat of the issue: I’ve been a Christian for 40 years but won’t vote “pro-life.” For what it’s worth, I was “pro-life” — that is, opposed to legal abortion — before I became a Christian in the first place, so the two have always been separate issues. As such, these days I always the term “pro-life” in a broader sense — access to education and health care, concerned about the environment, racism and all the other ways in which the sanctity of human life can be cheapened.
I do not see doctrinaire conservatives supporting a comprehensive pro-life stance. That’s why I vote against them.
See, the modern anti-abortion movement was intentionally divorced from these other issues back in the late 1970s for the sake of political power; thus, demanding a repeal of Roe v. Wade — which I don’t agree with, by the way — comes across as bullying. “But what about the babies?”, you might ask. That’s not really relevant in such a context; it’s why Joycelyn Elders, surgeon general under President Bill Clinton, complained about their “love affair with the fetus.”
It’s also why you had Operation Rescue cause havoc in a number of cities, including Pittsburgh, in the late 1980s and early 1990s but having no effect and in some extreme cases activists blowing up clinics and shooting doctors who performed abortions. Read: “We’re right, and we don’t care what anyone else says.”
This year, for all the elected offices, I voted a straight Democratic ticket. And, yes, I did so informed by biblical faith.
Huh?
Because, for me, when it comes to such matters, voting from biblical faith has nothing to do with actual positions on the issues — as well as I can discern, I look for character and the temperament and ability to do the job. Making the machinery of government work well should be the first job of any elected official regardless of religion, party or ideology; unless those are the priorities, nothing else really matters.
This might explain why I have never voted for a conservative Republican in my life and don’t anticipate doing so. Indeed, I routinely vote against anyone who represents the GOP right.
It’s not simply that I disagree politically with conservative Republicans, though I do; it’s just that I get the sense that such people feel entitled to my vote without telling me why. And it’s that refusal to engage with those who disagree with them that has fueled, if not caused, the division in this country.
Which gets to the meat of the issue: I’ve been a Christian for 40 years but won’t vote “pro-life.” For what it’s worth, I was “pro-life” — that is, opposed to legal abortion — before I became a Christian in the first place, so the two have always been separate issues. As such, these days I always the term “pro-life” in a broader sense — access to education and health care, concerned about the environment, racism and all the other ways in which the sanctity of human life can be cheapened.
I do not see doctrinaire conservatives supporting a comprehensive pro-life stance. That’s why I vote against them.
See, the modern anti-abortion movement was intentionally divorced from these other issues back in the late 1970s for the sake of political power; thus, demanding a repeal of Roe v. Wade — which I don’t agree with, by the way — comes across as bullying. “But what about the babies?”, you might ask. That’s not really relevant in such a context; it’s why Joycelyn Elders, surgeon general under President Bill Clinton, complained about their “love affair with the fetus.”
It’s also why you had Operation Rescue cause havoc in a number of cities, including Pittsburgh, in the late 1980s and early 1990s but having no effect and in some extreme cases activists blowing up clinics and shooting doctors who performed abortions. Read: “We’re right, and we don’t care what anyone else says.”
And this is why their support of President Trump, by the standards I’ve listed above by far the worst president we’ve ever had, is problematic. The truth be told, his commitment to ending legal abortion is limited to trying to pack the Supreme Court with conservative justices — and that only for the sake of keeping his worshipers on his side.
That isn’t good enough. Because there’s also a country to run.
That isn’t good enough. Because there’s also a country to run.
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