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brian
Member
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Chicago South Burbs, Illinois USA |
| Posts: | 799 |
| First Name: | brian | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | methodist, evangelical, anglican, catholic |
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Posted: Thu Nov 16th, 2006 11:24 pm |
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So I take it it would be considered wrong by the church to ever vote for any politician who was pro choice. I find this frustrating becaue in many cases i may rather vote for a candidate who is pro choice than one who is pro life because of other issues. I understand and agree that it may be wrong to vote for anybody pro choice. But i wish abortion were illegal so i would not have to consider this. The thing is, I think there are reasons i would feel badly about voting for pro life candidates because i find that i may be supporting people who are weaker in social issues and caring for the poor and for other races. I do not like republicans or democrats, yet it is considered a sin not to vote at all. But what if i just do not want to vote for anybody that is running. I think that the church was against the invasion of Iraq. I also am. Therfore for me though Bush is pro life, if I voted for him, I still voted for someone who has been responsible for the ending of many innocent lives. In the next presidential election what if i would prefer to vote democrat, but the person running is not pro life. Can i not do this now, even if i like the candidate on the other issues? Why cant there be more pro life democrats. I am looking for a socially conservative yet politically liberal party. Why is there seemingly no such option?
Why does religion have to be such a big political thing. I do not like feeling like becasue i am a Chrstian i must like the president, or the idea that he represents what an American Christian must be like. I think that in many ways evangelicals and politics are causing a lot of tension in the country and world by blending religion and politics to the extent that they do. Has anyone heard of Jim Wallace? I do not think his views are perfect, but i am looking for a party closer to his approach.
I am not trying to start a fight. I am sure opinions vary on these subjects. I am just wondering what to think of all this, and how i can be confident in exercising my voice in a democratic society.
Brian
Last edited on Thu Nov 16th, 2006 11:31 pm by brian
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CajunRick
Network Helper
| Joined: | Fri Sep 29th, 2006 |
| Location: | Houma, Louisiana USA |
| Posts: | 5310 |
| First Name: | Rick (& Kermie) | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Lifetime Catholic, Latin Rite |
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Posted: Fri Nov 17th, 2006 02:42 am |
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brian wrote: So I take it it would be considered wrong by the church to ever vote for any politician who was pro choice.
Actually, no. The Church does not promote single-issue voting, and recognizes that sometimes a candidate may take stands on certain positions that outweigh stands on other issues.
I have used this example before. In the early 90's, the two candidates for governor of Louisiana were a pro-choice, liberal Democrat who had served three previous terms as governor and had been indicted a few times on federal charges but never convicted, and a pro-life Republican who was a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan and the founder of the National Association for the Advancement of White People.
There was no good choice. Although I am very much pro-life, I voted for the pro-choice candidate because he was the "lesser evil". Both of them are currently serving terms in federal prisons, one for bribery and the other for embezzlement. Ultimately I was right, there was no good choice, but I would vote the same way again given the same choices.
But I can also tell you that a candidate's position on pro-life issues is at the top of my list. If you accept that the current war in Iraq should never have happened and blame the Republican party, and even if you accept the highest possible estimates that over 2000 Americans and about 150,000 Iraqi's have died as a result of the war in the last three years, it pales next to the 15 million abortions performed in the United States in the same period of time.
I am not defending the war or even expressing my opinion; I'm just saying that I don't think a comparison is valid. If we leave Iraq tomorrow a civil war will result, and inevitably there will be genocide on a massive scale. The number of Americans killed in Iraq is roughly comparable to the number killed on the streets of metropolitan Detroit during the same period. Should we leave there, too?
Again, it is not my intention to defend the war, but rather just to point out some realities that go beyond the current political debate. To fully make an informed choice, we need all of the information, and the news media is not providing us with it. The information is out there, but we have to make the effort to find it ourselves.
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Understanding is the reward of faith. Therefore seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand. - Augustine
Rick Luquette
Luquette Lane
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