While it has been said about every election since 2000, this really is the most important election in our lives and the history of our nation. Americans will vote for or against the candidates for President for a variety of reasons. Catholics and like-minded Christians who will vote based strictly on economic reasons would do well by considering why they should make Christian values the ultimate factor in deciding how they will vote.
True Christianity requires you to yield and put your opinion aside in certain areas of life. Christian doctrine on fundamentals such as the sanctity of life and marriage are not negotiable in a conflict between Church doctrine and a true Christian’s “feelings.”
Reshaping and reinventing positions on the rectitude of aborting the life of an unborn child and/or the value of gay “marriage” is not acceptable for those who wish to maintain a strong and healthy relationship with their God and his Church.
Yielding one’s own “feelings and opinions” on these issues must be the guiding principle for how the genuine Christian ought to vote. Voting for a political party whose values are antithetical to the laws of God is a trap to avoid. It makes little difference that the candidates in a particular election will fill a minor post that is not concerned with abortion or marriage. If that candidate’s party is in open rebellion against God and his laws it is imperative that a genuine Christian not vote for anyone in that party.
Voting for a candidate that supports gay “marriage” and/or abortion on the grounds that he/she will do “so much more good in other areas” is an empty argument. It supposes that the moral fiber of a society is negotiable and not really important. Those who would trade our social fabric for a few dollars from pro-abortion and pro-gay “marriage” groups have shown a willingness to compromise with others whose aims are not in concert with those of a moral society.
The argument that one cannot be against abortion and for the death penalty holds no weight. It is based on the false premise that they are interchangeable, of which they are not. While the death penalty is certainly an evil practice it is not the same as killing an innocent child. The death penalty can be supported as a justifiable self-defense mechanism for a society; abortion cannot be so justified.
As the moral underpinnings of our nation continue to crumble, Catholics and like-minded Christians have an obligation to stand as one against the moral evils of abortion and same-sex “marriage.” Those who are truly concerned with the state of our nation cannot pick and choose which issues they will defend. This election is far too important to allow ourselves to fall into the moral trap of supporting anyone whose political party supports the manifest twin evils of abortion and gay “marriage.”
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Nicely said. I’m glad you included the modifier “like minded” when referring to other Christians because there are many who are not aligned with The Church’s stance on abortion and same sex marriage.
As Ambassador Alan Keyes once said, “we don’t have a money problem, we have a morality problem. It is easy to see that a person with upright moral integrity isn’t going to spend money foolishly and live beyond their means such as our federal government; rather one’s moral and religious convictions inform one’s economic/ fiscal behavior, thus affirming George Washington’s statement that “religion and morality are indespensible support.”
You are right about the need for Christians to not negotiate on principles such as the right to life, the issue of the death penaly, and you rightfully compared abortion of taking INNOCENT life, is that capital punishment is a just penalty for a civil society to take in the event of premeditated murder which is also supported by the Bible.
Having been “raised Catholic” (and gotten all my education up until graduate school by way of one Roman Catholic teaching institution after another), let me recommend that it’s better instead to “vote based strictly” on constitutional reasons.
Religious beliefs are a matter of personal conscience. The individual human being’s subjective perception of his relationship to the deity is not an argument capable of persuading his fellow citizen to vote in any particular way. I don’t give a damn what your religious beliefs are, Dr. Collins, just as you don’t really give a damn about what my religious beliefs are.
You’re not supposed to, and I don’t expect you to.
On the other hand, if you base your arguments on a lucid analysis of the constitutional basis (if any) for our federal government’s role in “the manifest twin evils of abortion and gay ‘marriage’,” we have something other than your subjective perception of an ineffable supernatural entity and His divine will.
We can work with that, can’t we?
As best I’ve been able to perceive, the Congress, the federal executive, and the federal judiciary have precisely no prescribed role in either abortion or the institution of marriage, and all federal interferences in the actions of the several states’ governments (which bodies do have each a lawful brief within their respective jurisdictions under their particular state constitutions) are usurpations of authority the national government does not have under the U.S. Constitution.
These are matters to be decided by government – to whatever extent government has anything to do with it – at the level of the statehouse, and not in Mordor-on-the-Potomac.
No religious belief necessary, thank you.
On the issue of aborrtion, the government does have the responsibility of protecting all innocent life, “To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves AND OUR POSTERITY…” The job is for the federal government is to outlaw abortion immediately. The states are also NOT at liberty to allow abortion since all states are bound to our founding principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, (the preamble, and the 14th amendment.)
On the issue of abortion, the government does have the responsibility of protecting all innocent life, “To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves AND OUR POSTERITY…” The job is for the federal government is to outlaw abortion immediately. The states are also NOT at liberty to allow abortion since all states are bound to our founding principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution, (the preamble, and the 14th amendment.)
As we can see, the condemnation of God and the ten commandments reduces us to the level of untrained animals. Errant behavior brings with all kinds of woes for our selves and preditors. When the government promotes immorality by changing the rules and overlooking the resulting consequences make a nation weak and conquerable. History has many stories of the collapse of great nations as a result of decadent behavior.