Values and Voting

So I just listened to a pastor preach a sermon on voting in this day and age. From a very fundamentalist mega church here in Phoenix. A church my friend attends, a church many of my friends would agree with, including my son and bioDad.

He made a case for the values he holds as most important that need to be addressed as a Christian as we vote. He makes 6 values his most important values.

#1 – Abortion – as he calls the sanctity of life. He claimed that David’s Psalm declares conception the beginning of the SANCTITY of Life. His assertion is that Psalm 139 can be interpreted as that. “Unformed substance.”

There’s a good 7 verses sited on Patheos: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/christiancrier/2015/07/15/top-7-bible-verses-about-abortion-and-sanctity-of-life/

#2 – Poverty. Right off the bat he stated there a 300 verses in the Bible about how one is to treat the poor. Again, his well thought-out reason is that a strong economy allows us to take care of our poor, rather than, for example 3rd world countries don’t have the resources. Entire picture. Better life for all. These were key phrases.

#3 Family preservation – all the ideas that preserving one man and one woman leads to strong families, the core of our best life and God’s design, “or things will get chaotic.”

#4 Religious Freedom – this explaining why the Supreme Court is so important. There’s a very real fear of Christians worried they won’t have freedom to worship their way. It’s part of this whole Covid response dynamic, too.

#5 Equality & Racism – how America’s ideals are the foundation, that all are created equal, and how this resonates with all that is revealed within the Bible.

#6 How we treat strangers, or Aliens. He did at least concede that neither side has this right.

Without coming out and saying it, obviously his rationale was that the Republican party was the closest to the values of a born-again Christian. I will give him props though, he did own that they don’t have it all right.

So my initial reaction to this, hence me scrawling out a BLOG post – is that I recognize that I’ve bought a lot of that for much of my life. It’s only in recent years I’m seeing that this is a lot more complicated and explored my world view down to the depths.

The pastor also pointed out other’s who had reached out to him in these weeks, who brought up other values they though should be highly regarded: Law Enforcement, Drug Abuse, Foreign Policy, Gender Equality, Education, the Environment, to name a few.

But he was clear that it was his discernment that these were the top 6. And that voting was where the Kingdom of God overlaps the Kingdom of the World, how one can influence, live their faith. And that really, God is omniscient and doesn’t need our help or approval. (A super statement right there in my book.)

So somewhere in these recent years, I have drilled down to the why I have changed my mind on interpreting how my understanding applies to my vote.

I have always leaned somewhat Libertarian on the side of legislating morals. At my core understanding, if God had desired us to be forced into doing anything, he would have made us robot, who couldn’t sin. He knew what we’d choose, right? But he set up the system wanting people to behave in a way that’s pleasing to Him because they wanted to, not because he forced them. No that doesn’t mean make murder and rape and assault ok. I’m talking about individual rights on personal issues that the answer is complex.

That, is my core value of why legislating morals is not the best way. Allowing people to grapple with their own issues, their own interpretation in regards to when a soul is the body. The complex issues of after you’ve sinned and gotten pregnant outside of a sanctioned marriage, and how you’re going to deal with that, is far more intricate and varied than I feel can be fairly legislated.

This core value also speaks to religious freedom, the definition of marriage (why are we hung up on a word) and legislating morals. The first amendment says “shall make no law an establishment of religion” To me, that doesn’t give the Judeo/Christian ethos the right to dictate their interpretation on everyone else, even if they think they’re the only way. Zealous religious interpretations have led to most of the worse things we’ve done to each other as humans.

It used to be cheating on your wife was criminal, and went both ways. Think of Jesus with his line in the sand, telling those wanting to stone some woman to death, ye without sin, cast the first stone. We’ve evolved out of that, for goodness sake, that’s one of those areas that aren’t legislated any longer, yet have the #metoo uprising, Black Lives demanding their equality and justice. Complex. LIfe is complex.

To me, I see what used to be conservative fiscally has left the building, look at the knee jerk reaction to the tune of 6 Trillion dollars as the outset of this pandemic. And the needing to legislate morals has overtaken the priorities. And the divisiveness on both sides has grown. For 30 plus years, it gets worse and worse and worse And the permissiveness of the cult-of-personality of a fake, bombastic jerk who’s on his third wife, walks up and just starts kissing on them because he can, driven by his ego and bluster. No one has called him on his morals since he got the required delegates to get the nomination. Funny all the things they said before!

So, as I understand it, the Democratic platform is more about being empathetic, compassionate, and finding a way for all. Lifting each other up, instead of driving greed and corruption. Everything about the structure of our government is amplified now that there are 330 million instead of 330,000.

The ideals of our United States foundation are solid. But we need to quit this partisan stupidity, that rewards corruption, and causes people to always be winning and running instead of solving problems and discussing philosophy and solutions. We need term limits, we need to look at the electoral college, the number of judges on the Supreme Court, they dynamics of population growth and fairness. We need to get rid of lobbyists. We need to get rid of Pacs. Corporations are not people. We need a flat, fair tax, not bogged down in loopholes that favor the wealthy. We need to recognize that if we all do better, are better educated, better health, it’s cheaper and more efficient for all of us.

You can’t raise me in a Star Trek era and not think we’re going to see the ideal.

So in voting my values, I’ve flipped. I’m in my mid 50’s. I’ve done a 180. I’m going Democrat because of the stated values of kindness, respect, equality, fairness. I don’t believe they’re going to let chaos rule on the street, Biden has been very clear. And they’re not going to turn us into a communist country. These accusations ring of McCarthyism and fear-based discourse. I’m not playing.

They nominated a centrist ticket, not Bernie or Elizabeth Warren. The status quo of the Obama era would be a welcome respite to this chaos. And at this point, I can’t see how supporting a lying, cheating man of low moral character can represent my core values.

And in wanting to go straight blue for the first time in my almost 40 years of voting, it’s as a referendum to the enabling most of the other Republicans have done these last 4 years of torture. I’m sick of being embarrassed. I’m sick of excusing greed. I’m sick of rewarding cheaters. Deregulation has led to more corruption, ignoring SCIENCE because you don’t want there to be a pandemic, or climate change, isn’t going to make any of those issues magically disappear.

My faith informs programs that help the poor, help empower people to hold onto their businesses’ and dreams, addressing the welfare system that does NOT keep the family intact, however you define your family, and leads to single parent homes to get the help, instead of supporting marriage. To look at all lives, even those “aliens”

I can’t see any other choice than Biden/Harris in this 2020. My party was shanghaied. It’s the only choice that makes sense to an American girl that like the Mustang, is a 1964 model.