Religion and the Election Friday!

As I mentioned a couple weeks ago, the Catholics are at an impasse with regards to which side to vote for in the 2008 Election. Here, Gary Stern outlines the Church's "voting guide", reiterating the fact that the Catholics are VERY conservative on say, the abortion issue, but lean very liberal on many other social issues, such as immigration.

Again, then, as I mentioned Tuesday in a post about Sam Brownback, politicians pushing religious agenda probably would do well to recognize that strict adherence to doctrinal belief does not align with doctrinal adherence along party lines.

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With respect to the immigration issue, here's Jim Wallis' take on it from his Christian perspective.

From the article: "This immigration policy question is for us as people of faith the 'welcoming the stranger' question. . . The way we talk about people is off course. Fear and anger dominate the conversation, not a civil discussion about the legitimate issues involved."

That is only a brief summary of his discussion, which explains how yes, there are fundamental legal issues at stake with regards to immigration, but by being disallowed by law (as people are in Oklahoma, now, according to Wallis) to aid illegal immigrants medically, he says, impedes his right to be a Christian steward.

As a legal American citizen, he should have the freedom to welcome a stranger into his home (or homeland, as the case may be). A sticky issue, surely, but I think it represents the fact that not all Christians fall further to the right than Barry Goldwater.

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Finally, on Slate's blog, a conversation began by questioning the state of the "Jewish" vote, which was illuminated as being about as definable as the "Christian" vote.

Basically, you can’t pigeon-hole all the people in one religion to one party. In my opinion, that's probably because the "parties" don’t really represent "anyone."



I know this is a topic I've harped on strongly for the past couple weeks, but since no one has contested me on it, I'm sure I'll continue rambling as such. I find it very interesting that the leading political candidates are trying their best to pander to the religious contingency, but can't quite figure out exactly what these voters want. Again, it's probably a matter of the fact that each voter is unique, and a dichotomy between a turd and a douche simply doesn't fit most people anymore — or maybe it never did, but at least people are more willing to say it now.

Maybe this can be a wake-up call to politicians that they should actually try to do what's best for a country of 300 million people instead of waffling around and not accomplishing anything. You're not always going to be popular when you're charged with a job like that, and the people will speak if you screw it up too badly. Why not try a new strategy as opposed to taking on a ridiculously dated campaign method?