I appreciate the efforts and the prayers of a friend who recently wrote, “Get down on your knees, put aside all your pretenses and posturing and all the crap about how God doesn’t exist or care or whatever…and give Him a chance to show you that he does?” Hey, that day may come, but right now I’m focused on keeping everything cool with Santa Claus so I don’t end up on the “naughty list.” I also want to go on the record and state, unequivocally, I am not a participant in the “War on Christmas.” I am all for anyone’s peaceful celebration of this holiday, whether they celebrate in a religious or secular fashion.
It’s a cliché that people should never talk about “politics or religion,” because the discourse often veers into discord. Why is it then, that the Republican presidential candidates, and the party in general are so fixated on religious issues? The answer is that those issues help them win enough “red states” to win the White House every four years. I contend the right puts Christian “hot button” issues like abortion and gay marriage into the spotlight to manipulate evangelical voters into voting Republican and this trickery gave us the worst president ever in the last 2 elections.
In the CNN/YouTube Republican debate Wednesday night, candidate Fred Thompson astonished me by saying, “I think (Overturning abortion rights precedent Roe v. Wade) should be our number one focus right now.” What? We have thousands of people dying in a hellish desert and we’re burning trillions of dollars contributing to it, and Mr. Thompson thinks overturning Roe should be our top priority?
On September 30, 2007, Republican Presidential Candidate, Senator John McCain of Arizona clarified his notion that the U.S. is a “Christian nation,” by saying “…the United States of America was founded on Judeo-Christian values, which were translated by our founding fathers which is basically the rights of human dignity and human rights.” I agree with Senator McCain’s clarification and he further illustrated this fundamental tenet of what we should be when he scolded former MA Governor Mitt Romney over waterboarding:
“And, governor, let me tell you, if we’re going to get the high ground in this world and we’re going to be the America that we have cherished and loved for more than 200 years. We’re not going to torture people… and how in the world anybody could think that that kind of thing could be inflicted by Americans on people who are held in our custody is absolutely beyond me.”
Human dignity and human rights… Pretty basic stuff. I’d like to know how Christians that vote Republican reconcile these seemingly un-Christian positions:
- Treating those who cross our Southern border seeking a better life as criminals
- Denying people in love to marry
- Supporting the death penalty
- Using war as an instrument of foreign policy
- Opposing universal health-care for all
What would Jesus do?
Very well said.
The reversal of Roe v. Wade is very much a reality and every woman out there should fight for the right of their sisterhood to have control of their own bodies. One question I have for the right-to-lifers – How many of the unwanted children that are alive today and in our system have you adopted and brought into your loving homes? -M.
Dude – leave us not forget we don’t torture ourselves on our soil but a jet plane to foreign soil solves the problem.
P.S. As in torture terrorist captives not “ourselves!”
When our bombs shatter the lives of civilians in neighborhoods surrounding Tehran, are we not terrorizing the human beings that live there?