By
Celeste Gracey
October 30, 2008
Next Tuesday, Christians will vote for Ralph Nader.
They will also vote for Barack Obama, John McCain and maybe even Cynthia McKinney from the Green Party.
Most ballot items are debatable issues for Christians. But occasionally there is an issue that supports unrighteousness, which Christians cannot condone.
There isn’t a voting guide from heaven that floats down on the wings of doves each year, although some over-politicized Christians may try to convince you of it.
I know some Christians who feel it’s their God-given responsibility to take better care of the environment. They often vote for Democrats who have a better track record with pollution issues.
I know others who wouldn’t dream of voting for a Democrat, because the party supports abortion, which they see as murder.
All of these Christians have God-given convictions, and they vote in a way they feel honors God. However, there are some issues we should not disagree on.
Although Christians are commanded to forgive people as Jesus forgave them, completely and without reason, they cannot condone or support unrighteousness.
This year I voted no on I-1000, the assisted suicide initiative. It allows doctors to prescribe poison so terminally ill patients can kill themselves before they naturally die.
Supporters of the initiative make the “choice” argument, similar to abortion. The idea is that we can all value life differently and determine what’s just in our own lives.
But the point of creating a law is to impose a majority’s views on the whole. Laws detract from personal autonomy to establish values and maintain order.
The majority enforcing values isn’t anything new. An example would be laws against stealing. The laws establish order and place value on the work it takes to create or purchase property.
Up until now, the majority has said it wants to protect the value of human life by outlawing suicide. Just because the end is in sight, it doesn’t mean the life is any less valuable.
There are other reasonable arguments against I-1000, including the potential horror of its abuses, especially by selfish family members.
I-1000 is a good example of an issue that Christians can’t take lightly.
However, most voting decisions are up for discussion among Christians. It’s frivolous to debate over what Jesus thinks about the light rail or whether or not He’d take the bus.
With a few issues it’s an obvious, across-the-board answer, but with others our faith affects our voting like it affects all aspects of our lives.
Reach columnist Celeste Gracey at opinion@dailyuw.com.
11 Comments
#1 Rohan S.
on October 30, 2008 at 12:49 a.m.(Seattle, WA)
"Laws detract from personal autonomy to establish values and maintain order."
Could you explain how a law that gives people a new choice somehow reduces their personal autonomy? I don't see how the analogy you made to stealing is relevant or similar to I-1000. Having the choice to end your own life when your terminally is like theft?
#2 Billy Hallowell
on October 30, 2008 at 7:08 a.m.(Tarrytown, NY | Unverified Name)
Please check out our issue guides at http://www.publicagenda.org. These are excellent tools for Christians -- or anyone for that matter -- to get a non-partisan view of the issues!
#3 N. E. Hoyle
on October 30, 2008 at 8:47 a.m.(Abbotsford, Canada | Unverified Name)
Does anyone find it incongruous the emphasis placed on withholding from the individual the right to end their own life of excruciating pain, yet embrace the nation's right to send young men and woman forth to slaughter other men, women and children?
Until THAT conundrum is addressed, (and overcome) what "right" does anyone have to sit in judgement and sentence anyone else to hours, days or years of addition suffering?
#4 Anne M.
on October 30, 2008 at 11:47 a.m.(Seattle, WA)
If your faith tells you to vote against I-1000, fine.
But if the separation of church and state, and the understanding that no one church should impose their faith or their views on the whole population tells you that it's ok to let people make their own decisions, then please vote YES on 1000.
http://www.itsmydecision.org
#5 Bryan
on October 30, 2008 at 1:31 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
I find it amusing that you would even ask if people's faith affects how they vote. After all it is their FAITH (i.e. beliefs, i.e. personal philosophy). It's pretty much like asking if being vegetarian influences how you eat.
#6 Charles A.
on October 30, 2008 at 1:41 p.m.(UW Campus)
I think Dan Savage sums it up best in his Stranger article, "In Defense of Dignity":
"If religious people believe assisted suicide is wrong, they have a right to say so. Same for gay marriage and abortion. They oppose them for religious reasons, but it's somehow not enough for them to deny those things to themselves. They have to rush into your intimate life and deny them to you, too—deny you control over your own reproductive organs, deny you the spouse of your choosing, condemn you to pain (or the terror of it) at the end of your life.
The proper response to religious opposition to choice or love or death can be reduced to a series of bumper stickers: Don't approve of abortion? Don't have one. Don't approve of gay marriage? Don't have one. Don't approve of physician-assisted suicide? For Christ's sake, don't have one. But don't tell me I can't have one—each one—because it offends your God."
http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/Co...
#7 Charles A.
on October 30, 2008 at 2:04 p.m.(UW Campus)
And for a list of religious leaders who support I-1000 visit:
http://www.yeson1000.org/default.aspx...
I'm not religious but I do think this quote provides some much-needed insight:
"Stop judging, that you may not be judged. For as you judge, so will you be judged, and the measure with which you measure will be measured out to you."
-Jesus Christ
#8 Benjamin L.
on October 30, 2008 at 3:09 p.m.(Redmond, WA)
"The point of creating a law is to impose a majority's views on the whole."
Have you ever taken a political science class?
"The majority enforcing values isn’t anything new. An example would be laws against stealing. The laws establish order and place value on the work it takes to create or purchase property."
My word. What's your major?
#9 Joe Ryan
on October 30, 2008 at 3:32 p.m.(Bellingham, WA | Unverified Name)
In regards to the primacy of conscience over majority rule the following was posted on CatholicIreland.net on the sixth of June 2008 by Sean Fagan SM. He quotes the theologian Joseph Ratzinger who now is the Pope: "... one's own conscience, which must be obeyed before all else, even if necessary against the requirement of ecclesiastical authority. This emphasis on the individual, whose conscience confronts him with a supreme and ultimate tribunal, and one which in the last resort is beyond the claim of external social groups, even of the official Church, also establishes a principal: in opposition to increasing totalitarianism."
If your conscience tells you that it is right to impose your religious views on a minority by using the coercive power of the state, or any other coercive power, then I hope you will change your mind. This is the real issue that I-1000 addresses.
#10 Mike
on October 31, 2008 at 12:15 p.m.(Seattle, WA | Unverified Name)
@Charles A - that argument can be used for nearly anything which is why it's a complete intellectual cop-out. For example, I fixed your post.
"If religious people believe bestiality is wrong, they have a right to say so. Same for gay marriage and abortion. They oppose them for religious reasons, but it's somehow not enough for them to deny those things to themselves. They have to rush into your intimate life and deny them to you, too—deny you control over your own reproductive organs..."
As do you, Christians vote on their own belief system and how they want their community to operate. Get over it.
#11 Charles A.
on November 1, 2008 at 11:03 p.m.(Seattle, WA)
I'm not going to bother quoting the First Amendment because I'm sure it would be lost on you. Those of us in the reality-based community couldn't care less what you believe, but it's a different matter when you try to impose your beliefs on others. I thought this argument had ended with, oh, the Scopes trial?
Why are the only viewpoints published here from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and Baha'i? I have respect for the core tenets of all four of these religions, but how about the views of Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, Sikhs, humanists, and nonbelievers?
Oh that's right, it's because the editors are hacks.
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