I have a job, several of them actually.
I have everything I need, and then some. I've learned to be
gratefully content with very little. This has made far more
difference in my life than an elected official ever could.
I'm still going to vote today, and I am
grateful I can. I'm thankful for women like Alice Stokes Paul, who
was a suffragist and an American hero. And as a woman, I'd like the
government to stay out of my decisions regarding my body. When the
Presidency, House and Congress were all controlled by the "pro-life"
party, and they had the chance to make whatever pro-life law they
wanted... the issue of abortion didn't even come up. Our values
become abundantly clear when one looks at our historic acts of
commission and omission.
There are other reasons I'll vote
today.
Act Justly
Presidents Washington and Lincoln
believed it was not enough to win a war, they had to win in a way
consistent with the values of their society and the principles of
their cause. They insisted that prisoners be treated with the same
rights they were fighting for. It is shameful that recent
administrations have embraced a doctrine of preemptive war, torture
techniques including water boarding, extraordinary rendition,
classifying prisoners-of-war as "enemy combatants",
breaking the Geneva Convention, and the concentration camps in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. I mourn the loss of over 162,000 civilians and
combatants in Iraq and Afghanistan. I am sad that the historic peace
churches were largely silent in the face of these moral atrocities.
I am grateful that the current administration repudiated the Bybee
Torture Memos in 2009. Let's choose leaders who can stand with
Washington, and Lincoln, and Churchill, after all, they lived in
equally perilous times.
Love Mercy
Helping the poor has always been the
Church's foremost responsibility. Sadly, the American church has
been far more preoccupied with the prosperity doctrine than with
ministries of compassion and mercy. Therefore, the government has
been called upon to care for the least of these. However, when an
administration faces the choice of feeding poor children or fighting
wars to control the world's resources, the voice of the poor goes
unheard. And if the church lacks compassion or mercy, from what
source will a civilized society find it? And so we see the
vilification of the poor, making it socially acceptable to ignore and
abandon them, and this quickly becomes an issue of life and death.
So how "Pro-life" are we when our people starve, and die
from preventable diseases?
Walk Humbly
As a person of faith, I gain nothing
when my friends and neighbors are denied basic civil liberties
because of their sexual orientation. I could not cast a vote for any
candidate, knowing he would deny basic human decency to my friends
and neighbors.
America is fast becoming a place where
the gap between rich and poor is more remarkable than ever. Our
politicians are beholden to special interests, neither Democrat nor
Republican are above reproach. The wealthy, especially corporations, influence politics to
protect their interests, while the poor have only their vote, and
increasingly, that basic human right is denied them.
Increasingly, we create exactly
the kind of country our ancestors fled.
Please vote today.
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