Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

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Saturday, October 16, 2004

Election Issues, Part I

I hate feeling like I'm trying to discern which candidate is the lesser of two evils in the upcoming election. From my conversations with others over the last few months, I'm apparently not alone in this. I have yet to meet anyone who claims to be a huge fan of John Kerry--not that they don't exist, but I honestly haven't met one--his supporters' primary reason for voting is to remove George W. Bush from office. Similarly, most Bush supporters seem to like the president primarily because he's pro-life and a Christian. I'm not yet certain who I'm voting for come November, and even evaluating both men from a biblical perspective leaves ambiguity.

Human Rights and Peace-making
If we believe that every life is valuable, then our president needs to reflect that. On the one hand, it's easy to denounce the instances like Abu Gharib prisioner abuse scandal as t

he actions of a renegade few, but when the president says, "I have the authority under the Constitution to suspend Geneva as between the United States and Afghanistan, but I decline to exercise that authority at this time" (Text of order signed by President Bush on Feb. 7, 2002), he begins to erode policies and the respect for human life that prevent brutalities of the variety in Germany circa World War II. And disregarding international laws and treaties does more than paint a portrait of America as an arrogant nation, bent on its own will; it scares other countries, who are then afraid to trust and cooperate with us.

Abortion
This is the issue that weighs the most in Bush's favor. With only one Supreme Court justice (Clarence Thomas) under the age of 65, it's entirely possible that the next president could appoint as many as three judges (on a court of nine), which might be enough to shift the current balance of power and overturn Roe v. Wade were they to be pro-life. Of course, that's assuming that 1. Bush gets to appoint justices in the first place, 2. he appoints only pro-lifers 3. he appoints enough justices to shift the current balance and 4. a case will come before the Court concerning abortion. From his voting history in Congress, Kerry would certainly choose pro-choice justices (and probably ones with liberal interpretations of the law in general) should the opportunity arise, but this could amount to voting for Bush more or less for the sake of one issue, which is dangerous.

(Addendum: I should add that too often Christians try to protect the lives of the unborn who cannot speak for themselves and forget to speak for the living who likewise have no voice: the poor, the oppressed, etc. Life does not begin at conception and end at birth; we must be concerned with the entirety of it. And we speak of freedom but only expect a certain outcome when we give it, forgetting that freedom involves choice, and with choice comes with ability to choose wrong.)

The Environment
God has entrusted humanity with caring for the earth, with stewarding this planet and its inhabitants--or even to look at it from a purely selfish perspective, who doesn't want to live in a place with clean air and water? Yet Eric Schaeffer, the head of the enforcement wing of the Environmental Protection Agency, resigned in 2002 to protest the White House's policies, which prompted a Senate investigation into Bush's environmental record. "Sadly, the Bush administration decided to promote the interests of its polluting campaign contributors from the energy, mining and timber industries over the interests of common citizens," said Russell Train, a lifelong Republican and head of the EPA during the Nixon and Ford administrations. Kerry, on the other hand, was the lead sponsor of a bill that financed marine research and another bill that protects marine mammals from commercial fishermen. The current administration has undermined laws that Congress--and by proxy, we as Americans--have put into place, and in this area it's clear that the executive branch, made to enforce those laws, is not doing its job.

I'll cover more issues in my next post. Until then, head over to Sojourners and sign the petition to remind people of faith in this country that God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat.

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