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Dear Christians, Don’t Reserve Your Votes for Republicans
Nich Wolak
A friend of mine is a huge Barack Obama fan. If I didn’t know he was straight, I would swear that “Obama Girl” wasn’t the only one with a crush on the Democratic hopeful. This same friend also happens to be a Christian. At this year’s March For Life rally, one of his family members let his political allegiance slip to the rest of his group. Their response was to gang up on him for not supporting a Republican candidate.
Being a Christian myself, does lead me to admire parts of the Republican Party. Republicans tend to be more religious in nature, are pro-life and are against embryonic stem cell research. But there are also a number of tendencies about the Democratic Party that align with Christian values. Amongst these are a lesser likelihood of war and more concentrated focuses on preserving the environment and helping the poor. To vote Republican just because you are Christian and/or pro-life is to miss out on the full meaning of what it truly means to be pro-life.
The Rev. Mark Inglot of St. John Student Parish in East Lansing has an interesting political background. Since he was born and raised by a Democratic father and a Republican mother, the priest refers to himself as genetically independent. When I brought up the issue of Republicans getting support from Christians for being pro-life, despite being more prone to go to war and support the death penalty, he had this to say: “Those issues should be taken into account. The way the Catholic Church terms it is that we want politicians to have a consistent pro-life effort. It needs to be a seamless garment; in other words all threads of the pro-life issue weave together.”
Abortion
When looking at the number of yearly legal U.S. abortions, it is obvious that having a Republican president does not guarantee a decrease. Using Allan Guttmacher Institute statistics from 1974 through 2000, it can be seen that the number of abortions increased throughout the 70’s and 80’s. However, every single president’s abortion percentage increase or decrease in office improved upon his predecessor, regardless of party affiliation.
From President Ford’s (R) first year in office (1974) through his last (1976), abortions went from 744,600 to 1,179,300, a 58.4 % increase. From the first to last year of every president’s time in office that percentage change got a little better. Jimmy Carter (D) had a 31.8% increase, Ronald Reagan (R) had a 2.4% increase, George HW Bush (R) had a 3.9% decrease, and Bill Clinton (D) had a 14.1% decrease. After 2000, estimates only are available through 2003, making the number of abortion under George W Bush’s watch very inconclusive.
The fact that the abortion situation got better with each President, makes party affiliation seem less important in this issue. It should be noted that a majority of Democrats, like their Republican counterparts, want there to be a decrease in
abortions. They view a high abortion rate as a sign that too many women are
feeling they aren’t financially or emotionally ready to support a child.
No Justification for War
The late pope John Paul II said before the Iraq war began that it would be a
defeat for humanity which could not be morally or legally justified. War is sometimes necessary, even in Christian teaching; but we are not called to be
the aggressor nation. The United States was definitely the aggressor nation in the Iraq war. The death count proves the late pope’s sentiment to be true. According to the CBC News, there have been 3,098 U.S. military deaths in Iraq
since March 20, 2003. Our soldiers’ deaths are what we tend to talk about, but in that time span there have also been 31 U.K. military deaths, 33 Italian military deaths, 88 military deaths of soldiers from other nations supporting our cause, an estimate between 4,900 to 6,375 Iraqi military deaths, and an estimate from 55,664 to 61,369 Iraqi civilians. If you do the math, you will see that there have been more civilian deaths brought about because of this war than all military deaths combined. It is unjustifiable that the people we are trying to help are dying at such a significantly higher rate.
We never found the supposed weapons of mass destruction; but even if we had,
that isn’t reason enough to go to war with a nation. We have weapons of
mass destruction - should the countries that don’t have them form an alliance and attack us? A lot of people view the war as justifiable, regardless of whether or not they had weapons of mass destruction, because they believe in giving the people of Iraq a better life. No one is arguing that Sadaam Hussein was a good leader, or that Iraq is a desirable place for people to live. Yet, there are countless other places in the world that have just as corrupt of a government and an even worse standard of living.
I don’t find it a coincidence that we are fighting a war in a region rich with oil and potential/already U.S. enemies. The United States definitely craves influence in the region, and Republican officials have been using lingering fear from the events of 9/11 to justify getting it. I can’t count the number of times I’ve head John McCain, or one of the former Republican candidates, use words such as radical, Islam, Muslim, and terrorist together when describing the situation in Iraq. The people of Iraq have a significant Muslim population, and may appear to Western eyes to have similar genetic features of the terrorists behind the 9/11 acts, but they never became a serious threat to our country. Iraq had about as much to do with the 9/11 attacks as the U.K., or France - nothing. The linking of these two events, the war in Iraq and 9/11, has increased unnecessary anti-Muslim and middle-eastern sentiment.
Islam, like Christianity is a peaceful religion. Muslims have extremists just as we do.
Helping Those Who Need It
One of the main issues where Republicans and Democrats have recently
differed is on health care, with the majority of Democrats being for national health care, and the majority of Republicans being opposed. The United States is the only industrialized country that doesn’t have national health care. In 2005 (latest data available), a little less than 16 percent of the population didn’t own health insurance. Opponents of national health care often cite the cost. But perhaps the United States could actually spend less total money on a national health care plan.
According to CBS News, the U.S. government has spent a little less than $5
billion in Iraq since the start of the war. That is $5 billion that could have been put into getting national health care, or something else to help the poor of this country – a Christian goal. The continuation of the war would prevent monetary funds from helping people in the United States who need it most.
Death Penalty and the Bible
Another non-Christian policy which Republicans tend to favor is the death penalty – the only decision a politician can make that they can’t attempt to reconcile. Even a Baptist minister, former Republican candidate for president and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, is for it. At the CNN Youtube debate, he was asked what Jesus would do with regards to the death penalty. This was his answer: “I believe there is a place for a death penalty. Some crimes are so heinous, so horrible, that the only response that we as a civilized nation have for a most un-civil action is not only to try to deter that person from ever committing that crime again, but also as a warning to others that some crimes truly are beyond any other capacity for us to fix…”
Apparently all that time in the governor’s office and on the presidential campaign trail caused Huckabee to forget about the Bible. It has countless stories that slaughter his argument for this policy. Chapter 4 of Genesis tells the story of how Cain killed Abel, his own brother. God and he had the following conversation in Genesis 4: 14-15: “Since you have now banished me from the soil, and I must avoid your presence and become a restless wanderer on the earth, anyone may kill me at sight.” “Not so!” the Lord said to him. “If anyone kills Cain, Cain shall be avenged sevenfold.” So the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest anyone should kill him at sight.”
Jesus teaches Peter about forgiveness in Matthew 18: 21-23: Then,
Peter approached the Lord and asked him, “Lord, if my brother sins against me, how many times must I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus answered, “I say to you not seven times, but 77 times.”
Perhaps the most powerful biblical example is the story of St. Peter. At the time of his introduction in the Bible he is a huge persecutor of Christians. If he lived
in today’s United States and committed the same acts there is a chance he would get the death penalty. God didn’t want Paul to die though. He showed him the light and Paul became a great Christian missionary – so great, in fact, that
some would say he is the second most important figure in Christianity after Jesus.
Since 1930 there have been 4, 958 executions in the United States as a part of the death penalty. It has been discovered that at least 23 innocent people were
executed. The number could have been much larger too – 87 innocent people
have been released from death row since 1972. The murder rates aren’t
necessarily lower in those states that have the death penalty, either.
According to www.deathpenaltyinfo.com the average murder rate in states with
the death penalty has been higher than that of those without the death
penalty.
It doesn’t make sense to keep this policy going considering the statistics and the fact that we are the only industrialized nation practicing it. Some might argue that it is too expensive to give criminal a life’s sentence instead; they are wrong. Most
estimates have an execution of a prisoner costing anywhere between $1 million and $3 million, while the average amount it takes to keep a prisoner on a life sentence is $500,000. The government is paying more than twice as much money to kill a person, instead of keeping them in prison for life. As with the war, a drop in this policy would free up a significant amount of money to help the poor.
An Open Mind
As Christians we need to look at politics with an open mind. I’m not saying that voting Democrat is the way to go as a Christian; I could have just as easily wrote an article talking positively about Republicans and negatively about Democrats. The point is that Republican leaders and policies are not necessarily more Christian than their Democratic counterparts. Christians have been falling into the trap of voting Republican out of principle, and it has to stop. Both parties have their strengths and flaws, and we need to look past party line and decide who we think will run the country in the most God-pleasing manner.
Questions? Comments? Contact Nich Wolak at wolaknic@msu.edu
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