On account of busyness, I never wrote the “Why Christians Should Consider Voting for John Kerry” article. Oh well. I’ve seen a few other pieces along these lines, but none has taken exactly the angle that I was planning to take… Let me sketch the outlines here, while noting that a real essay would have fleshed these points out a lot more and would have included plenty of quotes from the Bible. (Producing Biblical quotes to support my views is a skill which I have honed for many years… Picking a choosing Bible quotes to support your point of view isn’t exactly a recommended way to study the Bible – but it’s a fine way to write a persuasive piece.)
First, I would get abortion and same sex marriage out of the way as follows. Regarding abortion, it is already legal, and isn’t likely to become “more legal” under John Kerry. I understand and respect many people with very strongly held opinions on this issue, and any piece I might write isn’t likely to change many minds. So, while a second Bush administration holds out a small hope of reversing Roe v. Wade for those who think that’s a good idea, it seems unlikely that a Kerry administration – particularly with a Republican House – can make abortion more legal than it already is.
Regarding same sex marriage, the FMA is extremely unlikely to ever pass in Congress. Almost everyone who has analyzed this issue in any depth knows this. John Kerry does not support same sex marriage. So the choice here is a non-choice. It is a choice between the status quo, with no FMA, and a president who supports the FMA. And a status quo, with no FMA, and a president who does not support the FMA. (And there a
Having dispensed with the hot button issues of abortion and same sex marriage in fairly short order (recognizing that I wasn’t going to change any minds on either of the issues themselves, but hopefully showing that using them as the primary decision factors in selecting a President was somewhat futile), I planned to dive into my main thesis: The biggest moral issues facing America are not abortion and same sex marriage; the biggest moral issues facing America include poverty, the environment, war and peace, honesty in civil discourse, and human rights. And a credible case can be made that John Kerry is the right choice when one considers the whole spectrum of moral issues..
So, that’s what I was going to say in a nutshell. Here are a couple other sites for Christians supporting John Kerry:
Sojourner’s Ad. This is an ad that Sojourner’s magazine, a progressive Christian evangelical magazine, ran in several newspapers around the country (especially in swing states). It certainly isn’t explicitly pro-Kerry, but it raises many of the same points that I raise.
Philocrites. A very interesting weblog post pointing to a variety of articles.