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vote baby vote / think for yourself
Oct. 20th, 2020 01:55 pmWe filled in our ballots on the Saturday immediately after receipt. Although I'd done careful research, M and D only wanted the high-level summary. In most cases they just wanted to know which organizations were in favor and against. There were a few that required actual discussion because of potential loopholes or unintended consequences.
Unfortunately, I didn't save my notes, and now I can't remember exactly how we voted on everything. I know our vote split on one of the propositions. I'll have to go back to Ballotpedia and see if that reminds me. The same thing happened to me last year and we kept trying to figure out if the propositions we'd voted for were the ones that got approved. Hopefully this time I've learned my lesson!
NPR has been airing interviews with various people talking about the logic used in favor of supporting former reality TV star Donald J. Trump. One of them mentioned that Evangelical Christians tend to say that God uses flawed tools; another said that fellow Catholics told him that he couldn't be Christian and vote Democrat.
Of course as humans we're all imperfect. But I think there's a huge difference between a flawed human being and an actively evil person.
Apparently King David is a popular example of a flawed tool. Wikipedia's synopsis of the David and Bathsheba story is:
which really doesn't sound like exemplary behavior, y'know? Even worse, the Wikipedia article on David says, "The text in the Bible does not explicitly state whether Bathsheba consented to sex."(Notes 55 through 58 are cited.)
TBH I'm really confused about why anyone would pick David as a role model, but hey, ancient civilization, different mores, and there are bound to be a lot of things lost in translation there. And although I'm Catholic, I'm on the liberal end of the spectrum. I keep church and state separate, and so do the Jesuits that give the homily to my congregation on Sundays.
The messages that I've been getting from them over the past couple of years have been consistent: welcome the stranger. Love your neighbor as yourself. Any stranger can be your neighbor. Care for the widow and the orphan. Life is sacred, and not just at conception.
These are not the messages that I've been hearing from the Republican party for my entire life. Lately, their message has been: deport the stranger. Don't trust your neighbors. Strangers can't become neighbors. Care for the rich and powerful. Only the life of an unborn child is sacred.
How is an attitude like that at all Christian?
I find it really frustrating that the pro-life movement is so focused on unborn children. What about providing support for the children after they're born? or protecting children seeking asylum? or protecting human beings and our planet from corporate predators? (links are to political cartoons on these topics, because that's all the brain function I have left today.)
I also find it creepy that Holy Mother Church remains so focused on the virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This strikes me as prurient interest on the part of a bunch of sex-deprived old men. But that's a slightly heretical rant for another day...
Unfortunately, I didn't save my notes, and now I can't remember exactly how we voted on everything. I know our vote split on one of the propositions. I'll have to go back to Ballotpedia and see if that reminds me. The same thing happened to me last year and we kept trying to figure out if the propositions we'd voted for were the ones that got approved. Hopefully this time I've learned my lesson!
NPR has been airing interviews with various people talking about the logic used in favor of supporting former reality TV star Donald J. Trump. One of them mentioned that Evangelical Christians tend to say that God uses flawed tools; another said that fellow Catholics told him that he couldn't be Christian and vote Democrat.
Of course as humans we're all imperfect. But I think there's a huge difference between a flawed human being and an actively evil person.
Apparently King David is a popular example of a flawed tool. Wikipedia's synopsis of the David and Bathsheba story is:
Moved by lust at the sight of her, David calls for her to be brought to him and sleeps with her, impregnating her. In an effort to hide his misdeeds, David tries to call on Uriah to return home from war, hoping that the two will have relations and that he will be able to pass the child off as belonging to Uriah. But Uriah, being a disciplined soldier, refuses to leave his post. So, David murders him by proxy, ordering all of Uriah's comrades to abandon him in the midst of battle, so that he is killed by an opposing army. Following Uriah's death, David takes Bathsheba as his eighth wife.
which really doesn't sound like exemplary behavior, y'know? Even worse, the Wikipedia article on David says, "The text in the Bible does not explicitly state whether Bathsheba consented to sex."(Notes 55 through 58 are cited.)
TBH I'm really confused about why anyone would pick David as a role model, but hey, ancient civilization, different mores, and there are bound to be a lot of things lost in translation there. And although I'm Catholic, I'm on the liberal end of the spectrum. I keep church and state separate, and so do the Jesuits that give the homily to my congregation on Sundays.
The messages that I've been getting from them over the past couple of years have been consistent: welcome the stranger. Love your neighbor as yourself. Any stranger can be your neighbor. Care for the widow and the orphan. Life is sacred, and not just at conception.
These are not the messages that I've been hearing from the Republican party for my entire life. Lately, their message has been: deport the stranger. Don't trust your neighbors. Strangers can't become neighbors. Care for the rich and powerful. Only the life of an unborn child is sacred.
How is an attitude like that at all Christian?
I find it really frustrating that the pro-life movement is so focused on unborn children. What about providing support for the children after they're born? or protecting children seeking asylum? or protecting human beings and our planet from corporate predators? (links are to political cartoons on these topics, because that's all the brain function I have left today.)
I also find it creepy that Holy Mother Church remains so focused on the virginity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This strikes me as prurient interest on the part of a bunch of sex-deprived old men. But that's a slightly heretical rant for another day...
