Catholics and the General Election

Jun 30, 2008 17:53

So a few days ago I heard some political analyst on MSNBC say that most Catholic churches and voter guides encourage people to vote for the person they agree with on religious issues (or something along those lines). He went on to say that most Catholics see the right to life issue as the most important, though the Pope and others believe that the war in Iraq is wrong and a "life" issue as well. Obviously those who see the right to life as the most important will vote for McCain, whereas the others will (hopefully) vote for Obama. My argument for why all Catholics (or just anyone who bases their voting decisions on Christian faith) should vote for Obama is as follows:

First of all, I am going to assume ending the war in Iraq is a legitimate "life" issue because the Pope and other important members of the clergy consider it to be one and they are experts in Catholicism (or else Benedict wouldn't have been elected Pope). Even if the average American does not think of it as important as the right to life issue, they should still be concerned. So between these two important issues, I think a voter should decide which issue the next President will have to most power to affect.

The next President will probably not have much influence in the right to life issue. The only way the President can affect Roe v. Wade is to nominate a Supreme Court judge who is either considered "liberal" and will thus uphold Roe v. Wade or considered "conservative" and will try to overturn it. At this point, there aren't any Justices who are immediately considering retirement, and most of the older Justices are considered liberal, so odds are that many of them will not retire in the next 8 years, and if one does it will probably be a liberal. This means that no matter who is President and who they appoint for the one or 2 openings during their term (if there are any at all which no one can know) the balance of the court will either stay the same (replacing a liberal with liberal) or get more conservative (replacing a liberal with a conservative which would be difficult anyway in a democrat-run congress that has to approve all nominations). Basically the makeup of the court is either going to stay the same or get more conservative if it changes at all. Even if McCain is elected and he nominates one or two conservative justices and they are all confirmed by Congress, a case that challenges Roe. v Wade still has to make it all the way to the Supreme Court which is a very rare, difficult, and unlikely thing to happen. So as a summary so far, a lot of different factors have to fall into place for the next President to possibly have an impact on the legality of abortion.

Now the war in Iraq, on the other hand, will definitely without question be an issue the next President has a direct impact on from the moment he takes office. The President is the Commander-in-Chief so he has to make a decision on Iraq whether he wants to or not! Of course, Congress will have to approve the President's decision but if Obama is elected that should not be a huge problem. Though they may not agree with Obama's pro-choice opinion, Catholics (because of the reasons described above) should agree with his phased redeployment of troops position much more than McCain's pro-war the troops could be there a 100 more years position. Since Obama will actually affect the Iraq war issue they way they should want and neither Obama nor McCain will have much influence over the abortion issue, Catholics should vote for Obama.

Disclaimer: I am not Catholic myself so I'm only going off of what the political analystt on MSNBC said about the Pope and voter trends. This is also definitely biased because I want Obama to win. However, I do think my arguments are sound and if Catholics truly feel the way I have assumed about both issues, they should really support Obama to get the most out of their vote!

catholics, politics, obama

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