iThink

IN NOVEMBER of this year voters will cast their ballots and decide the next president of the United States.  As has happened every four years for the past two decades, Republicans will, again, call on their Evangelical base to boost them to the top.  And there is nothing wrong with that.  However, a problem arises when Republican politicians and leaders of the Evangelical movement dupe well-meaning Christians into voting for them because of two single issues—abortion and same-sex marriage.  With a multi-billion dollar war waging in Iraq, the economy on the brink of a recession, and impoverished families still scraping around for food, there is more at stake in this election season than banning homosexual couples from marrying and banning teen mothers from having abortions.

Think back to the 2000 and 2004 election seasons.  After the DNC and GOP nominating conventions wrapped up, the Democrat and Republican candidates started going at each other.  Each time a debate rolled around, Republicans rallied their Evangelical supporters using two prominent social issues—abortion and same-sex marriage—to solidify their lead against their Democratic counterpart.  Evangelical voters were led to believe that voting for anyone who was pro-choice or pro-same-sex marriage was a sin of unimaginable magnitude.  Sadly, Evangelical voters were led astray.  Now is the time to set the record straight.  As Christian commentator and award-winning CNN contributor Roland Martin stated in a recent article, “The point is that being a Christian should be about more than abortion and homosexuality, and it’s high time that those not considered a part of the religious right expose the hypocrisy of our brothers and sisters in Christianity and take back the faith.”  Values voters should do just that.  Vote their values.  However, shouldn’t a Christian’s values encompass more than sex and birth control.  The Bible covers a plethora of issues of which voters have yet to acknowledge.  Evangelicals, it is time to expand your definition of values.

After winning the 2004 election, President Bush and the Republican congressional leadership paid homage to their Evangelical followers and fought a fierce battle trying to establish marriage as the union of a man and a woman.  Bravo.  However, if lawmakers win an election with such religious support, should they not continue to acknowledge their Evangelical base throughout their tenure?  Of course—they shouldn’t drop the issues after two months in office.

America’s dependence on foreign oil is leading us into a heap of trouble, and the price of crude oil is sky-rocketing.  Almost 4,000 troops have died in Iraq, and Congress continues to pass billion-dollar spending packages to fund the war.  The American economy is teetering on the brink of a recession, and there is an unequal balance between wages and the cost of living.  Many Americans lack health insurance, and frivolous lawsuits grow more numerous by the day.  However, in November, Republicans will ask Evangelicals to look past all these issues and vote for them—because they don’t support abortion or same-sex marriage!   Ridiculous.  In this day in age, there is more to an election that those two issues.

I personally believe that the aforementioned social issues are of great importance to our country.  Abortion is wrong and so is the support of same-sex marriage.  However, these are not the only issues to which voters should look before deciding to cast their ballots.  Take the blind fold off, and look past two single issues to see the big picture.

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Added 3/13/08:  As the dynamics of the race have changed dramatically since I wrote this blog, I now see that, perhaps, the presumptive Republican nominee may not pull the abortion/homosexuality card on Evangelical voters.  The GOP nominee seems to be focused on more than just these two issues — a good thing for his party and the country as a whole.