I found
this article in my daily New York Times headlines e-mail. I rarely have time to read all the articles, but scan through the headlines and first paragraphs to get the general gist. This article caught my eye because voting as Catholic has always been something that has interested me.
I went to Catholic school my entire life, grew up in a liberal family, and have been surrounded by liberal friends. While I may not have enjoyed the entire CDH experience, one thing the school gets some credit for is it's extreme focus on social justice (title of this post is a quote from our school prayer.) We had countless justice groups you could join, service learning as a required part of class, and mission/civil rights trips all over the country/world. As a part of Sowers of Justice (Molly: Swords of Justice), I met weekly with other students (basically all of whom were my best friends) to discuss justice issues. Our school had an annual Justice Week (a week of forums, speakers and discussions around a key issue) and participated in the Day of Silence and had an assembly on how to stop hate speech. Let's just say I don't think many Catholic schools are given clearance to have the Day of Silence (although we weren't allowed to wear rainbow ribbons, we wore checkered instead....so we're not there just yet.) I always felt it was a liberal environment and in no way conservative.
The school is run by the Christian Brothers as well as the Sisters of St. Joseph from the College of St. Catherine. If you know nothing about these nuns, picture what you think of when I say the word 'nun.' Then throw it out the window. These women are religious, yes, but in the most untraditional and unanticipated way. They integrate rituals from other religious practices into their own prayer and are about as left-leaning as possible on social issues. It's from one of these 'nuns' that I first heard about
Democrats for Life. It seems, according to this article though, that this is a difficult platform for Catholics to take on since it's hard to find a candidate that is Democratic on social issues yet pro-life.
The article cites a conservative Catholic group called Catholic Answers (I've never heard anything about them before, and let's just say this first impression wasn't positive) as deeming five issues "non-negotiable" when voting: abortion, embryonic stem-cell research, human cloning, euthanasia and same-sex marriage. While some of those topics have a scientific nature I am not knowledgeable enough about to form a concrete opinion either way, I certainly know how I feel about two of them. People can marry whoever they goddamn please and I am not a fan of abortion (
Gina, I think you secretly knew this all along. But I still wholeheartedly love you AND your hot pants lifestyle!)
Just looking at my positions on the above issues automatically makes it difficult for me to find an appropriate candidate. How do you decide what is more important? I don't think the Church or any other group has the right to designate "non-negotiable" issues when voting; it is up to the individual. I do think voting Catholics are easily confused about this...is there some official position we must accept to avoid burning in the fires of hell (as some conservative groups truly believe), or can we ourselves examine God's teachings and pick the candidate we feel most represents us? Many people use this uncertainty as an excuse to shy away from the democratic process of voting. They think they don't know enough or won't make the right decision so they don't vote at all. Obviously this is not ideal and the voting record in this country is rather pathetic. It is vital that people take enough time to inform themselves on the issues, decide what is most important and then VOTE!
I understand how difficult this can be, because technically my candidate of choice doesn't agree with me on several of my most important issues. I'm voting for Obama because I know his outlook aligns closer to mine, even though he's pro-choice, he doesn't support gay marriage and he does support the border fence. So, why you ask, am I voting for him? Because I know he will bring about the social change this country needs.
And for now, I will accept these baby steps in the right (meaning left) direction.
