Who Will Get My Vote?

With the election upon us, amid the countless speeches, rhetoric and campaign promises. So now what? How do we vote? What will be the factor(s) that will end the debate in our minds? Time is ticking... Recently, I came across an article by gentleman named Tony Woodlief (Current Issue of World Magazine) that I thinks bears consideration.

Here is an excerpt from that article:

"I have become something I once reviled: a single-issue voter. I used to think that a wise voter tries to discern each candidate's intentions on major issues, and then casts his vote based on an assessment of who will do the greatest overall good—or the least evil. I thought those voters who support a candidate based on a single issue—whether he will increase school funding, say, or lower taxes—were shirking their duty to consider the full ramifications of putting someone in office. What good is electing someone who is "right" on one thing, I thought, if he gets everything else disastrously wrong?

This was the reasoning I used as I congratulated myself for wisely apportioning my votes based on utilitarian calculations. Now I suspect this sort of calculation misses something. I've become convinced that a nation which sanctions the extinguishing of unborn children, and further, the outright execution of near-term infants, doesn't deserve admiration even if it gets every other policy right. It's certainly true that there are other issues that ought to concern Christians, like the sanctity of marriage, and how we treat the mentally ill, the elderly, and children who have been born.

But abortion is, in my view, the touchstone. Get this one wrong and your moral compass can guide you in nothing else.

Yet there is also painful clarity that comes with single-mindedness. Jobs, highways, schools, economic growth—none of these matter if we're willing to sanction murder to get them. Perhaps my mentality is a recipe for political isolation for Christians, for the losing of elections, and maybe even a loss of national greatness. I worry that the alternative, however, is to lose something far greater, which is our ability to discern good from evil, and to act accordingly."

Just something to think about as you head to the polls on Tuesday...