the debate tonight.
I am really looking forward to the debate tonight. At this point, I have no idea how I will vote in November so I’m hoping tonight will push me closer to a decision. I haven’t completely ruled out voting for either McCain or Obama, and I am still considering third-party.
A lot of people have made the comment that voting third party is wasting your vote. I completely disagree. Obviously, a third-party candidate won’t win this election, but voting third-party is valuable because if enough people do it, it sends a big message and maybe a couple of elections from now, I would be watching a debate between three or four people instead of two.
I wish I had someone to talk to who was similar to me. I am a Christian moderate who is not committed to a political party. I would love to dialogue with some people about this if they are similar.
September 26th, 2008 at 6:41 pm
me! me! over here! christian undecided moderate female!
September 30th, 2008 at 8:25 am
Wooooooo! I’m not alone!
— jen.
September 30th, 2008 at 7:44 pm
I’m a Christian, and I’m voting for Obama. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I agree with his desire to get out of Iraq and provide everyone with healthcare. I feel more passionately about this election than I did about the last, it seems. I’ve decided that, if McCain wins, i’m moving to Canada.
October 1st, 2008 at 5:06 am
That’s cool Sarah! About a month ago, I took some time to really read up on Obama and McCain and I made a chart with the issues to see who I agreed with most. I agreed with Obama on more things.
What’s holding me back is the abortion issue. It’s important to me and I have a hard time voting for someone who is pro-choice. But then, we have had a pro-life president for 8 years, and abortion is still legal. So I am cautious to vote for McCain – a candidate that I agree with on less things, but who I agree with on the abortion issue, if nothing is going to change.
At this point, I am really leaning towards third party. But we’ll see!
— jen.
p.s. do you feel judged by other Christians for voting for Obama?
October 1st, 2008 at 7:43 pm
Yeah, a little…but I judge them for voting for McCain.
Some of my Christian friends (and my parents, both of whom are ordained Christian pastors) are voting for Obama, so I know I’m not alone.
I think it’s tough to decide whether to vote on quantity (like, the amount of issues you have in common with Obama) or whether to vote on what you’re most poassionate about (and I can tell you’re very passionate about children who don’t have parents). In a related note, I would like to know how many abortions were performed in the past five years, and how many Iraqi citizens (including children and babies) and Afghani citizens and American soldiers were killed in these wars. It would be interesting to compare the numbers…. I have a feeling the civilian deaths in Iraq are over 50,000, but no one ever talks about it.
Can an unborn baby feel pain, I wonder? Because we know that the children and babies dying in these wars can feel pain, as can all the adults. I do wonder about whether unborn babies can feel pain….
Okay…just did a little research…and one report found over 100,000 violent deaths of Iraqi civilians since “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
Sorry for the depressing comment.
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:15 am
100,000 violent deaths. Wow. That’s really sad. I wonder how many Americans know that? You are right… nobody ever talks about it.
I don’t know if unborn babies feel pain. I googled it. Pro-life camps say “yes”. Pro-choice camps say “no”. Articles I read in BBC News and New York Times say they scientists don’t think unborn babies feel pain. But then I watched a documentary video on youtube called “the silent scream” that showed an ultrasound while the baby waas being aborted… I thought it was horrifying and it seemed to me that the baby was feeling pain.
I read that 20-30 million legal abortions are performed worldwide each year. I don’t know if this is an accurate figure.
One thing that makes me sad and dissapointed is that so many Christian pro-lifers are so extremely passionate about being pro-life and saving these babies, but how many of them will adopt a child or even be a foster parent? Not many. Shouldn’t they be a part of the solution?
— jen.
October 2nd, 2008 at 1:55 pm
i agree with your last comment about pro-lifers having a big voice but not so much follow-through. something i am happy to be involved in is here at the missions base in which i work: we stand unswervingly for life and are actually doing something about it. there are a growing number of families here which are adopting babies, especially those with special needs and emergency choice-to-adopt-or-abort babies. you can read up about these families by a decent blog trail, with the most current adoption (to my knowledge) at randy bohlender’s blog (you can google his name; i think comments get blocked for having links in them sometimes, so i won’t link). other families are the john louxes, the derek louxes, and the chuck koths (no blog for the koths, but pictures on the second loux family’s blog).
my husband and i got married in may and are happily pregnant now, as are most of the couples who get married here at the house of prayer in kansas city. we are striving to counteract that notion that pro-lifers do nothing with their hands and homes, only with their votes and mouths. when we have established enough of a home to be approved during a home study, darin and i would love to adopt children–as many as we can take! we are also supporting orphans financially, which is an area that God has highlighted to our hearts in dealing with families on the earth (and children who no longer have them).
i am personally unable to vote for a political candidate that does not stand for life. that may make me a point of scrutiny, adding to that my gender (female), age (a twenty-something) and religious choices (Christian), but there has been no other thing that my heart has been so awakened to over the last decade. foreign policy is helpful, yes, but if our own government does not love life, then what good is it? we have trash bins full of baby parts and our widows and orphans are not looked after because it is not convenient for us to raise children or give attention to special needs.
i have a life growing inside of me right now. it is barely the size of a peanut at the moment, but it is very much alive. i am not typically concerned with it feeling pain. i cannot rationally trouble myself with what it feels and does not feel; i have no way of knowing. but i can rationally concern myself with it being alive. i take lots of care to mind what i put into my body and am increasingly mindful for signs of complications in my pregnancy. there is a human, however small, being formed in my womb. it is not “coming to life”; it is very much alive.
perhaps i am biased because of my current state or because i am on staff at an actively pro-life missions base. i’ll give you that. but politically, i cannot support a man who is not against abortion. it IS a critical matter. it IS a deciding point in this election. it IS a matter that has been burning on my heart well before i became a wife and a mother. LIFE is an issue worth staring at. the lives of those soldiers in the Middle East are just as important to me. i would not be so bold as to vote for a man who would completely disregard what they died for just to satisfy a people who are bloodthirsty one way or another (if it’s not Iraq or Afghanistan, it will be somewhere else… history makes this increasingly clear, as does the entertainment business, which pumps out movies and video games about wars and threats of war on a frighteningly steady basis).
though the past eight years of having a pro-life president has not produced a full-on ban, bush has tried a number of times to change the legality of abortion. a simple search on google with “bush abortion legislation” ought to provide facts for that. in dealing with a divided house and senate on the issue, rarely anything controversial can make it through to completion (this is clear even now in the news concerning the financial crisis). i don’t agree with everything that our president does or has done, but i feel like he has done what he could for LIFE in this country.
you are asking good questions, and you should be. and you are looking at things from a reasonable perspective. i have growing respect for you because of that. keep struggling with the issues that are close to your heart. find things you can’t bend on, and don’t bend. we’re too bendy in this country… it’s not a good thing. it gets us into trouble.
i’d be happy to dialogue with you further if you wish. it’s not my job to change your vote, and i wouldn’t want that job if it even existed. it’s a privilege of being an american, you can vote however YOU choose. i hope what i have said has sparked more interest for you to keep seeking, keep searching out truth, and keep digging for answers. it’s a worthy investment of time.
peace to you.
October 7th, 2008 at 5:46 am
Kacie –
Thank you so much for your comment. You put your thoughts so eloquently.. something that is hard for me to do. You have made me re-think my position that abortion doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker. I have a lot to think about this election! I also checked out your blog… so cool! I will definitly be reading it… (subscribed today in my google reader). Thank so much for stopping by!
— jen.