The pastor of my church recommended "voting our conscience," a small part of the message included a part indicating and backing it up by some bishops recomentation, (I no longer have the bulletin) that voting for a canditate who was pro-choice would not necessarily in itself be sinful unless--- you voted for him specifically because he was pro-choice. I seem to have heard this idea before. Does it hold water? Or is it just everyone's different opinion?

Have I misunderstood? Just need to kick this dead horse one more time.

This is where the instruction of voting ones conscience seems to (on the serface) keep us from making a vote into a mortal sin.

-- Jim (furst@flash.net), November 03, 2004

Answers

The Bump

-- bumpy (furst@flash.net), November 03, 2004.

What do you think? You are probably correct...

Regarding voting for a pro-abortion candidate is ok IF you are not voting for that specific reason... -- RELATIVE MORALISM!

In my opinion, and in my experience, when one has a well formed conscience and in conscience one feels an act to be sinful -it probably is... Additionally, there may be exceptions; however, one must not lose sight of the fact that exceptions are an exceptional minoirity and not the norm...

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), November 03, 2004.

Jim,

Excomunicated John Kerry made it very clear he would never appoint a pro life Judge to the Bench.

Yes, you misunderstood if you voted for him.

Your pastor and Cardinal Keeler can't back it up by a "bishops recomentation".

Thats like a Bishop saying you can marry a Lady in the Courthouse, as long as she doesn't know better. This is B.[?]. because you know this is a mortal sin.

The 20 years away from the Church has taken its toll. Pray for the unborn Jimmy.

Holy innocents pray for us.

-- - (David@excite.com), November 03, 2004.

what a ridiculous idea. thats like saying, if you get drunk and drive, then accidently kill someone, its not wrong because you were only intending to drive, not to kill.

the only way voting for a pro-choice candidate would not be a sin would be if you didnt know they were pro-choice. choosing to ignore certain moral criterion of which you are knowledgable is no excuse to violate the moral right.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), November 03, 2004.

Thank You for all of your answers so far. I look forward to any other comments.

I wrote my take on a statement/ recommendation in a Church Bulletin. Thats what was written,--- can't say anything more about it than that.

David, I knew it was a touchy subject as your reply (which gets a bit personal,) prooves.

I may have been away for 20 years but your assumptions are presumptions. You know nothing about my voting record, or how I've behaved during my sojourn into agnosticism.

I will also pray for all the unborn Davies as well. Hope they come to this world with a bit more tact, less presumption and a little kindness.

David also forgive my own nastiness above as its been a rough week for most everyone in my family, but these are not your problems. I try not to take that kind of tone with anyone, but since I'm ticked, I'll let it stand with my apologies which I hope you'll accept.

-- Jim (furst@flash.net), November 03, 2004.

In my district the 100% pro life candidates received four write in votes. My family and myself. We were told that we were the only write in folks for that whole day. So we won... at least on moral values.

-- Best shot (Gods babies@Heavens gate.com), November 03, 2004.

Being pro-choice is not Kerry's only sin; por-homosexual marriage, he is for cloning and EMBRYONIC stemcell research (Most people don't add the word embryonic and I am not against adult or stemcell research from the umbilical cord.), and euthanasia. He also lies and can'd keep his stories straight. I remember as a kid I lied about going to a friend's house to spend the night and I really went to a party in Memphis. My parents found out and asked if I had fun a Shelly's house. "Oh yeah! We had alot of fun!" I said. To make a long story short one lie turned into another and they already knew the truth and wanted to see how far I'd go and the lies just kept growing anf growing and never were the same. I was had! It's the same with Kerry. He sais one thing today and another tomorrow, he is for alot of extremely unmoral things. Morality was my first reason for not voting for him, but the fact that I couldn't trust him or just didn't know what his plans were in some instances clenched it for me. So what if BOTH candidates are for some of these immoral policies? Well I was told you have to study both of them and their voting records and try to decide who will do the less damage (lesser of the two evils) and vote for that one, or not vote at all. President Bush isn't a perfect man by no means. Who of us are perfect people? But Mr. Bush proclaims his faith proudly and truthfully and from what I have learned about him he is a moral person and he trys very hard. Have a good day and remember, even if you didn't vote for President Bush, he still needs your prayers everyday.

Thanks and glory be to God!

-- Suzanne (james-betsy@sbcglobal.net), November 04, 2004.

Suzanne,

I agree with everything you said, except one small point. When faced with two immoral or "less than completely morally acceptable" alternatives, and no viable morally acceptable alternative exists, then we are, as you said, morally bound to choose the lesser of two evils. Personally, I don't think that "not voting at all" is an acceptable option. We must CHOOSE the lesser of two evils, and REJECT the greater of two evils, not just get out of the way so others can choose the greater evil. If we don't take direct action against the greater of two evils by choosing the lesser, and the greater of two evils subsequently becomes a reality, then we have been "complicit by omission" in creating that reality, in my opinion.

Some would take the position that they can avoid voting for either evil, by voting for some other candidate whose views are closer to their own. I don't think that position is valid. When only two candidates have any possibility of winning, voting for a third candidate is essentially equivalent to not voting at all. In effect, it is supporting the least acceptable candidate, by failing to take any real action against him.

-- Paul M. (PaulCyp@cox.net), November 04, 2004.

Paul, I understand and I agree. That thought had crossed my mind after I posted what I said. Thank you for pointing it out to me.

Thanks and glory be to God !

-- Suzanne (james-betsy@sbcglobal.net), November 04, 2004.

Now that your election is over, the time is NOW to get rid of this terrible dilemma by introducing preferential voting, so you can vote for the BEST candidate while knowing that if he doesn't get enough votes your vote will go to your NEXT best choice, right down to choosing your preferred candidate out of the last remaining two. See e.g. http://www.braindoll.net/vote/

It has always amazed me that the country that put men on the moon and claims to lead the democratic world can't seem to rid itself of a semi-democratic system dating from the 18th century. (and I won't even mention the US's "hanging chads", optional voting, its making voting a huge inconvenience for working people, corporate-funded campaigns, electoral system controlled by partisan governments and judges, etc.)

-- Peter K (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), November 04, 2004.

peter k,

perhaps you havent noticed, but america is the longest surviving democratic republic EVER in the existance of the world. America is STILL unique in the world in its system of governance. A very INTEGRAL part of what makes america strong and stable is the electoral college voting process. This process also serves to protect the two party system of government, a system which more or less renders moot your proposed idea of preferential voting. While the two party system isnt always great, because very few are going to agree 100% with everything one party says, it allows for faster more productive legislation to occur. While italy was dealing with social strife because of its MANY political parties, america was growing stronger economically because it had unity of purpose under a majority party, something which is rare in a multiple party system.

-- paul h (dontSendMeMail@notAnAddress.com), November 05, 2004.

Paul, you’re confusing preferential voting (as I described above) with PROPORTIONAL voting (as in Italy and Israel) where every party has a “list” of candidates and each party gets the same proportion of parliamentary seats as their proportion of votes, leading to multiparty parliaments.

PREFERENTIAL or “single transferable vote” voting (as in Australia) does not effect the dominance of two major parties. In fact even in our Senate, which IS elected by proportional (as well as preferential) voting, the government coalition has just gained an absolute majority.

It’s odd that you defend the two-party system, since the parties in the USA have far less “party discipline” than in other countries and individual politicians in the US far more often vote against the “party line” without being kicked out of the party. So the major parties in the US are in effect “coalitions” of different groups, so there is little difference from the multiparty parliaments in proportional vote countries.

Italy’s many political parties do not CAUSE social strife, they are probably an outlet for PREVENTING social strife. Italy has far less social strife than the USA, and its economy is growing faster than the USA too.

The electoral college is a very good system for a country like the USA. Preferential voting would have no effect on this. Neither would proportional voting for that matter. Nor would either of them be able to prevent the president eventually being chosen from between the candiadates of the two major parties.

“perhaps you havent noticed, but america is the longest surviving democratic republic EVER in the existance of the world.”

Perhaps you haven’t noticed that San Marino has been a democratic republic for 1600 years, or that the Roman Republic lasted for 500 years and the Venetian Republic for even longer. Or that the USA’s politicians weren’t fully democratically elected, even IN THEORY, until well into the 20th century.

Let’s see, apart from the abuses I mentioned in the US voting system, which country do you think had the world’s first:-

secret ballot in elections (1856)

maximum 3 year terms of governments (1860s)

payment of members of parliament (1880s, allowing those who have to work for a living to stand for election)

election polling days on a non-working day (Saturday) to enable ordinary working people to vote

women allowed to vote and stand for election (1894, temporarily 1863) democratic popular referendum required to change constitution (1901)

both houses of parliament entirely democratically elected by universal male suffrage (1901) and universal adult suffrage (1903)

preferential voting 1916

compulsory voting 1923

pre-poll, postal and absentee voting

official notice required to be sent to all voters of the arguments for AND against each referendum proposal

radio and TV stations required to allocate political advertising time to all candidates and parties in proportion to their previous voter support

national proportional representation (1947 for Senate)

legislation requiring number of voters in each electorate to be as equal as possible. (1975)

public reimbursement of candidates and parties for campaign costs, and first to require publication of details of all large donations to candidates and parties (1980s, both reducing potential for the rich to “buy” election or policies)

all elections (federal, state and union) conducted by an independent commission.

Yes, that’s right, the first country to have actually been CREATED by a democratic popular vote (1899), AUSTRALIA.

Most of the world’s other “democracies” still do not have most of these features.

-- Peter K (ronkpken@yahoo.com.au), December 03, 2004.

Peter,

There is an extreme possibility that the electorate may prefer the way things are and may keep them as mandated.

-- Daniel Hawkenberry (dlm@catholic.org), December 03, 2004.

If candidates for high office, such as president or senator get that far it is most likely that they are in the pockets of powerful interests. So whoever you vote for is not looking out for you.

-- Montgomery (Monty12@aol.com), December 03, 2004.