Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President
Mark
Earley.
------
Believe it or not, a week before the election, millions of Americans,
including some "BreakPoint" readers, are still undecided. Neither Chuck
nor I would presume to tell you for whom you should vote. However, we
would like to suggest what issues should guide your decision-making and
which of these issues are most important.
One of the issues that should play a major role in
every American voter's decision is the war on terrorism.
We also believe that improving education for all children is a vital
concern. Indeed, our concern for the vulnerable extends beyond children
to all those who are marginalized. For Christians, caring for the poor
and for prisoners isn't an option: It's a commandment. That's why
promoting faith-based solutions is so important.
And anyone who has listened to or read "BreakPoint" knows about our
concern for the effects of mass media on our culture and families. In
addition to what they see on television and at the movies, Americans
have made pornography a $10 billion-dollar-a-year industry. We have
scarcely begun to understand the effects this kind of media will have
on all of us.
The ongoing litigation against our own InnerChange Freedom Initiative?
and the news out of places like the Sudan are reminders of the
importance of religious freedom. And then there's the question of
judges short-circuiting the democratic process and imposing things like
abortion-on-demand and same-sex "marriage" on the American people.
This last issue brings me to the two issues that I believe are central
for Christian voters: the sanctity of human life and defending
traditional marriage. While every one of the issues I've mentioned are
important, they are not equally important. As the editors of Touchstone
magazine write in this month's issue, there is a clear hierarchy among
these issues.
Experience tells us that "no candidate is better on all these issues."
It also tells us that in the case of issues like education or helping
the poor, what separates candidates is often a question of means, not
ends. They all agree they're important, but it's a question of how to
reach the desired goal.
But the same cannot be said about the sanctity of life and the sanctity
of marriage. A candidate is either committed to protecting human life
from conception to natural death, or he is not. He is either prepared
to defend the traditional family, or he is not. What's more, with these
issues, it's easier to look beyond the rhetoric. Their voting
records-their records in office-tell us what they think in a way that
isn't true about many of these other issues.
Even if this weren't the case, the fact remains that, as Touchstone
reminds us, these issues are "timeless and foundational" in a way that
the others aren't. Our beliefs about the sanctity of human life will
shape our beliefs and actions in nearly every other area of life. If we
allow the traditional family to be deconstructed into irrelevance, then
no amount of tinkering with education and the media will ever make a
real difference.
Over the course of this week, Chuck and I will be discussing what you
should keep in mind when you enter the voting booth. As I said earlier,
we don't presume to tell you for whom to vote but, rather, to encourage
you to vote in a way that reflects what we know to be most important.
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