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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38001-2004Nov9.html?referrer%3Demailarticle&sub=AR
Alan Cooperman, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, November 10, 2004; Page A07
Liberal Christian leaders argued yesterday that the moral values held by most Americans are much broader than the handful of issues emphasized by religious conservatives in the 2004 presidential campaign.
Battling the notion that “values voters” swept President Bush to victory because of opposition to gay marriage and abortion, three liberal groups released a post-election poll in which 33 percent of voters said the nation’s most urgent moral problem was “greed and materialism” and 31 percent said it was “poverty and economic justice.” Sixteen percent cited abortion, and 12 percent named same-sex marriage.
But the religious leaders acknowledged that the Christian right had reached more voters than the Christian left. Some said it was time for “moderate and progressive” religious groups, as well as the Democratic Party, to rethink their positions.
“One of the things a few of us are talking about is a reassessment of how the Democrats deal with an issue like abortion — could there be a more moderate ground, where even if they retained their pro-choice stance, they talked about uniting pro-choice people together to actually do something about the abortion rate?” said Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal evangelical journal Sojourners.
If the Democratic Party were to “welcome pro-life Democrats, Catholics and evangelicals and have a serious conversation with them” about ways to reduce teenage pregnancy, facilitate adoptions and improve conditions for low-income women, it would “work wonders” among centrist evangelicals and Catholics, Wallis said.
Read the entire article on the Washington Post website.
33 percent of voters said the nation’s most urgent moral problem was “greed and materialism”
Greed and materialism is probably at the root of why some people have abortions. I have often wondered why televangelists attack abortion but not greed and materialism. Perhaps it has something to do with an interest in TV ratings, which is a form of greed and materialism. If televangelism promotes greed and materialism, then perhaps it is actually contributing to the problem of abortion.
Luke 18:9-14: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself: God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalts himself shall be abased; and he that humbles himself shall be exalted.
I shake my head in disbelief when I hear conservative commentators accuse Democrats of being “elitist”. What is more elitist than declaring that someone who votes for your candidate is “moral” and someone who votes for the other candidate is “immoral” How can you show any greater disdain for another human being than to declare that those that voted for the way you did are “saved” and those who voted for the other guy are damned to hellfire for eternity?
It seems to me that the Republicans in the last election behaved more like the Pharisee in the parable, as they trumpeted their own moral superiority. John Kerry, who declared that he couldn’t say that God was on his side but only humbly prayed that he was on God?s side seems more to me like the person in the parable that Christ approved of.
I’m proud that the Democratic party did not need to stoop to homophobic bigoty, hate-mongering and moral posturing to capture votes, but attempted to appeal to voters based on solid policy proposals and an examination of the record of the incumbent.
While abortion is in many ways an ideological inconsistency of the left’s, capital punishment is one of the right’s. More details here regarding Bush’s refusal to deny clemency to a 33-year-old man “with the communication skills of a seven-year-old”.
We cannot care more for the life of the murderer than for the unborn. At the same time, we cannot say we “value life” only of the unborn while utilizing the death penalty in such an indiscriminate manner and maintaining that God alone has the authority to determine when life ends with any conviction.