Rev. Gene Nelson, Senior Minister
The Community Church of Sebastopol, United Church of Christ
(this article was printed in the Press Democrat, November 13, 2004
“Morality and the Ballot Box”
For me, the post-election analysis was marked by a fascinating and disturbing development. It was widely reported that one of the chief factors determining the outcome of the election was that people voted their moral values. In fact, in many areas, the issue of moral values was the number one reason people voted for whom they did. And it was widely reported that President Bush was the beneficiary of this trend. He cornered the moral values vote.
What I found fascinating and disturbing in all this was how the phrase “moral values” was defined. As I read papers and watched television, it became clear that morality was rather narrowly defined as anti-same sex marriage and anti-abortion, perhaps with a little anti-terrorism thrown in as a kicker. Somehow this got defined as the moral position of this election. George Bush would protect the moral life of this nation because he was against gay marriage and abortion, and would appoint judges who support his views. I have to hand it to the many voices of the Religious Right. They defined the nature of the moral debate, and made it sound like there was only one true and moral position that a person of faith, particularly a Christian, could take.
Trouble is…I consider myself a Christian. I am the pastor of a Christian church. I try to be a faithful disciple of Jesus of Nazareth. Yet I find myself in sharp disagreement with the Religious Right and George Bush on these issues. Indeed, I even disagree with how they have defined moral values. Based on what I am hearing from these folks, same sex marriage is a moral issue, but pre-emptive war in Iraq is not. Abortion is a moral issue, but the fact that 25.5 million people in this country, many of whom are children, go to bed hungry every night is not. Stem-cell research is a moral issue, but countless families working at minimum wage with no health insurance is not. I find it interesting that Jesus never mentioned homosexuality, but in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, one out of every nine verses is about poverty. I wonder how Jesus would define moral values?
A friend told me that after the election, he saw a map on the internet which showed New York, New England, Canada and the West Coast all in blue. This area was labeled, “The United States of Canada.” I guess Wisconsin and Minnesota could be added. The rest of the United States was all red and was labeled, “Jesus Land.” I laughed when he told me this, but it was a sad laugh. It demonstrates how narrowly religious faith and values have been defined in America, 2004 – cookie-cutter Christians all voting the same way.
The night of the election I was at a dinner with a number of Catholic priests from the Diocese of Santa Rosa. They shared with me their dismay over the Vatican position, and position of many bishops, that Catholic politicians who were pro-choice, i.e. John Kerry, should be denied communion. Bishop Walsh had actually refused to support the Vatican line on this issue. Together we talked about voting and moral issues and as Catholics and Protestants agreed that we had voted our moral issues that day: we voted for peace, for health care, for the environment, for fair taxation, for civil rights and due process. For us, these were deep and abiding moral issues, issues just as significant as gay marriage, if not more so. We did not necessarily agree on all these issues, but we did agree that the Christian Right’s definition of morality and moral issues is far too narrow and exclusive. When did moral values become all about people’s sex lives, to the exclusion of anything else?
During this election, many religious voices defined same-sex marriage as a “nonnegotiable moral issue.” In response, John Buchanan, a Presbyterian minister who is also editor/publisher of Christian Century Magazine wrote, “In this plentiful land there are 36 million who are poor, 45 million are without health insurance. There are 7500 homeless children in the Chicago public school system. The average age of a homeless person in Chicago is nine. How about making poverty the nonnegotiable issue for religious people? How about making the lives of those hungry, homeless children without health care the moral issue that outweighs every other issue?” As a Christian, a follower of Jesus, I believe he would ask the same questions.
Please don’t be deceived. The bluster, anger and often mean-spiritedness of the Religious Right is not the only Christian voice on moral values. They voted their values; I voted mine. The insistence that there is only one, true, moral, and Christian position can only weaken and divide us. The acknowledgement that people of faith and conscience can come to different conclusions on a wide variety of moral issues may be all that saves us.
(this article was printed in the Press Democrat, November 13, 2004
