Voting My Religion

As I’ve been seeing more and more posts and advertisements exhorting me to vote according to Biblical, Christian values, I realized that I actually did. More than any prior election, which to me, tend to be secular affairs, this is the election where my Catholic faith is mandating my vote.

I am voting for the candidate who recognizes that humanity is supposed to be the caretaker of the Earth, not its plunderer¹. The one who did not open up vast, unspoiled wilderness to exploitation². Who doesn’t want to despoil the seas with drilling³ and the vast forests with logging⁴ and mining⁵. The one who didn’t remove environmental controls from industry, controls that were set in place⁶ and reinforced⁷ by Nixon and both Bushes, controls that have been a success story in helping make America and the world a better place to live in and driven our economy forward. These were regulations that should have been expanded and enhanced, not actively destroyed, and only one candidate can say that he will enforce them.

I am voting for the one who does not favor the tyrant. If there is an oppressive state who is willing to give our president money and praise, there is nothing he won’t overlook or outright endorse. He ignores the cries of starvation and oppression, of torture and murder, as they lend him money for real estate deals⁸ or to allow him to pretend to still be rich⁹. The Syrian, the Uighur, the Indian Muslim, the Kurd, they are all subhuman to him because of their faith. The Brazilian, the Guatemalan, and even the American, are worthless because they may not speak English at home. What Assad, Putin, Kim, Xi, Erdogan, Bolsonaro, and others do to their own people is of no consequence to him, because those men welcome him into their fold and he strives to emulate them. Turning away from righteousness repeatedly brought doom to the Israelites¹⁰ and has done so for us. One of the primary messages of the story of the Good Samaritan is lost on him — that good people help people in need, regardless of their nation¹¹.

As a nation, our aspiration has been to be the Good Samaritan. We have failed as often as we have succeeded, but it is part of our core identity. We can point to successes like the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, and PEPFAR, and our constant use of our military and logistical might to provide humanitarian aid across the globe as crises arise. This ideal has lead us into some misbegotten and failed attempts in countries like Ethiopia¹², the Carter era¹³, and South America and Afghanistan¹⁴. Even some of our nation’s greatest crimes, such as the ethnic cleansing of American Indians and various eugenics programs, stem from this impetus. The current president has abandoned this ideal in favor of enrichment — insisting that, for example, the military shouldn’t deploy to assist another nation unless they can earn a profit¹⁵.

Jesus sought out and healed the sick. He did not ignore them. He did not rail against them. Above all, He did not deny them treatment in order to aggrandize himself¹⁶. When Jesus healed, he told the patient to be quiet about it. He didn’t stand in front of the people and brag about how wonderful he was. Everyone who came to Him was healed, even the ones who just touched Him, but the president requires praise and supplication before even the smallest modicum of aid can be given. Jesus did not engage in healing in exchange for wealth. Instead, if he has money in it, it is a miracle cure. If he doesn’t, it is fake medicine. The man who strives to heal regardless of wealth and position, not the man who presides over death, is the one who gets my vote.

While one candidate has appointed pro-life judges, he is also the man who has targeted post-natal care, childhood and adult healthcare, and preventative medicine. No federal dollar has gone to pay for an abortion that isn’t medically necessary, and it is likely that none ever will. Even so, organizations that provide for women’s health are constantly the target of his cuts, regardless of the fact that they prevent vastly more unwanted and dangerous pregnancies than they end and keep women and children alive¹⁷.

I am pro-life, and I know that being pro-life does not end at birth. Jesus healed children and the elderly and everyone in between, regardless of their personal power, solely based on their need. We can not, as Christians in general and Catholics in particular, proclaim ourselves to be pro-life unless we also seek healthcare for everyone, not just those who play the president’s games of supplication.

There is no greater exhortation in the Bible than Hillel’s formulation of the Golden Rule, re-expressed by Jesus multiple times. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”¹⁸ Although I regularly disagree with his methods, I can not fault the president’s opponent for striving to follow that edict. He is far from perfect in it, as his endorsement of the 1994 bipartisan crime bill reminds us, but he has, in the main, spent his professional career doing so.

On the other hand, the president has never demonstrated love for another person who isn’t in his family. The most obvious example of this was his violation of our country’s moral, ethical, and legal obligations to refugees¹⁹. Globally, millions are seeking sanctuary, which we can offer them at little cost to us, yet he closes ports of entry to them then denies any other form of entry²⁰. In order to punish them, he set up an intentional policy of imprisoning children and their parents²¹, all legally seeking asylum, separating them, in many cases, forever²³.

This is the sin of Sodom, to turn away the needy and desperate. This is one of the worst sins one can commit in any Abrahamic faith, or, indeed, in most religions around the world. To quote the book of Ezekiel, “‘Now look at the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters were proud, sated with food, complacent in prosperity. They did not give any help to the poor and needy. Instead, they became arrogant and committed abominations before me; then, as you have seen, I removed them.’”²³ And yet, the current president and his administration did this intentionally and joyfully.

The president’s primary opponent was part of an administration that did engage in evil — it deported immigrants more than all presidents in the last century, combined²³, it appeased dictators²⁵²⁶, and it attempted to drill in our oceans²⁷ before granting an extremely last-minute reprieve²⁸. Even at its worst, such as when it continued and covered up torture²⁹ and refused refugees sanctuary³⁰, it was never as foul as the current occupant of the White House. Other people who feel that we have enabled a monster fear that, to vote for his opponent, who can be tarred with being at least complicit in the crimes of the prior president, is just to choose the lesser evil.

Of course, that’s true. However, that is always true. No candidate is perfect, and to vote for someone who has no chance of winning is to say that you are accepting the worst that can come. Sometimes, as it was from 1996, 2000, or 2012, there is so little practical difference that a protest vote is justifiable, or even necessary. That was not the case in 2016, and it is even less so now.

Biden has proven again and again that, for all his faults, he is a devoted family man, a steadfast friend, and an honorable opponent. He doesn’t engage in graft or slander. Unlike his opponent, he doesn’t let hate rule his life. He lives his Catholic faith as best he can. Like Kerry, McCain, and Romney, I don’t just feel like he’s the lesser of two evils, but that he’s the best man running.

I will vote for the man who, although I may disagree with him in many ways, knows that his religion and its holy works are not props to be displayed only in rallies, but in day to day life. I will vote for the one who meets with protestors instead of gassing them³¹. I will vote for the one who does not stand on the steps of a cathedral, glumly holding a Bible which he has never opened³², after ordering people innocent of any crime to be beaten. I will vote for the one who doesn’t declare himself to be a Savior³³ while treating everyone who doesn’t look and act like him as dirt.

The appeal that inspired this essay implied that the person who votes along the lines of Biblical values will vote for Trump. As it turns out, my faith says one thing to me — that, no matter their faults, I must vote for the man who worships something other than himself. I have never before had to worry about that but now, I do. So, yes, I will be voting my religion. I will be voting as the Bible tells me to. Sadly, I have no choice.

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[1] Pope Francis. “Laudato si’”.
[2] National Parks Conservation Association. “The Undoing of Our Public Lands and National Parks”.
[3] Diane Hoskins. “Trump’s Offshore Drilling Plan is a Preventable Disaster”. The Hill.
[4] Eilperin, Juliet and Dawsey, Josh. “Trump Pushes to Allow New Logging in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest”. Washington Post.
[5] Miller, Jeremy. “Trump Seizes on Pandemic to Speed up Opening of Public Lands to Industry”. The Guardian.
[6] Environmental Protection Agency. “The Origins of the EPA”.
[7] Wittenberg, Ariel. “Clean Water Act: How George H.W. Bush (Eventually) Rescued U.S. Wetlands”. E&E News.
[8] Caputo, Marc, McGraw, Meredith, and Kumar, Anita. “Trump Owed Tens of Millions to Bank of China”. Politico.
[9] Stedman, Scott, Levai, Eric, and DeNault, Robert J. “Trump Deutsche Bank Loans Underwritten By Russian State-Owned Bank, Whistleblower Told FBI”. Forensic News.
[10] The books of Judges and Kings and elsewhere. New American Bible, Revised Edition (NABRE).
[11] Luke 10:25–37 NABRE.
[12] Where the Derg used our aid to prop up their communist dictatorship
[13] Especially in South America, Iraq, and Zimbabwe
[14] Succumbing to the trap we always fall for, backing one set of thugs against another.
[15] Wadhams, Nick and Jacobs, Jennifer. “President Trump Reportedly Wants Allies to Pay Full Cost of Hosting U.S. Troops Abroad ‘Plus 50%’”. Time Magazine.
[16] Mackey, Robert. “In Exchange for Aid, Trump Wants Praise From Governors He Can Use in Campaign Ads”. The Intercept.
[17]“Trump Administration Greenlights Massive Cuts to Medicaid”. Planned Parenthood.
[18] Mark 12:31 NABRE.
[19] “How the Trump Administration is eliminating asylum in the U.S.”. Rescue.org
[20]Lind, Dara. “Asylum-Seekers Who Followed Trump Rule Now Don’t Qualify Because of New Trump Rule”. Pro Publica
[21] Rosenstein, Rod. “‘We Need to Take Away Children,’ No Matter How Young, Justice Dept. Officials Said”. New York Times.
[22] Ainsley, Julia and Soboroff, Jacob. “Lawyers say they can’t find the parents of 545 migrant children separated by Trump administration.”. NBC News
[23] Ezekiel 16:49–50 NABRE.
[24] Marshall, Serena. “Obama Has Deported More People Than Any Other President”. ABC News.
[25] Crowley, Michael. “Obama’s Ukraine Policy in Shambles”. Politico.
[26] Greenberg, David. “Syria Will Stain Obama’s Legacy Forever”. Foreign Policy.
[27] Mason, Jeff. Doggett, Tom. “Obama Opens New Oil Drilling Offshore in Climate Drive”. Reuters.
[28] Brady, Jeff. “Obama Administration Issues Offshore Drilling Ban In Arctic And Atlantic”. NPR.
[29] Wang, Marian. “Under Obama Administration, Renditions — and Secrecy Around Them — Continue”. Pro Publica.
[30] Smith. David. “‘We have a moral obligation’: Advocates Look to Obama as Refugee Crisis Wears On”. The Guardian.
[31] Roger, Katie. “Protesters Dispersed With Tear Gas So Trump Could Pose at Church”. New York Times.
[32] Zorn, Eric. “Trump Offers Revealingly Bad Answers About the Good Book”. Chicago Tribune.
[33] Breuninger, Kevin. “‘I am the Chosen One,’ Trump Proclaims as He Defends Trade War With China”. CNBC.