You need to justify that position better, I don’t think it washes. When you decide who to vote for you don’t just make your decision in total isolation with only the state position on the issues to consider. You consider the candidate’s background, record, and likelihood of adhering to their stated position. You in effect try to predict the future and vote accordingly. If I had a choice between two candidates that were otherwise comparable other than one subscribes to fundamental branch of the same religion, I’d vote for the moderate one. I’m not bigoted, I’m voting according to who is more likely to represent my wishes in keeping policy and religion separate. More importantly, in an election with multiple acceptable, if not ideal candidates, an adherence to a religious doctrine i find particularly odious is all I need to know. I have better options.
I can see your arguement, but I’m not sure I buy it. Are religious voters bigots when they don’t vote for atheists? There are very few fundamentalist Christians who are going to make funding the National Science Foundation and strengthening the wall between Church and State their top priorities, so until I hear them espousing these unusual views, it’s reasonable to think that their priorities are different from mine.
The point I’m trying to make is this: It would be bigoted to say ‘I’ll never vote for a black’. It may be bigoted to say ‘I’ll never vote for a Catholic’. Is it bigoted to say 'I’ll probably never vote for a Buddhist, because I think people who buy into Buddhism are too woowoo and open-minded to point of being totally indecisive"?
Why not the one with more experience? Why not the one with the strongest firmness of character? For example you would vote for a candidate who resembles in character that of John F Kennedy rather than William Gladstone if otherwise their political views are more or less the same?
That is considering the issues. Of course candidates with certain religious views are more or less likely to lean toward certain political viewpoints on certain issues, but in that case one must consider the issues not just what they believe.
What if the candidate’s record for instance proves that he isn’t indecisive. Of course if the record bears out for instance that a Hindu candidate is a rigid believer in the caste system one would not be justified in voting for him due to his support of a class system.
So at what point can I use factors beyond the candidates website, voting record and official statements to make decisions about the candidate? If I’m a gay atheist, and I examine 100 born again politicians and reject them for their voting records and stands on gay rights and separation of church and state, do I really have to investigate number 101?
When can I start generalizing that born-again politicians are not going to support my views?
For that matter, by your logic, Weiner sending weiner pictures shouldn’t alter his constituents support for him, nor should John Edward’s callous behavior change his support - they’ve nothing to do with how the politician is voting.
Doesn’t that cut both ways? Presume that, as a woman, a woman is going to understand your plight. If it’s wrong to vote against someone for a certain reason, is it wrong to vote for someone for a certain reason?
Also, denying either one of those is pretty naive. That’s reality. That’s how people operate in society. You (a non-specific one) don’t have to like it, but you do have to work within it, and work to shift those paradigms by promoting and working with/for skilled folks that can shift the consensus.
UncleRojelio: To me, you’re guilty of the same. You’re destined to be disillusioned and unhappy because it’s simply not possible, again, unless you find a way to change almost quite literally everything.
I think the point that most people are getting at here is that there is a set of people whose religious views are indistinguishable from their political views. Some of these people say outright that their political views are wholly determined by their religious views. If a voter clearly disagrees with the stated politico-religious views, it’s absurd to ask or expect them to consider supporting that candidate.
Alternatively, people who claim to hold strong religious views truly separate from their political views strike me as some stripe of hypocrite or liar, and that’s a fine reason to not support them, too.
I think it’s fine to support, or not, a candidate based on any of their expressed beliefs or actions, regardless of whether these are strictly “political” or not. Religion is not like ethnicity or gender or sexuality.
Not if the religious belief includes the conviction that the relgion, and only the religion, is true and moral and the right way for people to live.
I will not vote for evangelicans christian not because they are christian, but because the positions that my country is a christian nation, homosexuals should be denied common legal rights, and that personhood begins at the fertilization of an egg.
I probably wouldn’t vote for persons of any religion that were agressively trying to take over my country.
“…or faction”? Well, of course.
Generally speaking, nativists piss me off. And there are so many nativists Italian-Americans in US politics that I’ve become leery of Italian-Americans in politics.
I’m not certain I can accurately contrast so disparate characters. Instead, let’s just work with a simple hypothetical, it’s easier to isolate the issue being discussed.
John A. is the first major candidate. He is an active member of a relatively conservative christian faith, let us say…southern baptist. His political views are what you would expect from such a man, but he is careful to keep a strong degree o separation between his private life and his policy making.
Bob B. is the next. Also a conservative christian and a southern baptist of an extreme branch, he allows his faith to shape his policy making far more than John.
Dan C. Is a member of a off shoot branch that encourages dominionist beliefs. Adhering strongly to his faith, he believes that it is only through a literal interpretation of biblical law that we can advance as a country.
They all have similar records, experience, etc…
Now assume that I was given a ballot with nothing more than a name and faith listed. I am assured though whatever means necessary to convince me that their other qualifications are comparable enough to be irrelevant.
Given nothing more than their faith to base my decision on, I would immediately exclude Dan as his faith is synonymous with his political strategy. Knowing that Dan will be naturally be at odds with all things I hold to be sane, rational, and good for society I could exclude him immediately. In Dan’s case, his faith tells me everything I need to know about him in terms of voting. He might well be a lovely, rational person, but experience tells me that the likelihood of this is minute. The cognitive dissonance requires is beyond belief.
Bob would also likely get the ax from me, as my experiences in dealing with people from more extreme branches of protestantism have not been very positive.
John would win my vote here, though I wouldn’t be very happy about it. He is likely not to share my views though his relatively mainstream faith would encourage me far more than the other two.
Back to no Reagan again.
Yes you can.
I lived in the past and didn’t vote for Reagan because I judged him to be a hypocrite. I didn’t vote for Carter because I judged me to be weak.
Re post number 53, I did not vote for Carter because I judged him to be weak; I didn’t judge me to be weak in spite of what I said.
And I need to add another couple to my list:
I would not vote for anyone who opposed a woman’s right to have an abortion.
I would not vote for anyone who opposed public health care for the poor or elderly.
Depends on whether they’re sorry or not.
Most of the things you mentioned (ie rights for homosexuals) are political issues.
Those are political issues.
I’m too young to have voted back then, but I have no difficulty saying I certainly wouldn’t have voted for Reagan.
The phrasing “just because of what they are” in the OP is unclear and misleading. Mitt Romney is not a Mormon because “it’s just what he is,” as if he was created in a laboratory and permanently locked into one set of values and beliefs for the rest of his life. His religion is something he chooses to practice. This is true of anyone who follows a religion in this day and age. I don’t think it applies to people born in the 1400s or something when their religion was the only religion they knew - but it is certainly true nowadays. You choose to be who you are.
When Qin Shi Huangdi says “what they are,” it seems to me he is implying that your religion is something immutable and predetermined, like the color of your skin. This is not the case.
True, but when you have a politician who takes his positions on those issues specifically from his religious beliefs, the two are not as easily or neatly separated as you seem to want them to be.
A Christian. I’m 25 and have yet to vote, haha.
Quin:
When did political issues get banned as reasons not to vote for someone because of what they are?
This thread seems to me to contain a bunch of political issues.
I’m baffled.