An (American) political rant
I have lots of thoughts swirling around my mind following a week of political overload since the start of the Democratic convention in Denver last week, continuing right through to the shock announcement of Sarah Palin as the Republican vice presidential nominee.
It’s all been filling the news columns stateside and here in the UK too. It’s hard to get away from it all. Thankfully, that’s just fine for me. Apologies to those of you who try to avoid politics like you do that crazy uncle who’s always there at the big family gathering.
I have to say, the whole Sarah Palin thing has been very strange. To be honest, it feels more like a movie than reality. I’m not quite sure how I see it panning out. She is a complete unknown. And despite what the McCain team say, it’s abundantly clear she was not nearly as fully vetted as Joe Biden was by the Obama team.
Story after story is emerging that I just can’t see helping the Republicans. Hearing a Republican defend her foreign policy experience as being fine because ‘Alaska is near Russia’ was just laughable.
I could well be wrong (I seem to remember that happening once before in 2002 I think), but it strikes me that McCain’s pick of Palin reeks of two things:
1) Throwing a bone to the religious conservatives.
2) Trying to get Hillary’s women supporters on board.
Both of these I find very frustrating. As a Christ-follower myself, I hate the way it feels like so many Christians are being used by the Republican party. Christians on the far right seem to have allowed themselves to be defined by two issues - abortion and homosexuality. And these two issues have become the litmus test and everything else is less significant.
I think this is terrible. I happen to think that things like abortion are important issues. I definitely want to see as few abortions happening as possible (without making abortion illegal). I definitely think that a baby in a womb is a genuine life. This has been made all the more real with my wife, Rachel, being 17 weeks pregnant. However I don’t think this issue is the be all and end all. What about those in poverty? Isn’t that a moral issue? And how about healthcare? Should people be left without cover because they can’t afford it?
These are just two issues, but there are countless others, and I think these too are moral issues the same way abortion and homosexuality are. I hate the idea that Christians are being thrown the bones of comforting views on abortion and homosexuality and then turning a blind eye to all other issues.
As to the Palin pick being also about trying to get Hillary Clinton supporting women on board, I think this is just insulting! It assumes that women were only supporting Hillary because she was a woman and not because they have strong political views. I’m not a woman, but if that was remotely behind the move to pick Palin, I’d be very offended.
I’ve been alarmed at how suddenly the Christian right is now fully jumping on board because of the Palin VP pick. And I’m alarmed at the hypocrisy of some of those representing the Christian right. If Obama had a 17 year old daughter who was pregnant, would this have been James Dobson’s response: “The media is already trying to spin this as evidence that Governor Palin is a hypocrite, but all it really means is that she and her family are human.”? I suspect if this was a Democrat, he’d have been far less gracious. And that’s putting it mildly.
(Having said that, I don’t think that someone’s child should be part of the political debate at all. I’m glad to say Obama came straight out and said this was off-limits.)
A few disclaimers. As those of you who reguarly read my blog know, I’m hoping Obama wins the Presidential election in November. I think his policies are much better than McCain’s and will move America forward far better than McCain could. (Note, I don’t think he’s right on everything by any stretch, just a better option the McCain. I may post on my issues with Obama soon.) At the same time, I don’t begrudge anyone disagreeing with me. There are many good people who will choose to vote for McCain, and that’s fine. My only hope is that it’ll be for comprehensive and all-encompassing policy reasons and not petty ones.
Though I realise my comments are pretty hard-hitting on the Christian right, I am not suggesting every Christian who votes for McCain is a two-issue voter. Just my frustration that that does appear to be the case with a big proportion on the Christian right.
Ok, I’m done.
Tags: Politics, US Elections
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