Who Should I Vote For President

President's faith should not matter

Now, some of those numbers are a lot better: according to the study: "in 1959, the year before John F. Kennedy won election as the nation's first Catholic president, 25% of Americans -- including 22% of Democrats, 33% of Republicans, and 18% of independents -- said they would not vote for a Catholic."

Still, the question I have is: who cares? Who cares about the religion or faith tradition of a particular Presidential candidate?

During the 2008 election, a widely used "smear" against President Obama was that he was a "secret Muslim." It was so pervasive that the Obama campaign was compelled to debunk that rumor by insisting that he was a committed Christian (for which he was also taken to task because of his former pastor).

Jon Huntsman has seen it fit to distance himself from his Mormon faith, seeing that it may not be very popular among Republican primary voters.

Yet, again, who cares? Why is the faith of the candidate even important?

Of course, many people's faith and faith traditions shape their philosophies and worldviews, and there is nothing wrong with that. Most faith traditions have very good principles and values, and thus being shaped by one faith or another should not be a problem.

The criterion by which someone vying for public office should be judged is how well he or she will do the job they are elected to do, not the particular faith tradition they happen to follow, and that includes no faith tradition at all.

It is completely immaterial that Chicago's mayor, Rahm Emanuel, is Jewish; what matters is how well he serves the City and her people.

If a Muslim ever were to run for president, his or her faith should not matter at all, and it is wrong to "smear" someone - like President Obama - with the rumor that he is a Muslim or any other faith tradition.

The framers of our Constitution separated church and state for a good reason, and someone's faith should not be part of the calculus of what makes an "acceptable" candidate for public office. That is what makes our country as great as it is.

Which political party should Christians vote for? « Wintery Knight

A “who’s who” of Leftist, humanist, abortion and gay organizations submitted a stern letter to President Obama on Tuesday, demanding that he rescind part of the 2002 Executive Order protecting religious hiring rights.

More specifically, the coalition wants Obama to prohibit contractors who do business with the government from using religious-based hiring criteria.

The letter, signed by 52 organizations, comes days before the 70thanniversary of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Executive Order that barred discrimination by federal contractors. His directive was then codified into law in Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibited employers from hiring and firing based on religious beliefs. In 1972, it was slightly amended to exempt churches and religious associations.

The timing of the letter also coincides with the federal government’s stepped-up efforts to codify into law special protections for gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and transgender people.

Bruce Hausknecht, judicial analyst for CitizenLink, noted the biased news coverage of the weighty issue. “The liberal news media has given Americans the impression that faith-based charitable groups are pushing to rescind these protections,” Hausknecht said. “Not true. A closer look at the list of cosigners reveals the true motive: to silence people of faith and push them out of the public square.”

Cosigners include: American Civil Liberties Union, Americans for the Separation of Church and State, Catholics for Choice, Center for American Progress Action Fund, Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders, National Education Association, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, National Organization for Women, People for the American Way, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice and the Transgender Law Center.

When you elect a Democrat, you’re electing someone who wants to use the power of the state to marginalize and censor Christianity. In fact, if you read classical works on economics like “The Road to Serfdom”, you’ll learn that socialism necessarily leads to the destruction of all other liberties, including religious liberty. That is because the bigger that a secular government becomes, the less they are willing to allow individuals to make their own decisions based on their own personal morality and religion. Obama is one of the worst offenders in this regard – we have never had a more pro-abortion and pro-same-sex marriage President. We have never had a President who was more allied with pro-abortion lobbyists and pro-gay-rights lobbyists. And he is also in favor of paying welfare to women who freely choose to raise children without fathers. This man is anti-life, anti-family and anti-marriage. No Christian could vote for such a man.

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