Red Room Where the Writers Are

This open letter is my reply to an individual who argues that Christians should vote their “Values” I shall call him “Mr. Citizen”.

In response to this individual’s now second editorial decrying the election of Barack Obama, I find that I must ask the following questions:

First Mr Citizen argues that changing the title of his original article changes the tone and demeanor of the content. His original title was “Embrace Biblical Truth: Christians should vote their values”.  The newspaper changed this to “How could Christians vote for Obama.   I would defer that in reality by using the term “Values” he was merely attempting to hide his contempt to those do not Embrace the Truth. We can determine the tone and demeanor without his interpretation.

Of more important substance is Mr Citizen’s claim that of all issues that are close to God’s heart only the sanctity of life(banning abortion) and the “Institution of Marriage” (opposing same sex marriage) need to be considered with regard to elections.  He further denotes that given that one who votes his “Christian Values” has given his “sacred vote” to a believer, then such person if elected should be granted a measure of grace.  The fallen nature of man precludes holding government accountable; we must expect more realistic solutions to global ills.

Now this all sounds wonderful, given our Christian Heritage and our inherit nature to forgive.  However, it is not the imperfectness of the world that has created the atmosphere of which we are now faced.  I believe the government should protect its people.  I also believe that over the course of the last eight years our country has witnessed an affront to every protection of its citizens, save for those in the highest income brackets. 

The evidence is overwhelming, and yet Mr. Citizen declines to accept these charges since after all it was a believer that was leading us.  These so-called believers helped line the pockets of the wealthiest Americans, while arguing that the poorest need to pay more.

The people that Mr. Citizen would prefer to have elected blindly follow groups like Americans for Tax Reform (ATR).   ATR’s leader Grover Norquist wishes to ‘shrink government into the size of a bathtub so that he could drown it”  Remember Hurricane Katrina well that imperfect believer George W. Bush, led us into that debacle by insisting that a man who previously judged Arabian horses was “doing a heck of a job”  

With regard to the environment, I wish to give you one example of many that I can cite. George W. Bush appointed James Steven Griles as Deputy secretary of the Department of the Interior. This man previously was employed by the mining industry.  Under his watch toxic waste from mountain tops excavations in West Virginia have been dumped into watersheds polluting the drinking water of the people.

Currently the Bush administration is attempting to enact an executive order that would continue this practice after President Bush leaves office. 

I might add that we are in the middle of an economic crisis that is secondary to lax government oversight. Another Bush appointee Christopher Cox has weakened the enforcement division of the Securities and Exchange Commission.  Fines levied by the SEC have decreased by two thirds from 1.5 Billion to 500 million dollars each year.   Investment houses have created high risk products called credit default swaps out of sliced up mortgages and securities with no oversight.   As a result, fabled institutions such as Lehman Brothers have been liquidated and Merril Lynch has been sold to Bank of America.  As housing prices fell and interest rates rose more people had their domiciles foreclosed.   Note all this occurred no thanks to President Bush’s encouragement of an “ownership society.”   While people were attempting to achieve the American Dream even qualified applicants were steered into adjustable rate mortgages. Lenders who could pass off these mortgages to investment houses no longer scrupulously examined borrowers qualifications as they always collected their fee with each house that they closed. Now these toxic instruments have led to the government offering a 700 billion dollar bailout to rescue the credit industry.

Amidst all this turmoil the government that these values voters elected has done very little to preserve the sanctity of marriage, or to decrease abortions.

To those who would argue that not voting our Christian values is reflection how the world sees our country, I offer the legacy of our current economic, and environmental situation, and remember the whole world is watching.       

Michelle