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| Our public officials and representatives bear a very broad range of responsibilities. At the national level they include foreign affairs, domestic policies, and economic strategies. Within each of these areas there is a wide array of issues. The decisions that our public officials make have extensive implications for us all on a personal level. Indeed, given the prominence of our nation, our laws and policies have a global impact! So the charge of being a single-issue voter is usually an indictment of being out of balance, unsophisticated, and uninformed about the many other important issues at stake. It is an accusation about being narrow-minded. I have often wondered how to balance my firm conviction on particular issues with all the other momentous issues our nation faces that our elected leaders and representatives must address. Here is a perspective that I have found helpful. “No endorsement of any single issue qualifies a person to hold public office. But there are numerous single issues that disqualify a person from public office” (John Piper). Pick the issue most critical to you – pro-choice or pro-life, gun rights or gun control, immediate withdrawal from Iraq or eventual withdrawal from Iraq. Being on the right side of your issue does not, in itself, qualify a person for the full range of responsibilities of holding public office. Being pro-life (or pro-choice) does not make a person a good president or congressman. Being pro-gun control (or pro-gun rights) does not give a person the ability to govern or rule well. However, one issue could very well disqualify a person from holding public office. This is a matter of law in some cases and it just makes common sense. A convicted felon is prohibited by law from voting or holding public office. But most of us make other disqualifications for various reasons. For example, in the 1990s David Duke, a former Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, ran for the presidential nomination in both the democratic and republican parties. Many of us were outraged and rejected his candidacy outright just based on the one issue of racism. Marriage provides an interesting parallel. There are many desirable traits that one might want in a marriage partner and no single quality is likely to make a person suitable. But there are single qualities that might disqualify a potential mate in a suitor’s eyes. For instance, I would not disqualify a potential mate for her taste in music or food or for the color of her eyes, hair or skin. But I would disqualify her if she was already married or committed to a sexually open marriage. I would do this in spite of the presence of many other fine and admirable character traits. A few may well disagree with me but it would be inappropriate to dismiss me as narrow-minded or call me a single-issue suitor. If polygamy and infidelity transgress a deeply held core value then they are also appropriate disqualifiers. So let’s not be intimidated by being labeled a "single-issue voter” or “narrow-minded.” And rather than closing off conversation with pejorative diatribes against a position let’s encourage the political process by dialoguing about our deeply held core values. If they are worth having then they are worth talking about. And if that is true in the political realm where the next four years of political influence are at stake then it is certainly true in the religious realm where eternity is at stake. Isn’t it ironic that socially, politics and religion are two of the prominent taboo topics of conversation? It’s probably because they represent core values. But isn’t that exactly why we should talk about these things? |
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by Dr. J. Patrick Curtis, Senior Pastor |
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