Let’s get political
Okay. I usually leave the politics up to Pat, but this one flew into my radar and I just had to comment.
Bush has had my vote for a long time now, and I’ve kinda just brushed the other guys off as lesser candidates. But now Dean is just an IDIOT
Democratic front-runner Howard Dean said Wednesday that his decision as governor to sign the bill legalizing civil unions for gays in Vermont was influenced by his Christian views, as he waded deeper into the growing political, religious and cultural debate over homosexuality and the Bible’s view of it. “The overwhelming evidence is that there is very significant, substantial genetic component to it,” Dean said in an interview Wednesday. “From a religious point of view, if God had thought homosexuality is a sin, he would not have created gay people.”
This man is grossly missinformed. There is no overwhelming evidence of a genetic component. If there was, I’m sure I would have been told that and not “There is no solid evidence of a genetic component to homosexuality, but there is reason to suspect there is” by my highly liberal social psych prof at Iowa State University, a liberal, secular, humanist campus.
Also, this is a pretty telling remark.
Dean said he does not often turn to his faith when making policy decisions but cited the civil union bill as a time he did.
Does not often turn to his faith? What kind of faith is that?
It’s the kind of faith that causes you to leave your church in a dispute over a bike-path, the kind of faith of a man who names Job as his favorite New Testament book, the kind of faith that allows a man to say that he will use religion to campaign, but only in Southern states, and the kind of faith where a man will claim to be a strong Christian, but, when asked, describe Jesus Christ as a philosopher, but not the son of God.
So if something exists does that mean it is supposed to be good?
By Dean’s (non) logic, yes. Apparently he forgets about the whole fallen nature of the world. insert another snide remark about his non-faith, self-serving, heretical religious non-beliefs.
By “justifying” homosexuality, Dean justifies his own stupid life. If God thought Howard Dean was a sinner, he would not have created Howard Dean. This way he doesn’t need grace.
Ah, yes, but God created George W. Bush, too, meaning that Bush also must be good, right? Why don’t people in the press ask good questions? It’d certainly make TV more entertaining.
Curious: how has faith affected past presidencies? How is it affecting Bush’s presidency (i’d imagine in your opinion) favorably and negatively? Bush does state that his faith is very important, but, other than his statements that he calls on his faith often, what evidence is there that his faith has affected things one way or the other? The way I see it, there’s two ways to look at a presidential candidate: his political agenda, and his personal “being” (this including his beliefs, appearance, use of language, etc.; anything that defines his character outside the political realm). It looks here like you all are set on bashing Howard Dean because his faith isn’t on his sleeve (or seemingly inconsistent), while George Bush claims his is out there and vital to his being. We could argue the inconsistencies of each’s faith, but that’s rather futile. So…It’s all right if you want to disagree with the way a candidate applies his faith or lack thereof. But you must also take into consideration their other personal attributes, not just their faith, no matter how important that idea might be to you. He’s going to be the President, not your pastor, minister, priest, rabbi, or other religious leader. Take into account the other things, such as, for example (and sorry if this is cliche) the fact that George Bush has killed hundreds of people (number multiplies greatly if you include his status as cmdr-in-chief and thus the Afghanistan/Iraq campaigns) in his tenure as a governmental leader, while I don’t believe Howard Dean has been responsible for the death of a single person, as far as public knowledge goes.
I’m particularly keen to political zealots, from both “wings”, and I like to try to keep both sides rational and somewhat grounded when I see that some may be veering off-course a little bit. After all, we’re all going to be choosing between two candidates, really, that are mostly centrist, but differ enough to warrant distinction as liberal or conservative. Unfortunately third party candidates will likely never receive a fair shake.
And for the record, if you care, I do not support Howard Dean, nor will I vote for him.
Peace.
derek -
faith cannot be separated from the “rest of his qualities”. People have a tendancy in the country to try and compartmentalize their lives. “church belongs on sunday”, “work life”, “home life”… Faith that doesn’t affect every part of your life isn’t faith at all.
My beef with dean is that he his highly mistaken when he says that the “biblical” viewpoint supports civil unions. The problem with this isn’t so much that he is wrong, as that he is attempting to sound like a man of faith (which he isn’t) when he’s campaigning to people of faith. We have a word for this, POSER.