This post is not about "religion." Let's get that straight right out of the box. "Religion" means many different things to each and every person who would profess to be religious to any lesser or greater degree. For me personally I am at base and without hesitation a "Christian." Where I chose to attend in order to worship, to express and to strengthen my religion is at a local Baptist church. Being "a Baptist" to me speaks only of the denomination that best reflects my personal beliefs about and the faith in what I know to be the existence of a supreme being that I recognize as God. I was baptised in the Presbyterian church and married (twice) in the Methodist church. Both of these Christian denominations have much to recommend each, but neither is prefect, as is equally true of the Baptist brand of practiced Christianity. I hold to the personal admonition that "being a Baptist" does not define me any more than does the type of automobile I chose to drive. Rather it is I who through intellectual contemplations define my denomination. I am comfortable with and confident in my choice of "religion" and currently chosen denomination, just as I am comfortable in who I am in the absence of religion as a divining rod of my overall character. That having been established, I offer below a link to a YouTube film that was produced and is distrubted by the Catholic Church. I applaud these fellow travelers along life's mutual pathways for their unwavering adherence to the protection and scantity of human life from conception to the grave, believing that above all the other myriad of problems and issues that face our country at this difficult and confusing period in our nation's history that it is the moral fabric of our society that must not be allowed to be compromised on the alter of secular expediency. It is so easy to enter the voting booth and cast one's personal ballot based on the status of one's pocketbook or as a result of one's sense of personal frustration with the current tenor of our country's direction. It is quite another to cast a vary eye towards each and every candidate and ask yourself "Is this person the type of human being that truly believes that the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness must encompass at base the protection of God's gift of the unborn child and the family as a necessary and vital unit of moral cohesiveness if this country is to long survive and overcome its pusuit of personal wealth and sense of entitlement at any cost." Truly we are our brother's keepers or else we will find that we have become strangers to one another and this great house that from its conception has been the shinning light of hope to all mankind will surely divide beyond the point of redemption.
I ask each person who steps with conviction into a voting booth on November 4th to look to your own conscience and measure who you wish to be, who you know yourself to be, and measure that evaluation against the individuals for which you shall cast your vote. Your reflection may well shape the future of our country for good or ill. Know first and foremost in which direction your moral compass points.
(If above link fails to open, type in Catholic Vote 2008)
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