One of the most scathing parts of Paul’s description of the Roman society is that not only did the people do all kinds of evil things but they ALSO APPROVE OF THOSE WHO PRACTICE THEM. It’s one thing to fall, be forgiven, and start afresh with God’s grace. It’s another thing altogether to boast of evil as though it was good, and to approve of those who do evil.
The one letter to the editor that I’ve written in the last 4 or so years pointed out that Mitt Romney forced Catholic hospitals to give abortifacients which they believe to be murder.
In the end I plugged my nose and voted for Romney in the general after voting against him in the primary. It was a very tough decision because there is so much about Romney that was wrong. I did believe that the unjust deaths under Obama would be more than those under Romney, and for the sake of the people whose lives could be preserved with somebody other than Obama in the White House, I plugged my nose. I cannot bring myself to listen to the “pro-lifers” (such as the National Right to Life) who endorsed Romney as pro-life in the primary. They had a different choice they could have made that could have kept BOTH Obama and Romney, the abortion-pushers, out of office, but for the sake of money they chose to support evil when there was a good choice that could have been made.
I understand why some people’s consciences told them not to pull the lever for Romney even if it meant that Obama would be able to kill even more people with his policies. Like I said, it was a very tough choice to make. It probably sounds mushy, but in the end I think what God looks on is the heart - why a person did what they did when either choice would result in innocent deaths. I could argue either side and go back and forth in my own mind over what is better.
Either way, I’m still going to point out the murder of abortion, the robbery of redistribution of wealth, the lawlessness, etc. I have to fight those things, even if I vote for somebody who gets at least some of it wrong. Through all of life, even when we keep a friendship through thick and thin, we’re still fighting the sin and garbage in our friend just as we’re fighting it in ourselves. We don’t tolerate the sin, even when we love and bear with the friend. And the same thing holds true for political alliances. No politician is perfect, and to believe in anybody is to believe in somebody who sometimes gets it wrong. We can still make political choices based on who gets the most important things right, and then work with them to try to bring them around on the other things. I guess it’s sort of like marriage that way too.
Sorry to be so long.
I have come to understand more why people did. But going forward, with all that has happened and all we learned since, I do not see how anyone can.
But as you said, there is a hell of a difference between voting ones conscience and actively pushing for it then and especially pushing for more like it now.
Pushing for evil is evil. I long for the times when such a radical notion wasn’t radical at all.
Just to be clear, I also consider abortion to be murder. What Romney did was worse than just believing that abortion is OK. What he did was to force people to violate their own religious belief - force them to participate in murder. “Coerced abortion”, I called it in my letter to the editor. Romney personally coerced Catholic doctors and nurses into abortion.
Disgusting. I compared it to Hitler forcing German people to bury alive some of the victims from the concentration camps. Evil. Pure evil.
It was a VERY tough choice to vote against Obama through a man who would do such a thing. Maybe it was wrong of me. I don’t know. But I despise what he did, which is the same thing Obama is trying to do to the whole country now. I really hope the Supreme Court gets this right.