Conclusions from the 10/26/2022 posting…
Those who knowingly, willingly, and directly support public policies or legislation that promote actions that are always opposed to the authentic good of human beings or that undermine the sanctity and dignity of human life, cooperate with evil.
The conscientious voter must never abandon the moral requirement to seek full protection for all human life from the moment of conception until natural death.
A conscientious voter chooses a candidate who accepts the grave responsibility to support laws shaped by human values, and opposes laws and policies that violate life and dignity at any stage from conception to natural death.
The conscientious citizen cannot vote for a candidate who favors a policy promoting an intrinsically evil act, if the voter’s intent is to support that position.
The conscientious voter should not use a candidate’s opposition to an intrinsic evil to justify his/her indifference or inattentiveness to other important moral issues involving human life and dignity.
A conscientious citizen should not vote for a political program or an individual law which contradicts the fundamental understanding of human dignity. The voter should not isolate some particular element of an apparent good to the detriment of the good of society. A voter’s commitment to a single isolated aspect of the common good does not exhaust his/her responsibility toward securing the common good.
There may be times when the conscientious voter, who rejects a candidate’s unacceptable position even on policies promoting an intrinsically evil act, may reasonably decide to vote for that candidate for other morally grave reasons. Voting in this way would be permissible only for truly grave moral reasons, not to advance narrow interests or partisan preferences or to ignore a fundamental moral evil.
When all candidates hold a position that promotes an intrinsically evil act, the conscientious voter faces a dilemma. The voter may decide to take the extraordinary step of not voting for any candidate or, after careful deliberation, may decide to vote for the candidate deemed less likely to advance such a morally flawed position and more likely pursue other authentic human goods.
All else being equal, a conscientious voter should also take into account a candidate’s commitments, character, integrity, and ability to influence a given issue.
The conscientious voter should realize that all issues in a society do not carry the same depth of the good and that the obligation to oppose intrinsically evil acts has a special claim on the voter’s conscience, choices and action.
The political choices faced by voters not only have an impact on the general peace and prosperity of society in genera; but also seriously impact the lives of the individuals of that society.
The conscientious voter strives to see beyond party politics, to analyze campaign rhetoric critically, and to choose a political leader according to principle, not party affiliation or mere self-interest.