The BBC website today has an article on the effect of religious issues on people's voting. While I thought the article itself stated the situation pretty fairly, one of the comments by a member of the public below it struck me.
"Religion has no place in politics. If religion (of any kind) influences your vote, you should have your right to vote revoked."
Well then, my right to vote would have to be revoked. But why should this be the case? Other commentors cited examples of far-right American politics and the Middle East as examples of why religion and politics should be kept separate. I can understand that. And indeed the idea of people who vote one way or another just because they're told to, without considering for themselves, is something I intensely dislike. Or voting for a candidate just because he or she professes faith, whether or not that's visible in their policies.
But my beliefs do influence my vote. Don't everybody's? Whether you believe in a God or not, in deciding to vote for candidate A or party B in any election you decide based on your beliefs. That might be something like believing that students shouldn't have to pay for tuition fees, that banning people from B&B's because of their sexuality is wrong, that people shouldn't be detained without trial.
My political beliefs are influenced by my religious beliefs. For example, there's plenty in the bible about caring for the stranger within your country, about helping the poor and families in distress. So when I look at who to vote for I look at which candidate or party best reflects these teachings. There's no one party in mainstream British politics at the moment who I agree with on every issue, but I prayerfully consider which I feel is closest to how I believe God would want people to live and the country to be run.
That means Christians have to engage in politics, reading about and listening to candidates, asking questions, trying to see through the spin and publicity on all sides to what the party really believes, what their values are. One of the saddest things I feel about politics is when parties seem to be willing to say or do anything to anything to get themselves elected, rather than standing for principals on an issue.
Of course not all Christians agree on which party best reflects Christian values, because different Christian traditions see different parts of Christian teaching as more important than others and focus on those. For example, one party might loose support from some Christians for focusing on helping people whatever their marital state or sexual orientation, while other Christians will support it for showing Christ's sacrificial, unconditional love to the community. That's a matter of individual choice.
So yes, my faith does influence the way I vote. But I don't see what's wrong with that, since I would hope that everyone votes on the basis of what they believe in (even if it's just that they believe 'the other lot' are wrong). If you were to say that letting your belief affect your vote disqualifies you from voting, you'd be undermining the whole principal of democracy, surely?
PS I wrote on a similar subject last year, if you're interested.
The commenter wants to live in a dictatorship of people like them. The trouble with democracy is that you end up giving votes to people you don't like. The fatal flaw in keeping religion out of politics, is that religion should get as much say as the proportion of religious voters.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I've learned in years of reading the BBC website is that most of the commenters seem to live in an entirely different reality to me. I actually did want to report the BBC to the press complaints commission for one very poorly moderated Have Your Say that began by wrongly referring to asylum seekers as illegal immigrants, and published comments such as "If there was a new Hitler I would vote for him" and similar. There were also hundreds of people who totally thought Nick Griffin had a point. I almost wonder if commenting on the BBC website should disqualify you for voting (!)...
ReplyDeleteI dunno, both religious people and atheist people (communist dictators, arguably Hitler, etc) have caused lots of pain and misery when in power, but mostly I think we would all do well to remember that they often manage to do this by treating some members of society as sub-human, not worthy of the same rights as the rest of us... So yeah, revoking the voting rights of religious people, atheist people, communists, and even the people who post on Have Your Say, is an awful idea.