The role of religion in the U.S.: voices Call to Action in Milwaukee

Catholic New Times, Dec 5, 2004

I think religion was used in the last election by the Republicans, especially, because it focused in on a group that they wanted to bring over, namely the conservative fundamentalists, they wanted to shore up that group, because this was the group that would vote for them, so they played on religion very strongly, and as the exit polls indicated, that was one of the chief reasons why people voted, because--and they didn't really vote on a total moral package, but on a very select package: gay marriage, abortion and stem cells--And that would be my thought in terms of how religion played out--I think it was used--I think religion was basically used for vote-getting, just as television is used as a media.

--Stewart O'Brien, Rainham, Mass.

There are plenty of people with moral convictions who were voting Democratic. How we care for our poor, whether or not we go to war, and how we care for our prisoners. I am so disappointed in many of the bishops, the way we approached the election, ending up with a lot of Catholics going Republican--to me, totally against the Gospel. I was horrified that they took advantage of a very conservative aspect of the Roman Catholic Church and used it, and I don't think it was true of all Roman Catholics: I don't think it should've been an issue.

--Marie Gwynne, Chicago, III.

Religion is certainly not on the back burner in our country, but to portray that only one party is religious is just not true. But we have people circulating material saying it was a sin to vote for John Kerry. Not almost. It was a sin. What it is, is taking the right-to-life issue out of the context of everything else. But not even the right-to-life--the abortion issue. And the vast majority of the people in this country, I think, are opposed to abortion, but not as an absolute, and I think that's where most politicians would like to be, but that's become so polarized. It becomes one party's killing babies, and one party is right-to-life. It all gets blurred. I think that really affected the election in a major way. It was a deliberate attempt to hide the impact of the war. So it's very distressing: I think the war ought to have been far and away the biggest issue. They used abortion to keep us from looking at the devastation that was done through the war.

--Dave Kirkpatrick, Twaynehart, Calif.

You are not speaking to an American anymore. I have been in Nigeria most of my life. By choice, I am beyond boundaries. In answer to your question, religion was a total diversion from the real toxins which are so zingy that people can't name them or won't under God. Our image of a false God is used to cover up the militarism, the greed--for power, for wealth, for comfort--the things that have taken over this empire, that have built the empire. These walls will hopefully come tumbling down, and it's going to take so much energy, which is so far greater and emerging around the world to say, "No," to this empire ... This has become so blatant in the last year or so, the use of the Internet in many ways has counteracted the terrible misuse of the media, which I saw not only in the West but also in the BBC for a while, the smart people who were able to use it wisely, dedicated enough to look at it and use it and read it and share it.

--Megan Rice, an American-born sister of the Holy Child Jesus

It was a shameful exercise in religious manipulation. It was politics manipulated by the bishops; people were manipulated by the churches, and they were manipulated by the religious right--both the religious right within the Cathotic Church, and the non-Catholic religious right.

--Joe Sullivan, Madison, Wis.

The Newman Center in Madison, at the university, was awful. It was "there's only one way to vote and it can't be abortion." And the bishop in Green Bay came out and told people they absolutely had to vote anti-abortion, that nothing else mattered. At Wisconsin Catholics for Kerry, we talk about being pro-life: we look at how the Republican party cares a whole lot about life before it's born; they don't give a damn about it after. The Democrats worry about it after it's born.

--Marie Sullivan, Madison, Wis.

I am surprised that there's only about 50 per cent of the people who understand what is happening. I wish that (Bush) continues to make as many mistakes--even more--so that it finally opens the eyes of the 50 per cent who don't see yet. I don't know how many years it would take. I think there would be a radical change in the structure of government and the rules of campaigning. Because right now, anyone who has money can become president--anyone, anyone.

--Cletus Xavier, Tucson, Ariz.

By and large, what happened down in Georgia was very conventional Catholicism, conventional in the sense that people came up to me right after the election and said, "Well, I'm glad that moral values won once again." And I said, "Well, it depends on what moral values you're talking about." I was stumped by their overwhelming support for Bush, and I said I was very disappointed in the elections. They said, "Oh? You were?" And I said, "Yes. Now, overwhelmingly, our gay and lesbian sisters and brothers, by this vote against them, supposed Marriage Act, allows us to once again feel self-righteous about the goodness of our Catholicism, while we ignore other people." They said; "Oh, this has nothing to do with gays and lesbians, absolutely nothing to do." I said, "Well, we can say that to ourselves, that one action can ignore another population, but it doesn't mean it is so." And I would say that conventional Catholicism in eastern Georgia was once again allowed to vote itself into its own illusion. So the illusion continues.