Well. Polling day came, polling day went and somewhere in between I betrayed Christ's Church and damned my soul. Join me in praying for Caroline Lucas, new MP for Brighton Pavillion. St Francis of Assisi said...
"Many who may seem to us to be children of the Devil will still become Christ's disciples."
As someone who voted for the new MP, I can at least say that she is accountable to me for her future parliamentary record. All that I have to do now is convince her that she is accountable, more importantly, to Almighty God.
In my defense, well, I have no defense. I just shouldn't have voted at all. I didn't want to spoil my ballot paper. I didn't want to think that all is lost and I didn't want to believe that a Catholic cannot vote.
I looked down the list of candidates and saw that there was none who would stand up for the defense of the unborn. Neither would any of them object, in principle, to gay marriage, nor any of the issues which touch the Church. When it came to the crunch, they would all, as I did in the polling booth, crumble and go against their conscience.
I wanted to believe in someone. I wanted to believe that Caroline Lucas will defend the poor and stand up for those who do not have a voice. In my arrogance, I wanted to believe that I, and others, can change her mind. What a fool I am...I deserve only your scorn and condemnation. In future I'll blog instead of vote.
11 comments:
Wee bit melodramatic, Loz. At least you've got a line of communicationn with your representative and can influence her.
Sef indulgent tripe!
Are you a Catholic?
Given that you've established that from a Catholic point of view there is nothing that helps in your choice, you then have to fall back on the secular issues of how they will best serve the civil needs as you perceive them. So, whilst I might have come to a different position, yours is just as valid, and far better than a spoilt vote. At least you can exercise influence now. Well done.
If they're all rubbish, all you can do is see what good can be achieved. The woman's shown herself ready to turn up and meet people and listen, she sounds like she might be one of those leftie types who are in fact interested in local issues, and she may do a lot of good. Don't write her off just because she hasn't "got" the life thing.
Now cheer up, silly!
Don't be too hard on yourself Laurence! Ronan is right when he says that having voted for her you can now approach her more easily on things that matter.
I have just learnt from one of my sons that she is in fact anti-war and supports the Palestinians in their struggles. So she does have good points.
"For the poor you have always with you..." (Mark 14:7)
Caroline isn't going to defend the poor. She was having you on. The only defending she would do is: gay rights. How could you be so naive to vote for her?
It would be morally wrong to not vote. You had to "hold you nose" and vote for the best of the lot. If that's what you did, no remorse, brother. These are sad times.
Hester, agreed.
After your long discussion on "personhood" you might like this article:
"Frankly, as I forced my way through Canadian bioethicist Mark Mercer's attempts to justify abortion and a woman's "right to choose" (a philosopher from "St. Mary's", no less), I felt rather uncomfortable for him (Mark Mercer, "A Fetus is not a Person", The Ottawa Citizen, May 3, 2010). It's interesting how such bioethics "theories" seem to keep popping up, regardless of their fatal faults. Having written my 400-page doctoral dissertation precisely on this issue starting way back in the early 1980's,1 Mercer's desperate efforts were like déjà vu."
chocked full of references
to academic works as well
http://www.lifeissues.net/writers/irv/irv_174mercerplea.html --
Thank you very much Ludolphus, I have just finished reading it. There are a number of bad arguments advanced to defend abortion and the 'right to choose' (a term I avoid like the plague), but I think the core of this debate comes about half way down the page where the author says, if it were legitimate to kill foetuses, it is legitimate to kill : "the comatose, the mentally retarded, the mentally ill and depressed, drug addicts, alcoholics, a lot of teenagers, etc. - even Mercer, or the Readers when they are sleeping!"
Interestingly, Laurence raised the idea that I could kill my husband in his sleep if my definition were correct. Key word search it if you want to see my response. All I can say is, this paper may contain a lot of academic references, but it also contains a lot of bad arguments. As such, I feel my defence of the moral permissibility of abortion stands unchallenged, at least by this document and the responses of posters. Thanks none the less
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