Voter Guides for People of Faith

by James Parks, Oct 19, 2006

To hear the Republican Party tell it, their members are the only ones who have religious values and the only ones whose values matter in the political arena. They have used that political voice to promote the Bush administration’s narrow anti-worker agenda.

Now, the millions of working people of all faiths—both Democrats and Republicans—who worship regularly and hold balanced, moderate values are making their voices heard. Building on the long tradition of shared goals between religion and labor, the AFL-CIO union movement teamed up with progressive religious leaders to bring balance to the values debate within faith communities through a series of voting guides for members of many different religious congregations.

Voting for the Common Good, A Practical Guide for Conscientious Catholics was produced by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good. Other guides, similar to the Catholic guide, are anticipated. (To download a copy or to order more copies, visit http://thecatholicalliance.org/new/voting-guide/guide.html or call Eileen Grobecker at the AFL-CIO at 202-637-5375.

AFT Secretary-Treasurer Nat LaCour says these guides:

allow trade union members to know that their faith does not oppose their involvement in politics and they say you don’t have to believe that the only way to be faithful is to support the issues of the far right.

The New York Times on Monday singled out Voting for the Common Good, among others, as:

…not the familiar guides that line up candidates by their views or votes on a list of selected issues and that, in some cases, give them ratings, a practice that has migrated from lobbies like those on gun control, tax cuts and environmental regulation to religious groups like the Christian Coalition.

No, the new voters’ guides try to be mini-manuals of moral theology and church-state relations, offering voters a religious framework for making their choices, not endorsements of candidates or parties.

Increasingly, unions are building long-term relationships with the religious community that have led to religious leaders playing major roles in workers’ struggles. So it’s no surprise the religious community is playing a key role in promoting progressive values in this election, says Rabbi Robert Marx, rabbi emeritus of Congregation Hakafa near Chicago:

The rights of workers was established in the very act of creation. You shall work six days and rest on the seventh. You can’t save individual people without being concerned with justice. When you see gaps growing between the rich and the poor, that is not what religion is about.

The Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good guide begins with the words from the late Pope John Paul II urging men and women in public life “to serve the common good” and “take special care of the weakest sectors of society.” The 12-page guide explores how the church’s social teachings call on Catholics to consider a wide range of issues before casting a vote. As the guide states:

There is no Catholic voting formula, and there is rarely, if ever, a perfect candidate for Catholic voters.

The guide does not take a stand on any issue or endorse any candidate. It examines key themes of Catholic social teaching, such as the dignity of work and workers’ rights and the care of God’s creation. Instead it asks Catholics to take seriously and prayerfully their votes in order to be faithful citizens. It urges readers to apply three principles when voting:

• Inform your conscience on church teaching and the candidates’ positions.
• Apply prudence when deciding how to apply Catholic values to voting.
• Vote for the common good by focusing on what’s best for everyone, especially the vulnerable and the poor.

Civil rights leaders such as the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Joseph Lowery, president emeritus of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, continue to walk picket lines with striking workers just as union members marched with them in civil and human rights demonstrations. The late Monsignor George Higgins, often called “labor’s priest,” marched with and supported working men and women’s right to form a union and was involved in many of unions’ major campaigns for more than 50 years.

The Rev. Jim Lewis has fought for years for justice for poultry workers in Delaware and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. And Interfaith Worker Justice continues to fight for the rights of the most vulnerable workers and coordinate the Labor in the Pulpits program.

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