Thoughts on the "Values Voters" Concept

Last weekend, an all-star team of right-wing bigots gathered in Washington DC at the "Value Voters Summit" to swap stories and plan strategy on how to gain more political power, or at least avoid losing more than they have the last couple of years. It was ironic that this event was held concurrently to the incredible worship and celebration weekend we had at my church with GLBT ministers from around the nation and Canada.

Anyway, I saw a couple of essays about the whole "Values Voter" concept that I thought were worth sharing. The first one is from the Chicago Tribune:

The right's hold on "values" is now so strong that most news coverage I saw and heard about last weekend's second annual "Values Voter Summit" of Christian conservatives didn't even bother to nestle the word dubiously inside real or implied quotation marks. Fewer than 1 in 10 recent accounts of the summit I found in a national news database bothered to put "so-called" in front of the first reference to "values voters."

It's galling. I mean, sure, the activists who assembled in Washington vote in accordance to their values. So do I. So do you, reader, no matter where you fall on the political spectrum.

Anyone who casts a ballot is a "values voter." And to allow one group to squat on that title is to concede without a fight that their values are, if not superior to others' values, then at least stronger and more important to them than the flimsy ethical whims of their ideological foes.

There is clearly an air of superiority and arrogance when folks like James Dobson, Tony Perkins, and Gary Bauer get together to chew the fat. Love and compassion for people not cut out of the same mold as them, however, is scarcer than a liberal gay person.

I also ran across this piece from the Roanoke Times:

As Bishop T.D. Jakes has observed, good political leaders don't have to be Christians, and good Christians don't always make good leaders. But if someone campaigns under "Christian values," I'm looking for kindness, respect (even for the opponent) and faith -- not fear.

Maybe these values are difficult to maintain in the heat of politics today. Chuck Colson, on a recent "Focus on the Family" radio broadcast, noted that values voters "have lost respect for the people in politics -- and rightly so."

But that disrespect can begin long before an election, when glossy campaign ads hit our mailboxes attacking the opponent as a contemptible villain and featuring the most demeaning photo obtainable -- usually from video footage and blurred, like a bank-robber caught on somebody's security camera.

But there are hidden costs in yoking this kind of derision to the term "Christian values."

First, it denigrates not just the opponent, but the voter, who is assumed to be unintelligent, ignorant of the actual Christian message and as mean-spirited as the ad's creators. Hence, I've heard many people, disgusted by a season's attack ads, declare they would not vote. Others, like me, are pleased to go vote for the candidate who ran a respectful campaign.

As for "Christian," the cost of hinging that word to derisive personal attacks doesn't enhance Christian values, but in fact devalues the Christian message.

If Jesus was running a political campaign, He wouldn't be tearing anyone down. He wouldn't be lecturing on restricting people's rights. He wants people's live to have more, be fuller, not to limit them or take things away. He came to Earth to give people hope.

How many politicians, especially ones wearing the "Christian Values" mantle, do that for you these days?