In the midst of the political back and forth, a lot of pithy words have been spoken, and a lot of feelings have been hurt. I cannot adequately sum up my feelings in a short post on Facebook, so I felt a lengthier, more descriptive blog post to be appropriate.
The first and foremost thing I would like you to know is that I support our President. While President Obama and I do not see eye to eye on a lot of things, he is my President and I will continue to afford him the respect due to the office until such time as he is voted out or termed out of office. While I am a conservative, I do NOT stand with other self professed conservatives in demanding that President Obama present his birth certificate (again), or somehow prove his Christian faith. As far as I am concerned, both matters are settled.
And in exploring the lesser of two evils, I gave serious, hard thought to voting Obama. But I have decided I cannot, in part because of my beliefs on the sanctity of life and opposition to any unnecessary warfare, but in large part for the reasons that follow:
I believe that I do not stand alone in being a conservative who respects diversity both of race and culture, and who believes that we CAN allow for free enterprise to thrive while still not neglecting the world of suffering and poverty outside our window. A conservative who values life while recognizing the strongest weapon against abortion is not legislation, but opportunity, and who is THANKFUL for Roe vs. Wade for bringing the ugly reality of abortion out of the back alleys and the black market clinics and onto the boardwalk where we must confront it, not with hate, but with hope.
A vote for Obama in a world that deals in generalizations is a world where my vote will be labelled as a Democrat vote rather than a disenfranchised conservative vote. While there are admittedly unintended consequences of an independent vote, I have weighed them and accept them, for the longterm strategy of making the statement that I am conservative, but am not represented within the hallowed halls of the GOP.
We cannot function as a single party system in either direction. The Democratic Party needs at least one other viable party to provide a balanced perspective and not allow it to be steered by extremist elements that are just as disconcerting as the extremists on the right.
For better or worse, at this moment, that other viable party, that foil is the GOP. Whether another party rises and takes its place or whether the GOP reforms to better represent the entirety of the American people remains to be seen, but one thing is sure: there will need to be people ready to lend their voices to the debate that don't have the racial hatred and religious segregationist mindset of so many of the Tea Party right, and who can see that it is in the best interest of our nation to move forward together rather than apart.
It is my hope that at some point I can be one of those voices, for whatever small contributions I will offer.
And so in November my vote will be counted for Gary Johnson, not because I believe in everything Gary Johnson stands for but because I hope that if enough conservatives band together to say "we are the conservative, and the GOP does NOT represent us", our voices will be heard.
This is not a position I have taken it lightly, and it is one I will not surrender lightly. I pray for the direction of the nation, and I hope you understand that my vote this November is not a vote against you or your core values, but a vote for a return to cooperation and understanding.
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