Confessions of a "Moral Values" Voter

Fellow Pennsylvanian Eric Miller on why he voted for Bush:

The next day the mood was low at the college where I teach, at least among the faculty; many were Kerry supporters, and, more to the point, Bush despisers. As we soaked in the day together, it hit me hard that I, like them, would have preferred (if often not by much) to see a Kerry administration taking the lead on many pivotal issues: race relations, the economy, environmental policy, the deficit, the war, health care, Iraq. […]

But I could not vote for your side, not this time. […]

I believe that all of life finds its source in the divine, and is sustained by the grace of a God who finds pleasure in our guarding and nurturing of this world, his world. He has filled the Earth with gifts beyond our capacity to imagine, gifts that merit our joyous, careful gratitude. Among these gifts are our very lives, and with them our individual and collective ability to respond freely to him and his world. We, his creatures, are free to make choices. But not all of our choices are equal; neither, within the structures of reality, may all choices be sanctioned, let alone celebrated.

Herein lies the heart of my quarrel with the Democratic Party. In the vast arena symbolized by the single word “abortion,” your party is not only permitting a category of choice that humans must not sanction, it is intent on enlarging that sphere to permit a kind of experimentation that will only further diminish our experience of being human. To be complicit in such conduct is not just to despise the gifts of the creator. It is to despise him.

(via the Japery)

Miller had a very good essay called “Alone in the Academy” in First Things a few months ago as well.